Let’s start with the appellant’s opening brief, which the court criticized for at least two deficiencies. The first was the appellant’s failure to present his arguments correctly:

[S]ome of plaintiff‟s arguments are not confined to the point raised in the heading, also a violation of court rules. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(B).) And many of the same arguments are repeated throughout the brief under various headings. Although we address the issues raised in the headings, we do not consider all of the loose and disparate arguments that are not clearly set out in a heading and supported by reasoned legal argument.

Got that? Even if you actually make an argument, merely presenting it incorrectly can result in it being ignored by the court. I suspect this is rarely prejudicial to the appellant, however. An argument that doesn’t merit its own heading from the writer probably isn’t a good argument in any event. But if the court refuses even to consider it, you’ll never know.

Appellant’s other sin was even more basic:

Defendants argue the opening brief should be stricken, justifiably taking exception to plaintiff‟s failure to provide record references in violation of California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(C). . . . In addition, we will generally consider only those facts and arguments supported by adequate citations to the record.

Put yourself in the Justice’s shoes (or at least the shoes of their research attorneys) for a moment. In front of you is a brief referring to evidence and proceedings in the record without telling you where any of it actually is in that record, which may be hundreds (or conceivably thousands) of pages long. Are you going to try to hunt those pages down?

The court declined to strike the appellant’s opening brief, as respondents requested, demonstrating some of the patience the Court of Appeal is generally known for, but should not be taken advantage of: “Although we decline to strike the brief, this should not be interpreted as approval of plaintiff‟s violation of the appellate rules.”

So, let’s get to the problems with the Reply Brief.

Appellant’s first mistake was filing a reply brief in excess of the word limit, apparently without a motion for permission to do so. The court rejected the brief, and in its order directing the appellant to file a compliant reply brief, cited the second problem with it: “we reminded [appellant] he could not raise new issues or ‘rewrite his opening brief.’ ” Despite this warning, the appellant’s revised reply brief did it anyway:

In addition, we will not address arguments raised for the first time in the reply brief (Reichardt v. Hoffman (1997) 52 Cal.App.4th 754, 764-766) or documents in [appellant's] “Reply Appendix” filed with his reply brief because defendants lacked the opportunity to respond.

Appellant also tried with his reply brief to correct his failure to cite to the record in his opening brief:

In the reply brief, plaintiff supplies some record references although they are still incomplete, but this is too little, too late because defendants did not have the opportunity to respond.

You’d think from the name that the function of a reply brief — or at least its limited scope — would be obvious. The first definition that comes up for the word reply on dictionary.com is: “to make answer in words or writing; answer; respond[.]” (My emphasis.) As the opinion in Provost demonstrates, judicial treatment of reply briefs enforces this common sense notion, and will not allow an appellant to make arguments against which the respondent has no opportunity to defend.

The appellant in Provost lost sight of the proper purpose of a reply brief. Instead of responding to the arguments raised in respondent’s brief, the appellant apparently tried to correct defects in his opening brief. I can see how that might be tempting if you’re unfamiliar with the rules (or familiar with them, but desperate), but compounding initial briefing errors with more briefing errors didn’t get this appellant very far.

In response to the question submitted by the Ninth Circuit, we conclude, for the reasons discussed above, that when the public officials who ordinarily defend a challenged state law or appeal a judgment invalidating the law decline to do so, under article II, section 8 of the California Constitution and the relevant provisions of the Elections Code, the official proponents of a voter-approved initiative measure are authorized to assert the state‘s interest in the initiative‘s validity, enabling the proponents to defend the constitutionality of the initiative and to appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative.

As a result of the decision, Prop 8 proponents will be able to proceed with their appeal in the Ninth Circuit, where the proponents’ appeal has been hanging by a thread since the Ninth Circuit certified its question to the California Supreme Court last January, acknowledging that the appeal would have to be dismissed if the Prop 8 proponents lacked standing to defend the law.

Related post at Ninth Circuit Blog of Appeals.

Well, not quite. Such cases can be well worth finding because, in the absence of published cases, they can still be quite helpful in formulating argument and working logically through the issues. It is such influence in the absence of publication that leads presiding justice Kline, dissenting in People v. Moret, case no. A123591 (1st Dist. Dec. 28, 2009. modified on denial of rehearing Jan. 22, 2010), to cite the existence of an “underground body of law” as his principle justification for publication of Moret:

[Health and Safety Code section 11362.795] has, however, been interpreted and applied in a significant number of unpublished and therefore noncitable opinions. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.1115.) Because published opinions construing the statute do not exist, and the unpublished opinions that do are easily obtained by interested lawyers and judges, the unpublished opinions may influence the strategy of counsel and the decisions of trial and perhaps even appellate courts. The existence for a long period of time of an underground body of law on the meaning of [Health and Safety Code] section 11362.795 (to which some members of this panel have admittedly contributed) is injudicious.

The cited code section concerns use of medical marijuana. I can’t be the only one who finds it a little ironic that the body of case law on it would be underground.

Le is a great study in why it is important to think carefully about the appropriate standard of review. Respondents, who had prevailed against a cross-complaint against them, probably thought they had this case in the bag, but because the standard of review was not what they thought it was, judgment on the cross-complaint was reversed.

The Les, a married couple, together owned 50% of the stock in a pharmacy corporation; Pham owned the other 50%. The bylaws obligated the Les to give notice of any proposed sale of their shares to a third party and gave Pham a right of first refusal, but failed to specify a time in which to exercise it. The bylaws also dictated that any sale below the price in the notice was void.

The Les sold their shares to third parties, the Hoangs. Pham, contending the sale was in violation of her right of first refusal and was void because the sale price was below that provided in the Les’ notice, refused to recognize Paul Hoang as a shareholder and would not grant him access to the corporate records or seat him as a director. Paul Hoang did not file a change of ownership form with the California Board of Pharmacy. As a result, the board closed the pharmacy for approximately three month starting in March 2007 and kept it on probation through the end of that year.

The Les and Hoangs sued Pham, contending the sale was valid and Pham’s refusal to give them access to the corporate records was wrongful, that Pham had failed to file proper forms with the state, and that she had converted corporate funds to her own use. Pham cross-claimed, alleging breach of fiduciary duty against the Les and fraud against Paul Haong (based on holding himself out as a shareholder). The complaint and cross-complaint were both alleged derivatively on behalf of the corporation as well.

The case was tried to the court, and the court of appeal summarized the result thus:

After a bench trial, Pham prevailed on the Les’ and Hoangs’ complaint, while the Les and Hoangs prevailed on Pham’s cross-complaint. That is, the court, in its statement of decision, ruled that the Les‟ attempted transfer of shares to the Hoangs was null and void because it did not comply with the corporate bylaws. It was obvious, after all, that the Les had attempted to sell the shares to the Hoangs for a better price ($24,000 as distinct from $70,000) and on better terms (installments rather than cash) than had been offered Pham in the notice of intent to sell.

As to Pham’s (and the corporation’s) cross-complaint against the Les for breach of fiduciary duty, the statement of decision concluded that they had “failed to carry their burden of proof.” The trial judge wrote: “Generally speaking, at trial, little evidence was adduced in support of the cross-complaint.” She also wrote, however, that Pham “did not have an adequate opportunity to exercise her right of first refusal” given that Dieu-Hoa Le had “unilaterally demanded that the written offer be made within 10 days.”

Read that carefully. That those facts are undisputed is important.

It’s tough to summarize the point regarding the standard of review any more concisely than the court has already done, so I’ll simply provide the following (and quite long) excerpt. As you read it, I think the lesson will become clear: don’t jump to conclusions on the standard of review.

The obvious starting point is that, since Pham and the corporation are challenging a judgment after a court trial, they initially face the formidable substantial evidence standard of review.

The substantial evidence standard has two components, and both work generally against appellants: First, all conflicts in the evidence must be resolved in favor of the prevailing party; second, all reasonable inferences from the evidence (all conflicts already having been properly resolved) must be drawn in favor of the prevailing party. (See Eisenberg, et al., Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Appeals and Writs (The Rutter Group (2009) ¶¶ 8:38, 8:60, pp. 8-18, 8-8-26.)

We should note, then, that Pham and the corporation are necessarily in the position of saying that the evidence, despite all the resolution of conflicts and having all reasonable inferences drawn against them, nevertheless compels a judgment in their favor, on the two issues they have raised in this appeal: The Les’ fiduciary duty and Paul Hoang’s alleged fraud. Not surprisingly, the brief filed on behalf of the Les and Hoang lavishes attention on the substantial evidence rule. The Les and Hoang are most certainly correct that if we find any substantial evidence obviating either (a) any fraud on Hoang’s part or (b) the existence of a fiduciary duty, or the subsequent breach of a fiduciary duty if there is one, we must affirm the judgment.

However, if one digs a little deeper — for example, by continuing to read the remainder of the respondent’s brief — it turns out that the substantial evidence rule is actually irrelevant in the context of the issue of whether the Les’ owed a fiduciary duty as shareholders to Pham, and whether any such duty was breached. There is no conflict as to the facts of ownership of the corporation: 50-50. There is no conflict in the evidence regarding the sale (or, better, attempted sale) of the Les’ half of the corporation to the Hoangs. And there is no conflict in the evidence as regards the consequences of that attempted sale, namely a cease and desist order from the California State Board of Pharmacy closing the business for about three months beginning in March 2007.

Thus, the Les’ actual argument on the fiduciary duty issue presented in their brief turns out not to be a factual one at all (e.g., the Les don’t say: “there was evidence that we didn’t really own any shares at all, or that we offered our shares to Pham at the same price and terms as we offered to the Hoangs”), but a legal one: The Les assert that by virtue of the undisputed fact that they were 50-percent shareholders in the corporation — that is, were not majority stockholders — they had no fiduciary duties to the corporation or to the other 50-percent shareholder. Of course, when the facts are undisputed and the question on appeal is wholly a legal issue, the proper standard of review is independent review. (E.g., People v. Superior Court (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1, 7 (Decker) [because dismissal of attempted murder charges “was based on undisputed facts,” it constituted “a legal conclusion subject to independent review on appeal”].)The trial court‟s comments in its statement of decision, then, that (1) “at trial, little evidence was adduced in support of the cross-complaint” and (2) Pham and the corporation had “failed to carry their burden of proof,” while understandable, miss the mark in analyzing the problem of whether the Les had a fiduciary duty toward Pham as regards the bylaws‟ right-of-first-refusal provision.

The comments were quite understandable if one thinks about how the trial judge experienced the unfolding of the trial. Precisely because the relevant facts involving the attempted sale were undisputed, most of them were presented in the context of the plaintiffs’ (the Les and Hoang) case in chief seeking to validate the sale from the Les to Hoang. The trial was ninety percent over, in terms of counting pages in the reporter’s transcript, when the Les and Hoang rested their case. That case in chief included, for example, calling Pham herself as an hostile witness, and the only witness that Pham and the corporation called after the plaintiffs had rested was the state Board of Pharmacy inspector, who explained why the corporation had had to close down for about three months in 2007. So we can understand that it might not have seemed like Pham and the corporation were producing much evidence on their cross-complaint at trial. Most of the relevant (and undisputed) facts bearing on the legal question of whether the Les had a fiduciary duty and, if so, violated it, had been brought out in the plaintiffs’ case in chief. But just because the undisputed evidence favoring the cross-complaint also happened to come out on the plaintiffs’ case in chief does not mean it was not available to support the cross-complaint.

I don’t find anything surprising about the court’s analysis. But I’m not so ready to call the trial judge’s comments “understandable if one thinks about  the way the trial judge experienced the unfolding of the trial.” Were there no closing arguments or briefs? What about input from the parties regarding the statement of decision? (See Code of Civil Procedure section 632.)

The uncontradicted nature of the evidence seems pretty clear to me. Then again, hindsight is 20/20, isn’t it?

One is more likely to see it in a criminal appeal than in a civil appeal, especially when the criminal appeal involves errors in sentencing, as in People v. Frausto, case no. B212054 (2d Dist. Dec. 28, 2009), where the attorney general agreed that the trial court erred in imposing three cumulative 5-year sentencing enhancements under Penal Code section 667, subdivision (a)(1) for each of three prior serious felony convictions tried in a single proceeding and that the defendant had been awarded only 464 of the 466 days of presentence custody credits to which he was entitled. (Not that it did the defendant much good. The 2 extra days of presentence custody credits — 2 days — were applied against  a sentence of 214 years to life. Since the three 5-year enhancements were added consecutively to that sentence, the 10-year reduction in enhancements was likewise not much comfort to the defendant.)

The first (and, so far, only) time I got a brief from the attorney general agreeing with my position, I was stunned. I noticed it when I skimmed through the headings of the respondent’s brief, and thought to myself, “Must be a typo. They left out the word ‘not.’” Even when I read the argument under the heading, I had to read it three times just to make sure that I was reading it correctly!

In Mohawk, the district court ordered Mohawk to turn over documents Mohawk asserted were protected by the attorney-client privilege. The collateral-order doctrine allows for immediate appeals if: (1) the particular ruling conclusively determines the disputed question; (2) resolves an important issue separate from the merits of the action; and (3) is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment. Some circuits allow for immediate appeals under the collateral-order doctrine to review whether an order violates the attorney-client privilege. The Supreme Court held in Mohawk that orders requiring disclosure of arguably privileged material will have to wait for a final judgment because they are reviewable after judgment, however imperfectly. Justice Sotomayor noted that parties in such situations can defy disclosure orders and suffer sanctions, which will then be reviewable, or subject themselves to contempt of court, thereby also obtaining review.

Westfall urges the Colorado state courts not to adopt the rule, to which I say . . . be glad you don’t practice in California, Steve! In California state courts, discovery rulings are generally not appealable, even where the disclosure of privileged information would result. In such a situation, the party seeking review must do so by petitioning for a discretionary writ, and hope that the issue presented and the gravity of the disclosure are enough for the court of appeal to exercise its discretion to hear the petition on the merits.

Mohawk Industries resolves a circuit split in which the Ninth Circuit was in the minority camp that allowed appeal from such rulings. (In re Napster, Inc. Litigation (9th Cir. 2007) 479 F.3d 1978.) I’ll have more on the federal angle in an update.

Dear Court Reporters,

Having finished reading another all-capitalized reporter’s transcript it’s time to again implore you to remember that the proper use of capitalization is not simply a matter of style, but it is more a convention designed to assist the reader and prevent headaches. Capitalization helps the reader find the beginning of the sentence. Lower case letters are easier to discriminate from each other.

Style and ease of reading aside, you’d think the ALL CAPS convention might have been abandoned after it was adopted in the early internet days for use in plain text emails and online bulletin boards and chat rooms as a way of SHOUTING IN WRITING ONLINE. Once people got rich text format email ability (allowing for underlined, bold, and italicized type), the ALL CAPS SHOUTING ONLINE convention may have abated somewhat, but I’m still reminded of it whenever I read an ALL CAPS trial transcript.

I say we leave the ALL CAPS convention for deposition transcripts, where most of the shouting really happens!

Today we consider the familiar “abuse of discretion” standard and how it limits our power as an appellate court to substitute our view of the facts, and the application of those facts to law, for that of the district court.

***

[W]e conclude that our “abuse of discretion” standard is in need of clarification. The standard, as it is currently described, grants a court of appeals power to reverse a district court’s determination of facts tried before it, and the application of those facts to law, if the court of appeals forms a “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” At the same time, the standard denies a court of appeals the power to reverse such a determination if the district court’s finding is “permissible.”

Because it has previously been left to us to decide, without further objective guidance, whether we have a “definite and firm conviction that mistake has been committed,” or whether a district court’s finding is “permissible,” there has been no effective limit on our power to substitute our judgment for that of the district court.

Today, after review of our cases and relevant Supreme Court precedent, we re-state the “abuse of discretion” standard of review of a trial court’s factual findings as an objective two-part test. As discussed below, our newly stated “abuse of discretion” test requires us first to consider whether the district court identified the correct legal standard for decision of the issue before it. Second, the test then requires us to determine whether the district court’s findings of fact, and its application of those findings of fact to the correct legal standard, were illogical, implausible, or without support in inferences that may be drawn from facts in the record.

I’ll be straight with you here: I haven’t read the combined 107 pages of opinions. You can get more details about the case from Ninth Circuit Blog.

I’ll probably have more to say about this case after I’ve read it in detail, but for now . . . well, as I’ve noted before, detailed formulations of the abuse of discretion standard tend to incorporate multiple standards of review, each of which is applied to a discrete step in a multiple-step analysis as to whether the trial court abused its discretion. The Hinkson formulation certainly seems to continue that tradition. It is a welcome development, but I’m not sure that the second step supplies the objectivity the court claims it does.

Substantively, the post is remarkably thorough and fun to read. (Herrman’s obsession isn’t the only humorous point.) It concludes with interesting detail on the most recent Supreme Court decision and a discussion of practical consequences.

(For Ninth Circuit practitioners, it may be interesting to note that the trigger for Herrmann’s and Beck’s post was last month’s Supreme Court decision in Carlsbad Technology, Inc. v. HIF Bio, Inc., 556 U.S. __ (2009). Carlsbad came from the Federal Circuit, which had split from several others, including the Ninth, to hold that 28 USC § 1447(d) precludes appellate review of a remand order based on the district court’s discretionary decision under 28 USC § 1367(c) not to assert supplemental jurisdiction over state claims. The Supreme Court’s reversal vindicates the Ninth Circuit’s wisdom (not to mention adherence to stare decisis) when it declined the invitation to reconsider its position in last year’s California Dept. of Water v. Powerex ___ F.3d ___ (9th Cir. 2008). [I'll update that cite for you later when I have access to the reporters.] By the time of the California Dept. of Water case, the rule was well-established in the Ninth Circuit that review was available by petition for writ of mandate. However, the Ninth was forced by intervening Supreme Court authority to find that review is available by appeal. My coverage of Powerex is here.)

The California Supreme Court reached a sensible decision in Silverbrand v. County of Los Angeles, case no. S143929 (Apr. 23, 2009), in which the court holds that a prisoner’s pro se notice of appeal in a civil case is timely filed upon deposit with prison authorities for mailing. This brings the rule for timely filing of an appeal by a pro se prisoner in a civil case in line with the rule for a pro se prisoner’s filing of an appeal in a criminal case.

Silverbrand’s medical malpractice action against the county and jail medical personnel had been decided against him by summary judgment. He filed his notice of appeal by handing a correctly addressed, postage-paid envelope to prison officials the day before his deadline to file, but it did not reach the court until 2 days after the deadline. The court of appeal dismissed the appeal.

Here’s how the court introduced its decision reversing the court of appeal:

The prison-delivery rule — as most recently articulated by this court — provides that a self-represented prisoner’s notice of appeal in a criminal case is deemed timely filed if, within the relevant period set forth in the California Rules of Court, the notice is delivered to prison authorities pursuant to the procedures established for prisoner mail.  (See In re Jordan (1992) 4 Cal.4th 116 (Jordan).) The question before us in this case is whether the prison-delivery rule properly applies to a self-represented prisoner’s filing of a notice of appeal in a civil case.

Rooted in common law and well established in California jurisprudence, the prison-delivery rule, also referred to as the prison mailbox rule, “ensures that an unrepresented defendant, confined during the period allowed for the filing of an appeal, is accorded an opportunity to comply with the filing requirements fully comparable to that provided to a defendant who is represented by counsel or who is not confined.” (Jordan, supra, 4 Cal.4th at p. 119.)  It also “furthers the efficient use of judicial resources by establishing a ‘bright-line’ test that permits courts to avoid the substantial administrative burden that would be imposed were courts required to determine, on case-by-case basis, whether a prisoner’s notice of appeal was delivered to prison authorities ‘sufficiently in advance of the filing deadline’ to permit the timely filing of the notice in the county clerk’s office.”  (Ibid.)

There appears to be no sound basis for construing the relevant case law and rules of court as maintaining one rule in this context for criminal appeals and another for civil appeals.  Self-represented prisoners — who can file a notice of appeal only by delivering it to prison authorities for mailing — should be allowed the same opportunity as nonprisoners and prisoners with counsel to pursue their appellate rights, regardless of the nature of the appeal pursued.  Broadening the prison-delivery rule to include civil notices of appeal also should result in additional administrative benefits both for trial courts and reviewing courts, thereby improving judicial efficiency.  Therefore, for the same reasons that persuaded us that the prison-delivery rule should apply to the filing of a notice of appeal in a criminal case, we are persuaded that a notice of appeal by an incarcerated self-represented litigant in a civil case should be deemed filed as of the date the prisoner properly submitted the notice to prison authorities for forwarding to the clerk of the superior court.

That all seems rather obvious, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t obvious at all from the relevant rules of court, as the rule for criminal appeals (rule 8.308) codifies (at subsection (e)) the prison-delivery rule, while the rule for civil appeals (rule 8.104) does not. That kind of distinction usually leads a court to infer that the drafter deliberately made the rules different, and that’s exactly what the court of appeal understandably concluded in dismissing Silverbrand’s appeal.

You’ve read warnings from me time and again that the notice of appeal deadline is a jurisdictional limitation. Miss it, and you’re stuck. There is no relief.

But here, the Supremes note a tension between the unforgiving jurisdiction nature of the deadline and a policy of according the right to appeal “in doubtful cases ‘when such can be accomplished without doing violence to applicable rules.’ ” (Citation omitted.) This policy led to the development of the prison-delivery rule in the first place. Recapping that history and noting a national trend toward application of the prison-delivery rule in civil cases, the court reaches the conclusion summarized in the block quote above: there is no good reason to treat civil appeals different from criminal appeals.

The court overcomes the literal and harsh application of the court rule by noting that the rationale of the prison-delivery is not that it extends the deadline for filing to the date the notice of appeal is actually received by the court, but rather because the rule deems the notice of appeal constructively filed on the date of delivery to prison officials for mailing, despite the fact that it does not reach the court until later. I thought the opinion did some somersaults in its analysis of the rules, but was convinced nonetheless.

Please note, all you civil litigants, even self-represented ones, this does not mean your deposit in a mailbox on the last day for filing will suffice.  Remember, the court was deciding the effect of a prison-delivery rule.  If your mailbox doesn’t resemble the one pictured, you need to get your notice of appeal to the court — not the mailbox — on time.

It’s also worth noting that Silverbrand had the benefit of top-notch counsel in the Supreme Court at a bargain price (as in “free”). The Supremes appointed appellate powerhouse Horvitz & Levy to represent Silverbrand, and he had three amicus briefs filed on his behalf.

UPDATE: Thanks to Horvitz & Levy for linking to this post from their website “bragging page” about the case.

(Photo courtesy of Andrew Bardwell pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License.)

How do I make that connection? Because when I was done reading the case, I thought, “It’s a dismissal after sustaining a demurrer! It’s a discovery ruling! It’s two rulings in one!”

And so did the court of appeal, though it didn’t say it in so many words.

Brescia cross-complained against respondents for trade secret misappropriation.  Code of Civil Procedure section 2019.210 requires a trade secret plaintiff to identify the trade secret “with particularity” before commencing discovery.  Respondents moved for protective orders against discovery served by Brescia, claiming that he had not adequately identified the trade secret.  Finding the initial identification inadequate, the court gave Brescia several opportunities to make more particular designations, while the hearing on the protective order motions (which were now greater in number) were continued.  During this time, the respondents also demurred to Brescia’s cross-complaint.

Eventually, the protective order motions and demurrer (as well as a motion to strike) were heard on the same date, and this is where it gets interesting.  The court goes into great detail about the exchange among counsel and the court, but summarizes it as follows:

[T]he parties, in an attempt to expedite any appeal, stipulated that if the court determined the trade secret designation insufficient, it could use respondents’ demurrer to the cross-complaint as a procedural device to dismiss Brescia’s trade secret misappropriation claim for failure to comply with section 2019.210

That should have set off alarms in everyone’s mind, but we’ll get to that in a minute. The court found the disclosure inadequate and sustained the demurrer without leave to amend.

Brescia appealed from the resulting judgment of dismissal and, notwithstanding his stipulation in the trial court that the inadequacy of the trade secret disclosure would dispose of the case, argued that the court could not use a ruling on the trade secret disclosure as a ground for sustaining the demurrer. After recounting all the ways in which the stipulated arrangement violated normal procedural rules and effectively converted an unappealable discovery ruling into an appealable judgment, the court reminds Brescia of the doctrine of “invited error”:

Nonetheless, despite these inherent problems, Brescia stipulated to the procedure used by the court, as did respondents.  Indeed, the trial court would not have used this procedure but for Brescia’s express consent.  Brescia is in the procedural posture he sought. To the extent he now challenges that posture as improper and awkward, he effectively misled the trial court into believing the procedure was acceptable to him as a means to secure immediate appellate review of the sufficiency of his section 2019.210 designation.  Thus, he cannot contend on appeal that the termination of his action against respondents was procedurally defective.  (See Norgart v. Upjohn Co. (1999) 21 Cal.4th 383, 403 [doctrine of invited error applies where party induces error and, in doing so, misleads court].)

But Brescia actually prevails on the adequacy of his disclosure, so the court reverses, rejecting respondents’ contention that the demurrer gave an alternate ground for affirmance.

Respondents argue that the alternative grounds exist to support the court’s ruling sustaining the demurrer to the cross-complaint without leave to amend:  (1) the cross-complaint fails to state facts sufficient to plead a trade secret misappropriation claim against respondents personally, and (2) Brescia’s legal theory creates an improper prior restraint on trade.

In the unusual procedural posture of this case, we decline to address these issues.  The ruling that forms the basis for this appeal is a discovery ruling – the sufficiency of Brescia’s section 2019.210 designation.  By stipulation, the parties and the court deemed that discovery ruling to be a ground upon which the court would dispose of the cross-complaint through the procedural fiction that it formed a basis for demurrer.  We have given effect to that stipulated fiction and have addressed the merits of the section 2019.210 issue.  But we will not carry the fiction further and purport to review a ruling on a demurrer that was never truly made.  Respondents are asking us, in the first instance, to rule on their challenges to the cross-complaint and to sustain the demurrer without leave to amend.  We decline.  Respondents must first obtain a ruling on the demurrer in the trial court, which is the appropriate forum to determine in the first instance whether the demurrer states meritorious grounds, and, if so, whether leave to amend should be granted.

(Emphasis added.)

Curiously, none of the analysis talked about in this post is part of the published opinion, which is limited to the issue of the adequacy of the trade secret disclosure. The court clearly was not pleased with the stipulation, and a published decision would have announced their discouragement of such arrangements.  On the other hand, notwithstanding the court’s distaste for the arrangement, publication might have encouraged more of them.  The court did, after all, hear the appeal, and determine the merits of the underlying discovery ruling.  Other plaintiffs faced with the same unattractive alternatives to such a stipulation — waiting to appeal after final judgment or petitioning for writ relief with a greater than 90% chance of not being hard on the merits — may find the “Brescia option” attractive . . . if they learn of it.

The underlying proceeding was filed by the minority shareholders of a corporation to force its dissolution.  The parties stipulated to follow the buy-out procedure of Corporations Code section 2000, under which the corporation would purchase the shares of the minority shareholders.  Since the parties could not agree on share value (imagine that!), the majority shareholders were required to post a bond pending a final order.

After independent appraisers submitted a unanimous valuation report to the court, the minority shareholders moved to confirm the appraisal.  The majority shareholders fought the motion, contending that the business had been overvalued.  The trial court adopted the appraisers’ valuation of the company and entered an alternative decree fixing a share price and setting a date by which the purchasing shareholders had to tender cash payment to the minority shareholders for their shares, and which provided that failure to timely tender cash payment would result in the entry of judgment of involuntary dissolution.

Ten days before payment was due (and without making any payment), the corporation filed its notice of appeal, and three days after that they filed their petition for writ of supersedeas in the court of appeal without first seeking a stay in the trial court.

The court denies the petition, with some lessons along the way, which I present in no particular order.

The issue that I think caused the court of appeal to publish the decision is the first one it tackles: whether the alternative order was automatically stayed upon the filing of the appeal from it.  The court holds that the order was not automatically stayed because the proceeding wasn’t really an “action” for purposes of the rules governing stays and undertakings on appeal in a civil “action.”  (Code Civ. Proc. secs. 22-23.)  In fact, the parties agreed that the involuntary dissolution suit was a “special proceeding” under Code of Civil Procedure section 23.  Since the stay provisions (Code of Civil Procedure sections 916 et seq.) of Part 2 of the Code apply only in civil actions, the decree was not automatically stayed.

(This is probably a good time to warn prospective appellants in civil actions against taking comfort in the “automatic stay” of Code of Civil Procedure section 916, under which “the perfecting of an appeal stays proceedings in the trial court upon the judgment or order appealed from or upon the matters embraced therein or affected thereby, including enforcement of the judgment or order.”  There’s a huge “but”: the automatic stay of section 916 is subject to so many exceptions that they  swallow the rule, and it is the unusual case that is actually stayed automatically.)

Special proceedings are subject to the stay provisions of Part 2 only if the statute creating the special proceeding expressly incorporates them.  The majority shareholders directed the court’s attention to Corporations Code section 2000, subdivision (d), under which, to prevent winding up and dissolution, the purchaing parties “shall pay to the moving parties the value of their shares ascertained and decreed within the time specified pursuant to this section, or, in the case of appeal, as fixed on appeal.“  (Emphasis added.)  Unfortunately, they did not make clear what they thought the significance of the provision was.

The court rejects two possible assertions based on the cited language.  First, holding firm to the rule that statutory incorporation of Part 2 must be express, it rejects the possibility that the cited language was intended to incorporate the stay provisions of Part 2.  Second, it rejects the possibility that the cited language itself imposed a stay.  Because there is a stay on appeal from special proceedings only when the implementing statute expressly incorporates Part 2, the  language cannot be read to implement a stay independent of Part 2.

I think that’s probably it for the new stuff.

One thing really jumped out at me.  Did you note my reference to “possible assertions”?  The court began its analysis: “It is unclear how subdivision (d) purports to address the narrow question of whether an automatic stay comes into effect upon the perfecting of an appeal.  If the argument is that . . . “  If the argument is?  The court was confused what the appellant’s argument was even after hearing oral argument!

Reminder of an old rule: self-executing judgments are not automatically stayed (and supersedeas is usually inappropriate, too).  Since failure to tender payment for the minority’s shares would result in a judgment of dissolution without further action by the court, it is self-executing, and thus not stayed.

Another reminder of an old rule: apply for a stay in the trial court before petitioning for supersedeas.  Moving on to its discretionary power to issue supersedeas, the court cites appellant’s failure to seek a stay from the trial court as grounds for denying the petition, which ought to serve as an important reminder to appellants that the court of appeal takes this prerequisite seriously:

An application for a stay of a judgment should, wherever possible, be made first in the superior court. [Citation.] The reason is self-evident but it bears repeating.  “A trial court’s familiarity with the evolving circumstances of a case normally constitutes it the appropriate forum to weigh the relative hardships on the parties, including the likelihood that substantial questions will be raised on appeal, and its refusal to grant or to continue an injunction during appeal is entitled to great weight.” [Citation.]

Appellant said it did not apply for a stay in the trial court because it did not believe it had any remedy available to it there (remember that Code of Civil Procedure section 918 would not apply).  However, Since the trial court’s preliminary decree had specifically allowed that the payment date could be postponed “for good cause,” the court of appeal holds that relief was at least theoretically available in the trial court.  Thus, the court denies the petition “on the narrow ground that the [petitioners] should have sought relief in the superior court first.”

Make sure you provide an adequate record when you are seeking supersedeas.  Petitions for supersedeas are often filed prior to preparation of the record on appeal, so the petitioner is responsible for submitting documents to the court of appeal sufficient to decide the petition.  (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.112(a)(4)(B)(iv).)  Though appellants argued that it would raise a substantial question on appeal regarding the propriety of the appraisal procedure, it did not even submit its own papers opposing the motion to confirm the valuation.  Their failure to do so could only emphasize that the superior court, because of its familiarity with the case, was better suited to first entertain a request for a stay.

By the way, the case is very interesting reading on the subject of involuntary dissolution.

A smart lawyer, of course, would not rely on age alone.  The lawyer would point to some changed circumstance since the time the case was decided, such as changes in statutes or case law that the older decision relied on.  Nonetheless, I feel a little better having Mehr at my disposal.

Here’s the full paragraph from the case:

Although the California Supreme Court is free to overrule its own prior decisions, the doctrine of stare decisis compels lower court tribunals to follow the Supreme Court whatever reason the intermediate tribunals might have for not wishing to do so. [Citations.]  There is no exception for Supreme Court cases of ancient vintage.

Speaking of cases of ancient vintage, they seem to crop up a lot in the area of stays and supersedeas pending appeal.  This strikes me as an odd place for old cases to dominate, in light of the intervening overhaul of the relevant statutes.

If anyone has an explanation, theory, or even a SWAG** as to why old cases dominate in this area — or who, perhaps, wishes to point out that my factual premise is wrong — please leave a comment on this post. (**SWAG = Scientific Wild-Ass Guess – a term I picked up while studying engineering.)

Termo and Angus Development Corporation were co-petitioners in the administrative writ proceedings.  The trial court denied the writ.  Termo filed its notice of appeal from the judgment on the 59th day following service of notice of entry of judgment — just one day prior to the jurisdictional deadline of 60 days following mailing of notice of entry of judgment.  (See rule 8.104(a)(2), Cal. Rules of Court)  Angus filed its notice of appeal from the same judgment two days later — 61 days following mailing of notice of entry of judgment.  Respondent Hunt Petroleum (AEC), Inc., joined by respondent Director of Conservation Bridgett Luther, moved to dismiss Angus’s appeal on the basis that it was untimely filed.

The applicable rule** states: “If an appellant timely appeals from a judgment or appealable order, the time for any other party to appeal from the same judgment or order is extended until 20 days after the superior court clerk mails notification of the first appeal.” (** The court decided the case on the basis of former rule 8.104(e)(1) as in effect at the time the appeals were taken, but the wording of current rule 8.108(f)(1) is identical, as is the “Cross-appeal” heading noted by the court, and thus the result should be the same under the current rule.)

Respondents contended the rule applies only to cross-appeals and to parties adverse to the first appellant, but simple statutory definitions allowed the court to make short shrift of those arguments:

Hunt contends that California Rules of Court, rule 8.108(e)(1) is inapplicable, for two reasons. First, Hunt says the rule applies only to cross-appeals and Angus did not file a cross-appeal. Second, Hunt asserts that the rule applies only when the party seeking to utilize the 20-day extension period is adverse to the first party to file an appeal. We disagree.

Although the topic heading to California Rules of Court, rule 8.108(e) reads “Cross-appeal,” as Angus points out, “[b]y definition, a cross-appeal is any appeal filed after the first appeal [citation], and [the] rule . . . does not differentiate between cross-appeals which are protective and those which are independent.” (Life v. County of Los Angeles (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 1287, 1297- 1298, fn. omitted.) Moreover, “[t]he usual rules of statutory construction are applicable to the interpretation of the California Rules of Court. [Citation.]” (Id. at p. 1296.) “‘“When statutory language is . . . clear and unambiguous there is no need for construction, and courts should not indulge in it.” [Citation.]’ [Citation.] Under the guise of construction, the court will not rewrite a law and will not give the words an effect different from the plain and direct import of the terms used. [Citation.]” (Ibid.) Here, the text of rule 8.108(e)(1) contains no limitation of the type asserted by Hunt. It requires neither that an appeal be denominated a “cross-appeal” nor that the second party to file an appeal be adverse to the first party to do so, in order for the 20-day extension period to apply.

In this case, Termo filed a timely appeal from a judgment and an order and, two days thereafter, Angus filed an appeal from the same judgment and order. The appeal of Angus is timely filed under California Rules of Court, rule 8.108(e)(1). The motion to dismiss is denied.

Appellate practitioners already know not to turn away a client just because more than 60 days have elapsed since the notice of entry of judgment was mailed and the client has not yet appealed, because post-trial motions can extend the time to appeal.  (See rule 8.208(b)-(e).)  Make sure you don’t overlook this interpretation of rule 8.108(f)(1), either.

My thanks to Long Beach business litigator Charles Hokanson, who alerted me to this important case, knowing that I was on hiatus when it was published.  Nice to know at least one of you guys is looking out for me!

Tri Counties asserted that the the judge should be disqualified for conducting an independent investigation into a factual issue relevant to class certification.  It learned of the investigation from the trial court’s tentative ruling in the class certification motion and, in a supplemental memorandum, urged it as a ground to deny certification.  When the trial court certified the class, Tri Counties sought appellate review of the certification order by petitioning for a writ of mandate, citing the improper investigation as a ground to grant the petition, but did not seek the trial judge’s disualification.  Only after that petition was denied did Tri Counties submit its 170.3 statement of objection, which the trial court struck as untimely.  Tri Counties then filed a writ petition challenging that order.

Tri Counties contended that the stay issued in connection with the first writ petition prevented it from filing its statement of objection until the conclusion of that proceeding.  The court notes, however, that the stay did not take effect until more than three moths after Tri Counties became aware of the improper investigation, leaving it plenty of time to challenge the judge.

The second reason the court gave was more interesting.  It holds that proceedings regarding the qualification of a judge are distinct from the ordinary proceedings, and the stay affects only the latter:

Second, although unnecessary to our conclusion that the statement of objection was untimely, it is our view that petitioner could have filed a statement of objection even while the stay was in effect.  Our general stay of proceedings was obviously directed to the underlying proceedings between the parties to the action (i.e., to the litigation itself), not to questions of the judge’s qualification to preside over those proceedings.  A judge’s qualification to preside as judge in a particular case is foundational to, and hence distinct from, the ordinary proceedings between the parties that would be tried or heard by the judge.  (See § 170.5, subd. (f).)  Because of this basic distinction between a judge’s qualification and the underlying litigation, we do not believe that our stay could reasonably be understood as barring petitioner from promptly filing a statement of objection in the trial court.  We note further that disqualification of the trial judge was not raised in the writ of mandate petition challenging the class certification order, thus the filing of a statement of objection to pursue disqualification would not have interfered with or affected our appellate review of that order.

This is an interesting and important distinction.  It’s also quite interesting that the court went out of its way to discuss it, since it was unnecessary once it found Tri Counties had delayed too long even before the stay went into effect.

Modern communication and the California Rules of Court collide in Citizens for Civic Accountability v. Town of Danville, case no. A121899 (1st Dist. Oct. 27, 2008), and the winner is . . . the rules! At issue: whether the e-mailing of a notice that a judgment has been filed, with a link to access a copy of the judgment, triggers the deadline to appeal under rule 8.104(a), California Rules of Court, which provides that a 60-day deadline to appeal is triggered when the clerk “mails” a notice of entry of judgment or a file-stamped copy of the judgment.

The trial court designated the case complex litigation and ordered compliance with the court’s Electronic Case Filing Standing Order, which provided that orders filed by the court would be served electronically only, either by e-mail or through an electronic filing service provider (in this case, LexisNexis File & Serve). The order granting in part and denying in part the petition for writ of mandate was served as follows:

On April 1, 2008, LexisNexis File & Serve sent the parties a message by electronic transmission (an e-mail) stating, “You are being served documents that have been electronically submitted in [Citizens for Public Accountability v. Town of Danville] through LexisNexis File & Serve.” The e-mail identified the document as a Judgment on Petition for Writ of Mandate, and stated that it had been authorized for filing on April 1, 2008. To view the document, the parties had to visit a LexisNexis File & Serve website, sign in, and open a document file. The document so accessed bore an “electronically filed” file stamp dated April 1, 2008.

Respondents moved to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the notice of appeal was filed more than 60 days after that electronic service. The court of appeal denies he motion, holding that “the 60-day appeal period in California Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(1) is triggered only by the mailing of a judgment by the United States Postal Service.” (Emphasis added.) Keys to this conclusion: resolution of ambiguities in the rules should be construed to preserve the right to appeal, statutory distinctions between mailing and other forms of service indicate that “mail” means the U.S. Postal Service.

Mixed bags create competing incentives. Here, one incentive got the best of Satchmed.

UWMC complied with the judgment by offering the 22 offices to Satchmed, which decided to purchase them. But those other 12 units. . . well, Satchmed just couldn’t let go. And those guys at Satchmed must have thought, “Hey, if you think about it, we won on 22 of 34 units, so aren’t we the prevailing party?” So Satchmed appealed, challenging those portions of the judgment regarding the 12 units and the prevailing party determination.

Under the established doctrine that a party’s voluntary acceptance of the benefits of a judgment — or even a portion of them — precludes an appeal by that party, Satchmed’s appeal is dismissed on the ground that it waived its right to appeal by purchasing the 22 units. Satchmed claimed the doctrine did not apply because of two equally established equitable exceptions. The court not only rejected the arguments, but noted that Satchmed’s conduct was manipulative.

First, Satchmed claimed that its acceptance of the benefits was compelled, rather than voluntary, because it risked losing its right to purchase the 22 units if it appealed the judgment. After noting that Satchmed could have appealed “without fear that its right to accept UWMC’s offer would evaporate by the simple act of filing” because matters relating to enforcement of the judgment would have been automatically stayed by the appeal, the court points out the lack of any real compulsion:

The judgment did not put Satchmed at risk of losing any property it already owned. Furthermore, Satchmed was not at risk of forfeiting monies to which it was entitled by statute if it chose to prosecute an appeal. Satchmed just wanted to aggrandize its award without risk. It simply had to choose whether it wanted to file an appeal in pursuit of an even greater award than the judgment provided to it, which would entail risking a reversal of the favorable portion of the judgment, or whether it wanted to simply accept the benefit of the favorable portion of the judgment, and thereby waive the right to appeal from the unfavorable portions. Having to make a choice of this nature does not make the chosen avenue involuntary.

Second, Satchmed contended the judgment was severable, but the court find that the only facts that Satchmed relied on were created by it after the judgment, and points out that a party may not make a nonseverable judgment severable by its post-judgment actions:

[T]he portions of the judgment pertaining to the 12 leased units and the prevailing party status are not severable. Satchmed attempts to use clever timing to convert a nonseverable judgment into a severable one. We look here at the judgment at the time it was entered, before any party appealed therefrom. At that point in time, it is clear that the judgment was not severable. A ruling pertaining to the 12 leased units easily could have affected the 22 owned units, and vice versa. But Satchmed seized the portion of the judgment beneficial to itself, and took title to the 22 owned units. It then said that no ruling on the 12 leased units could possibly affect the status of the 22 owned units. In other words, it had then put the 22 owned units beyond the reach of UWMC’s attack and beyond the purview of this court. Satchmed’s claim that the judgment was then severable is essentially a claim that the judgment had become severable because Satchmed had made it so. It does not work that way. Satchmed cannot have its cake and eat it too. Having accepted the benefits of the portion of the judgment making title to the 22 owned units available to it, it cannot now attack the portion of the judgment making title to the 12 leased units unavailable to it.

In short: a judgment is either severable when entered or not. One cannot convert a severable judgment into a severable one.

Are you tempted by the juicy part of a judgment, but tempted to appeal the rest? Think it over carefully before you decide what to do, and especially think twice about maneuvering to make the facts fit within an exception to the “acceptance equals waiver” rule. It won’t pay off.

The last of these variables is what helps the appellant overcome this highly deferential standard of review and have the default judgment against it lifted in Fasuyi v. Permatetex, Inc. case no. A117760 (1st Dist. Oct. 15, 2008).  Permatex made a motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 473 to vacate the default judgment against it and appealed from the order denying relief.  The court of appeal tells us at the outset that the “abuse of discretion” standard applicable here may not be quite as deferential as you would expect (footnote omitted): 

The law favors resolution of cases on their merits, and because it does, any doubts about whether Code of Civil Procedure section 473 relief should be granted “must be resolved in favor of the party seeking relief from default [citations]. Therefore, a trial court denying relief is scrutinized more carefully than an order permitting trial on the merits. [Citations.]” (Rappleyea v. Campbell(1994) 8 Cal.4th 975, 980 (Rappleyea).) Justice Mosk began Rappleyea with a succinct statement of the question before the Supreme Court and its answer: “The question is whether a default must be set aside and a default judgment reversed on the ground of abuse of discretion. We conclude that they must be.” (8 Cal.4th at p. 978.) The question before us is the same. And so is our answer.

There are two dichotomies here, one clearly defined, one not.  Orders denying 473 relief will be “scrutinized more carefully” than orders granting relief.  That is clear-cut.  What isn’t so clear is what “scrutinized more carefully” actually means while remaining within the “abuse of discretion” standard.” 

In any event, the case is yet another reminder that “abuse of discretion” may have a particularized meaning or application in your case.  And if you happen to be requesting a default judgment any time soon, I suggest you read this case for some of the pitfalls and an exposition on the gatekeeping role of the trial court.

“Envision an appeal as the freeway between Fresno and Los Angeles, with Fresno being the filing of the notice of appeal and Los Angeles being a decision on the merits,” he said. “Now, think of each exit on that stretch of freeway as an opportunity for the court not to reach the merits. The court would prefer to take one of those exits rather than reach Los Angeles, there are an awful lot of exits, and it’s going to check each one as it goes by to see if the exit provides an opportunity to get off the freeway presents.”  Hence, his nickname for issues that can prevent a decision on the merits: “freeway issues.”

Are there freeway issues lurking in your appeal?  Be ready to address them!   Because a smart respondent’s lawyer is going to look for them.  (I will go through some of the freeway issues in a future post.)

In the district court, Vega challenged two conditions on the supervised release portion of his sentence.  On appeal, however, he argued that a third condition of his supervised release was also error.

You might think he’d be out of luck entirely on that third condition, the general rule being that an argument cannot be made for the first time on appeal  But he’s not.

Though Vega did not challenge the third condition in the district court, the effect of that failure is not to foreclose his argument in the court of appeals, but merely to subject his claim to a standard of review more difficult for him to overcome.  That is, for the two conditions Vega did challenge in the district court, the court of appeals evaluates the district court’s imposition of the conditions under an abuse of discretion standard, while requiring “plain error” for the condition left unchallenged in the district court.

There’s a larger lesson here.  Notwithstanding the general rule that arguments raised for the first time on appeal will not be entertained by the appellate court, I think it pays for an appellant to be aggressive about raising such arguments — good ones, at least — wherever the rules suggest a way to get them in.  Don’t dismiss arguments out of hand just because they were not raised (or perhaps raised with less specificity) in the trial court.  Carefully look at the case law, and if there’s an argument to be made that the court should consider your “new” argument, go for it.

Critical to our review of any summary judgment is the moving party’s separate statement of undisputed facts. Gunn elected to proceed by way of an appellant’s appendix (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.124), in which he has included Mariners Church’s points and authorities and its attorney’s declaration to which various deposition pages and other pieces of documentary evidence, but not Mariners Church’s actual separate statement of undisputed facts. Gunn’s failure to provide a complete record arguably precludes him from meeting his appellate burden. [Citations.]

Gunn has, however, included his own separate statement in the appellant’s appendix, which appears to be in the form required by the court rules juxtaposing Mariners Church’s assertions of undisputed fact with Gunn’s responses thereto. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 3.1350(d).) And Mariners Church does not suggest Gunn’s separate statement inaccurately represents its statement of undisputed facts. Accordingly, we will proceed on the merits based on Gunn’s separate statement and the evidence Mariners Church submitted.

I wonder how much of the court’s forgiveness was due to the fact that it affirmed anyway. I suspect most panels would be quite reluctant to reverse on a similar record.

The bottom line: don’t rely on the court’s largesse. Include a thorough record.

Such were the lawyers representing the appellants in Lazy Y Ranch Ltd. v. Behrens, case no. 07-35315 (9th Cir. Sept. 26, 2008).  Lazy Y sued, alleging a violation of equal protection, after its bids for grazing on state land were rejected in favor of other bidders.  The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, arguing that the complaint failed to allege a violation of equal protection and, alternatively, that the defendants had qualified immunity.  Their motion to dismiss relied on extrinsic documents.  Lazy Y moved successfully to strike many of those documents, and prevailed against the motion to dismiss.  Defendants appealed from both the order denying the motion to dismiss and the order striking certain exhibits.

Taking up the question of jurisdiction under the collateral order doctrine, the court reasons:

We begin by briefly addressing Lazy Y’s suggestion that we lack appellate jurisdiction over this interlocutory appeal.  Lazy Y argues that (1) Defendants’ attacks on the order denying the motion to dismiss exceed the scope of the “collateral order” doctrine upon which they allege jurisdiction, and (2) the order granting Lazy Y’s motion to strike documents is unappealable under any doctrine. We disagree.

In general, a party is entitled only to a single appeal, to be “deferred until final judgment has been entered.” [Citation.] However, under the collateral order doctrine, a litigant may appeal from a “narrow class of decisions that do not terminate the litigation, but must, in the interest of achieving a healthy legal system, nonetheless be treated as final.” [Citation.] To be appealable under the collateral order doctrine, a district court decision must (1) be “conclusive,” (2) “resolve important questions completely separate from the merits,” and (3) “render such important questions effectively unreviewable on appeal from final judgment in the underlying action.” [Citation.]

Because qualified immunity is immunity from suit itself and not merely a defense to liability, orders denying qualified immunity may be immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine, including orders denying a motion to dismiss. [Citation.] Such an order is reviewable to the extent that it raises an issue of law. [Citations.]

Here, contrary to Lazy Y’s suggestion, we do not construe Defendants’ appeal to depend on “their version of the facts.” Rather, Defendants argue that Lazy Y’s allegations of pretext and animus are irrelevant under Equal Protection law, because they have articulated legitimate reasons for rejecting Lazy Y’s bids. In other words, Defendants argue that their articulated purposes end the inquiry and mean that Lazy Y’s claims of actual improper motives fail to establish an Equal Protection violation. They also argue that Lazy Y brings “class of one” claims that are either incognizable or not clearly established in the context of public contracting. These are contentions of law. [Citation.]

Moreover, whether Defendants’ exhibits should have been considered is essentially a legal question, and the order granting the motion to strike was simply part of the Rule 12(b)(6) analysis, as the district court resolved that motion solely to establish the record for the motion to dismiss. [Citation.]

So, appellants got their day in the court of appeals.  Turns out to be for naught, however, as the court affirms.  But at least they had their shot.

In my first post in this series, I broke down lawyers’ reasons for not engaging appellate counsel into two broad categories: those related to ability and those related to economics. Today, we will examine a reason related to ability:

“It’s just litigation”, or “Hey, I’m a litigator, and appeals are litigation, so I can do it.“

Are appeals litigation?  Well, let’s see.  Adverse parties?  Check.  Legal and/or factual disputes?  Check.  Courtroom and judges?  Check.  Judgments?  Check.  Yeah, I’d say that appeals are litigation.

That said, they are a continuation of litigation, and with crossing the boundary from trial court to court of appeal, the parties and their attorneys enter a new realm.  That realm has multiple judges hearing the same case, no juries, no discovery, few motions, and an emphasis on persuasive writing that is rivaled in the trial court only on dispositive motions.

As I  noted in my first post, many lawyers are comfortable, and  quite able, on both sides of the divide.  Neither this post nor any other in the series is meant to deride the skills of trial lawyers.

But there are pitfalls that await the lawyer who assumes appellate practice is no different than trial practice.  Perhaps the biggest is the standard of review.

Pitfalls in the Standard of Review.

The trial lawyer entering the appellate landscape for the first time may have difficulty navigating through it.  That can result in wasting time (and, for the client, hourly fees) on useless activities or argument, even a failure to even recognize the burden he or she faces on appeal.

One such useless exercise in the court of appeal that happens with shocking regularity is to argue to the court as if the three justices are a jury: this witness is believable, this one is not; that evidence should be disregarded; the other side’s story makes no sense, etc.  How do I know this happens?  I’ve talked to a couple of appellate justices — not a large enough sample to be of statistical significance, admittedly — who told me this happens regularly. Not necessarily frequently, but regularly.

This approach betrays the lawyer’s lack of familiarity with the most fundamental brick in the appellate arsenal: the standard of review.  Which is why I was so stunned by the justices’ revelations, even though I have seen appellant’s briefs that didn’t even mention the standard of review.  (Occasionally, you might even see a court neglect to state it!)

Simply put, an appeal isn’t your second chance to try the case.  It’s merely an opportunity to convince the court of appeal that the trial court erred and that the error prejudiced your client.

Of course, the evidence in the trial court can come into play in the court of appeal, just in a different way (usually).  But even in cases of substantial evidence review — in which the court of appeal will reverse if there is no substantial evidence to support a finding required by the judgment — persuasion based on credibility is generally out of place.

What’s more, unfamiliarity with the standards of review on appeal might cause a lawyer to miss good arguments entirely.  An undue concentration on the evidence produced at trial may lead the trial attorney to miss important issues preserved for appeal on a less deferential standard of review, and thus presenting a greater chance of success on appeal.  Is there a legal issue you’ve missed because you are so wound up in the presentation of evidence at trial?  If so, you’ve missed an opportunity to obtain “de novo” review, under which the court gives no deference to the trial court — your best shot at success.  In fact, that legal issue may be hidden within a more deferential standard — whether the trial court abused its discretion, or whether substantial evidence supports the judgment, may in turn rely on a question of law subject to de novo review.

Simply put, the simplicity of the standard of review structure — de novo review, abuse of discretion, and substantial evidence — masks a lot of nuance not readily discernible to someone unfamiliar with appellate practice.  It’s far more than a “smell test”.  Indeed, parties regularly argue over the applicable standard, either because the nature of the issue is misleading or because the applicable standard for a given judgment has not been established (such as here, here, or here, for example).  If it were really simple all the time, would there be a book on the subject?

I haven’t discussed some other pitfalls, mostly for the sake of brevity (if you can call this post brief).  Perhaps I will give this particular reason for not engaging appellate counsel — “it’s just litigation” — a few more posts of its own.

Preferences.

Finally, the trial lawyer may find that he or she simply does not like the appellate process.  As I noted in my first post:

Some trial lawyers just plain don’t like doing appeals.  For some, it may be because appeals lack everything they like about litigation: frequent confrontation, lots of court appearances, sleuthing through discovery, and lots of twists and turns.  Appellate practice usually isn’t a hotbed of excitement.

If your strengths lie in frequent confrontation, then maybe apeals aren’t for you, either as a matter of preference or a matter of skill set.  (This is especially true if you don’t like spending time in the law library or writing, but I’ll address that preference in a future post.)

The Client’s Perspective.

The client consideration that parallels the lawyer’s belief that “it’s just litigation” is really an absence of consideration.  That is, many clients may see no difference at all between their trial court action and the appeal.  The client is only likely to note the differences if the lawyer points them out.  And if the lawyer doesn’t see them, the lawyer cannot point them out.  Under these circumstances, the only time many clients are likely to seek an appellate attorney is if the client is genuinely displeased with the trial lawyer’s services.

However, I think this situation is changing over time.  I suspect that clients, like all consumers, are becoming more and more knowledgeable all the time about the services they receive.  The inquiries I receive from lay readers of my blog tell me that clients are learning that there is a difference between trial work and appellate work.

Clients almost always want a specialist when one is available.  An employment discrimination plaintiff doesn’t seek a personal injury lawyer when a plaintiff’s employment lawyer is available.  Over time, I expect more and more clients will seek new representation on appeal, and won’t need their trial lawyers to put them on notice of the differences between trial and appellate work.  They will challenge their trial lawyers’ unspoken assumption that the trial lawyer is always the right person to handle the appeal.

(NOTE: To access all posts in this series to date, click here.  Finally, allow me to again solicit your participation.  If you’d like to offer a topic for a post in this series, leave your comment in this post or, preferably, in the post announcing this series.  And don’t hesitate to repeat a topic someone has already left.  That will tell me there is greater interest in that topic.)

Client parallel: unawareness of appellate specialization

Against this backdrop, Alch v. Superior Court, case no. B203726 (2d Dist. Aug 14, 2008) presents a very interesting discussion of the standard as it introduces its decision reversing the trial court’s refusal to allow discovery (which is not, by the way, immediately appealable, and thus is found in this writ decision).

First, the backdrop of the case:

Television writers filed class action lawsuits against studios, networks, production companies and talent agencies, asserting an industry-wide pattern and practice of age discrimination. The writers served subpoenas on third parties, including the Writers Guild of America, seeking data on Writers Guild members from which they could prepare a statistical analysis to support their claims of age discrimination. A privacy notice was sent to 47,000 Writers Guild members, advising them of their right to object to disclosure of personal information on privacy grounds. Some 7,700 individuals filed objections. The writers moved to overrule the objections. The trial court sustained the objections in their entirety. The writers sought a writ directing the trial court to vacate its order and allow access to certain of the requested information, arguing the information was critical to proving their claims and privacy concerns were minimal. We grant the writ petition.

Before even reaching its analysis, the court of appeal explains why it is able to reverse despite the formidable obstacle usually presented by the abuse of discretion standard applicable to review of orders denying discovery:

We are well aware that a reviewing court may not substitute its opinion for that of the trial court if there is a basis, supported by the evidence, for the trial court’s ruling, and that we may set aside an order denying discovery only if there was no legal justification for the order. (Tien v. Superior Court (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 528, 535.) We also recognize that the trial court was faced, to some extent, with a moving target: the information initially subpoenaed was more comprehensive – and considerably more sensitive on the privacy scale – than the information the writers requested in their motion to overrule the objections, and the latter, too, was more inclusive than the information ultimately sought when the writers asked for reconsideration. These differences, however, highlight the error in the trial court’s analysis. It used a broad brush to deny the writers access to all data about the objectors out of hand, and wholly failed to consider whether a more nuanced approach to the different categories of data would satisfy the balance that must be struck between privacy interests and a litigant’s need for discovery. (See Valley Bank of Nevada v. Superior Court (1975) 15 Cal.3d 652, 658 (Valley Bank) [considerations which will affect the exercise of the trial court’s discretion in evaluating privacy claims include the “‘ability of the court to make an alternative order which may grant partial disclosure’”; where possible, “‘courts should impose partial limitations rather than outright denial of discovery’”].)

In short, while the trial court purported to weigh the objectors’ privacy rights against the public interest in pursuing the litigation, it failed to follow the dictates of Valley Bank in doing so. In addition to failing to analyze the different categories of data requested, the court gave short shrift to “the public interest in pursuing [the] litigation.” Indeed, it erroneously stated that the writers, in their brief, had indicated “that they may still be able to put together a meaningful statistical study based upon information from non-objectors.” On the contrary, the writers submitted evidence that no meaningful statistical study could take place if data from the objectors were omitted from it. Under these circumstances, we can reach no other conclusion than that the trial court’s orders denying access to any and all data from the objectors were without legal justification.

(Footnotes omitted.)

I suspect, however, that few litigants will be able to take advantage of Alch in the court of appeal because the only immediate route for review of discovery orders is via writ petition. The odds are greater than 9 in 10 that your writ petition will be denied summarily without reaching the merits.

The real value of Alch will be to trial attorneys trying to convince the trial court in the first instance that denial of discovery would be an abuse of discretion. Because such orders are not immediately reviewable on appeal, there has always been a dearth of appellate discovery rulings for trial lawyers to cite when arguing a motion to compel or a motion for protective order. Alch’s application of Valley Bank may lead to greater uniformity in trial court decisions, or at least greater attention being paid to the “nuance” of the scope of information sought.

First, the background. The issue under review was:

whether a prescribed jail term that constitutes a material provision of a plea agreement conferring as its chief benefit, a grant of probation in lieu of a prison sentence, may be modified by the trial court in the exercise of its authority to modify or revoke probation during the probationary period.

An obscure question? Not if you’re not a citizen, your 365 day jail term makes you eligible for deportation, and Homeland Security picks you up for deportation promptly upon your release from jail. When that happens, you ask the court to amend the judgment nunc pro tunc to require a jail term of only 360 days as a condition of probation. That 5-day decrease takes you out of eligibility for deportation.

The trial court decides it lacks jurisdiction to alter the jail term, the court of appeal reverses, and the People successfully seek review.

But before they decide the question, the Supremes ask for clarification – is the trial court’s order appealable? As you’d expect, defendant says yes, the attorney general says no, but with a twist. Though the AG contends the order is not appealable, he urges that the issue is so important that the court should decide it anyway by treating the appeal as a petition for habeas corpus. And the Supremes oblige.

There’s a second obstacle, though. Segura himself had been released from jail and deported already. The point appears moot. Again, though, the court decides not to let that stop its consideration of the issue:

Nonetheless, the question raised is a matter of public interest and is likely to recur in other cases at a time prior to a defendant’s deportation when the opportunity for review may be limited. [Citation.] Moreover, the parties dispute whether the Court of Appeal’s decision is consistent with, or distinguishable from, the decision in [citation]. Accordingly, for the guidance of courts in future cases presenting similar issues, we have exercised our inherent authority to retain the case for argument and the rendering of an opinion.

Lesson: Don’t let questionable jurisdiction stop you from appealing, especially when it comes to an order after a judgment of conviction. And if you can get that far, the Supreme Court seems more likely than a court of appeal to overlook something like mootness. After all, if the issue is important enough for it to review, there’s a decent chance the court wil find it important enough that mootness shouldn’t stand in the way.

In Melbostad, the trial court granted defendant’s special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP statute (Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16) and entered an order dismissing the complaint “with prejudice.” It subsequently granted a motion for fees brought by one of the defendants, then entered a judgment that “recapitulated” the previous orders granting the special motion to strike and granting the motion for attorney fees.

Appellant challenged the fee award by appealing from this second “judgment” rather than from the order granting the fee motion.  Which is what brought the timeliness of the notice of appeal into play.  His notice of appeal was untimely as meadured from the order granting the fee motion, but timely as measured from the final “judgment.”  Apellant conceded that his time to appeal the order granting the special motion to strike ran from the original order granting that motion (see Code Civ. Proc. sec. 904.1, subd. (a)(13)), but contended that his time to appeal the fee award ran from entry of the subsequent judgment.  Even the respondent agreed.

Not so.  The court finds that because the order dismissing the complaint disposed of all the substantive claims between the parties, it was an appealable judgment under Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a)(1), and thus the fee award was a separately appealable order after judgment pursuant to section 904.1, subdivision (a)(2).  The subsequent judgment “appears to have served no purpose here, and appellant’s appeal from it does not save his otherwise untimely appeal.”

There was some clever, but unavailing argument from the appellant, and the decision goes into some depth on why the order granting the section 425.16 motion is a “judgment.”  In reading the case, you’ll also discover important differences in appealability based on whether the plaintiff or defendant prevails on the section 425.16 motion.

Really? I’ve never doubted the value of a well-written reply brief, nor have I heard others question their value. Though reply briefs are optional, I can’t imagine I’d ever decide against filing one.

If you’d like to read what some appellate justices have to say about them, check out Are Reply Briefs Really Necessary? The Recorder e-mailed all 103 appellate justices in California for their views on reply briefs and got responses from 25 of them. Reporter Mike McKee’s write-up of their responses describes some pitfalls for appellants’ counsel to avoid and how the justices approach brief reading, among other things.

Hat tip: The Appellate Practitioner.

They can also be employed where appellate jurisdiction — or lack of it— is less than clear, as in People v. Segura, case no. S148536 (Aug. 4, 2008), where the Supreme Court avoids deciding the issue by treating the appeal as a petition for writ of habeas corpus.  Relegating the appellate jurisdiction issue to a footnote, a unanimous Supreme Court set forth the parties’ competing views on appealability, then noted that the Attorney General, who contended the order was not appealable, nonetheless urged the court to review it.  The result:

Nonetheless, the Attorney General requests that we treat the purported appeal as a petition for writ of habeas corpus and, in the interest of judicial economy and because the issue is a matter of concern to many persons other than defendant, decide the case on its merits.  (See generally People v. Banks (1959) 53 Cal.2d 370, 379-381 & fn. 5.)  The Attorney General points out that a probationer in constructive custody may petition for a writ of habeas corpus (In re Stier (2007) 152 Cal.App.4th 63, 82), and in analogous circumstances appeals have been so treated.  (Gallardo, supra, 77 Cal.App.4th at p. 986).  We do so here in the interest of judicial economy and because the issue is of general concern.

Just last week, I wrote about the Supreme Court’s inexplicable avoidance of a squarely presented issue of appellate jurisdiction (albeit in a long ago case), in which they decided the case without either answering the jurisdictional question or even using some device to “save” the appeal, merely because neither party raised it. Here, while the court did not settle the appealability issue, they at least worked their way around it.

Interestingly enough, this nugget regarding appellate jurisdiction comes in a case where the question for review is whether the trial court had jurisdiction to grant a post-judgment defense motion to reduce a jail term bargained for in a plea agreement imposing probation.  The defendant had already served the sentence (released early) but needed the sentence reduced to avoid deportation.  The trial court denied the motion, saying it lacked jurisdiction to reduce the bargained-for term.  The court of appeal reversed.  The Supreme Court reverses the court of appeal:  

We granted review to determine whether a prescribed jail term that constitutes a material provision of a plea agreement conferring as its chief benefit, a grant of probation in lieu of a prison sentence, may be modified by the trial court in the exercise of its authority to modify or revoke probation during the probationary period.  As we shall explain, in this matter defendant was granted probation, for which he otherwise was ineligible in view of the prior conviction allegation, in exchange for entering into a plea agreement comprised of various terms, including confinement in the county jail for a specified number of days.  He knowingly and voluntarily accepted those terms of the agreement.  The trial court’s statutory authority to modify conditions of probation in the exercise of its jurisdiction over a probationer did not extend to modifying a material term of a plea agreement that bestowed the privilege of probation subject to defendant’s service of a specified jail term.  Accordingly, we reverse the judgment rendered by the Court of Appeal.

I’ll get to the Supreme Court in a minute. First, a brief rundown on the issue from the case that led me to raise the question in the title to this post.

In State of California ex rel Department of Pesticide Regulation v. Pet Food Express Limited, case no. C057156 (3d Dist. July 31, 2008), the court of appeal holds that an order enforcing an administrative subpoena is appealable. Borrowing from court of appeal precedent finding that an order enforcing a legislative subpoena is appealable, the court applied the same reasoning to the administrative subpoena in this case. Because the order is the final resolution of the rights between the parties in an original proceeding instituted specifically to enforce compliance — whether that proceeding is deemed a “special proceeding” or an “action” — it is a judgment within the meaning of Code of Civil Procedure section 577 (“A judgment is the final determination of the rights of the parties in an action or proceeding”). It is thus appealable under Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a)(1).

Interesting enough, but not fascinating. What I did find fascinating was the court’s description regarding the history of the appealability issue.

The court first notes the split of authority at the court of appeal level. While several court of appeal decisions decided such appeals without any explicit consideration of the appealability issue — presumably assuming the appealability of such orders — the remaining courts were split. Some found such orders appealable, others found such orders reviewable by writ only but construed the appeal as a writ petition in the interests of justice.

The amazing thing is that in spite of this split, the Supreme Court had twice entertained such cases and neither time decided the appealability issue. Obviously, the question af appealability was not one of the issues on which the Supreme Court accepted review, but appealability is a jurisdictional requirement that cannot be waived by the parties. The first time around, in Craib v. Bulmash (1989) 49 Cal.3d 475, I can see how the Supremes might not address it if neither party did (Pet Food describes the Supreme Court decision as silent on the issue) because it, like some courts of appeal, could have presumed jurisdiction. But the second time around, in Arnett v. Dal Cielo (1996) 14 Cal4th 4, the Supremes explicitly noted the split in the courts of appeal, decided that the “better view” was that such orders are appealable, but declined to decide the issue because neither party raised it!

Come again? Declined to decide a jurisdictional issue that was squarely presented and on which there was a split of authority in the courts of appeal? And here’s a fact that makes it even stranger: the authority the Supremes relied on as the “better view” had based its decision that the order was appealable in part on the Supreme Court’s previous failure to resolve the issue, i.e., the Supreme Court’s apparent assumption of appealability. In light of all this, the Pet Food court calls the Supremes’ avoidance of the issue “perplexing.” Oh, yes, I’d say so.

Perhaps Pet Food will be the case in which the Supreme Court finally decides the issue. It sure seems to have teed up the issue.

Of particular interest is the section on fees for the appeal. Here’s a two-question quiz.

Do you know the proper forum for making your application for fees on appeal? If you said the court of appeals, you’re wrong! Fee applications are brought in the district court after remand.

You probably already know that the standard of review on a fee award is abuse of discretion. Is it any different when reviewing an award for fees on appeal? Well, yes and no. The award is still reviewed for abuse of discretion but the court of appeals will “look more closely” at fee awards involving appeals. Call it an enhanced review for abuse of discretion, if you will.

The district court trimmed the appellate fees by a third! But it did so without offering a good explanation . . . a problem that pervaded its fee determination. It’s interesting to see how Judge Kozinski analyzes the time and fees on appeal versus the time and fees for a summary judgment motion in the case:

The district court noted that plaintiff’s counsel spent twice as long on the appeal than on the summary judgment, but this does not mean the additional time spent on appeal was unjustified; after all, plaintiff lost claims at summary judgment that he won on appeal. More fundamentally, preparing summary judgment motions and appeals are not commensurate tasks, though they have some elements in common. What matters is whether spending more time winning on appeal than losing on summary judgment was an imprudent use of hours. The district court points to nothing to support the conclusion that it was.

Then there is the discussion of the “cost effectiveness of various law firm models” for staffing cases, and which personnel get assigned which tasks at which rates. As I read through it, I thought, “All this concern over hourly rates and who did what! What would the court do if the firm charged a flat fee and didn’t keep track of anyone’s hours?”

I haven’t seen a fee decision based on a flat fee without time records. But the courts still appear to be in love with the “lodestar” system: reasonable hourly rate times reasonable time expended. Which is why I tend to keep time records even when I charge a flat fee.

Now I’m really curious. If anyone knows of a case analyzing the propriety of a fee award based on a flat fee, please send me the cite.

UPDATE (8/7/08): California Attorney’s Fees examines some of the standards employed by the Moreno court to fees incurred prior to appeal, notes the significance of the case, and responds to my query about flat fees.

That was the question facing the court in California Dept. of Water v. Powerex, case no. 06-15285 (9th Cir. July 22, 2008), and the answer required it to answer two jurisdictional questions. First, does 28 USC §1447(d) preclude the court from exercising jurisdiction to review the remand order in any fashion? If not, then what is the method by which the order may be reviewed: appeal or writ of mandamus?

Powerex removed to federal court, claiming that the case arose under federal law. The district court denied DWR’s motion to remand and dismissed, finding that the case was within the sole jurisdiction of the Federal Enerergy Regulatory Commission. DWR amended its complaint to request only declaratory relief in order to take the case outside FERC’s jurisdiction and renewed its motion to remand. The district court held that the amended complaint raised only state law contract issues, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, and remanded the case to state court. Powerex appealed, asserting that the complaint still had claims that arise under federal law.

Section 1447(d) appears to deny review of any remand order unless removed under 28 USC §1443 [applicable to certain civil rights cases]. The court notes, however, that section 1447 has been held to prohibit review only of remand orders based on grounds specified in section 1447(c); remands based on other grounds may be reviewed.

That obstacle cleared, the court turned to the question of whether review is by writ or appeal. Here, the court departs from its prior line of rulings, which held that review was by way of writ, because the intervening SCOTUS case of Quackenbush v. Allstate Insurance Co. (1996) 517 U.S. 706, undercut the rationale of the Ninth Circuit’s prior cases. Remand orders resulting from a refusal to exercise supplemental jurisdiction are reviewable by appeal.

Besides a pretty good discussion about the scope of section 1447(d), DWR v. Powerex is worth reading for its explanation of intra-circuit stare decisis; that is, when can a panel depart from circuit precedent that has not been overruled by an en banc decision in the circuit?

At issue was the meaning of a lease provision that determined the maximum rent for the extended term. The landlord, who prevailed at the bench trial, contended that the court’s interpretation of the lease was governed by substantial evidence review because there was conflicting opinion testimony on the meaning of the lease provision.

Sound disingenuous to you? Me, too, and the court isn’t buying it, either:

We review a trial court’s construction of a lease de novo as long as there was no conflicting extrinsic evidence admitted to assist in determining the meaning of the language. [Citation.] If a lease provision is ambiguous, parol evidence may be admitted as to the parties’ intentions if the language is reasonably susceptible to a suggested interpretation. [Citation.] If there is conflicting evidence necessitating a determination of credibility, we use the substantial evidence test. [Citation.]

Here, not only was there no conflicting extrinsic evidence, there was no extrinsic evidence at all as to the intent of the parties about paragraph 3. Defendant points to testimony of the parties’ “differing interpretations of the lease.” But an interpretation of the lease is not the same as evidence of intent when negotiating or executing the lease, and there was no evidence of the latter. Thus, we construe the meaning of the lease de novo.

But the court does buy the trial court’s interpretation of the lease, so the landlord wins anyway.

(Yes, this case is old . . . by blogging standards, anyway. I turned up this post in my drafts queue.)

Of course, your appendix on appeal does have a function (though I can understand how the temptation to write that line was irresistible to Professor Childress).  But the larger point remains: proof your appendix as carefully as you do your brief.

In People v. Logsdon, case no. G038366 (4th Dist. May 28, 2008, ordered published June 24, 2008), the defendant contended that the officer following him on an otherwise nearly deserted street in the middle of the night lacked cause to stop his vehicle after defendant crossed several lanes of traffic without signaling. Defendant contended that in the absence of other traffic, his unsignaled lane change was a safe move.

He forgot about the patrol car following him! The court holds that the officer who made the stop constituted traffic that needed warning of the lane change.

There’s an interesting angle to this case from an appellate perspective and from a writing perspective.

Writing first. When the defendant claimed that the patrol car was too far away to be affected by the unsignaled lane change — as evidenced by the fact that the officer neither braked nor swerved — the court discounted thre argument with an unintentionally (?) funny choice of words to explain that the defendant’s lane change did not actually have to alter the patrol car’s course to be unsafe (emphasis added): “Actual impact is not required by the statute; potential effect triggers the signal requirement.” Glad to know a collision isn’t required.

Next, the appellate angle. The trial court found that defendant’s lane change affected a car traveling about 100 feet behind him (apparently referring to the patrol car) and decided not to disturb the ruling without resolving the issue of whether it was a factual finding or a discretionary one (emphasis in original):

The trial court found that a vehicle within 100 feet of Logdon’s car, traveling in the same lane and at the same speed, was affected by the lane change. Moreover, the Legislature has declared its opinion that vehicle signals are needed within 100 feet of any turn. (See Veh. Code, § 22108.) Whether this finding is a discretionary finding or a finding of fact, we must accept this one. Factual findings are to be accepted if substantial evidence can be found in the record to support them [citation], and discretionary rulings must be upheld unless an abuse of that discretion is shown. (See People v. Bishop (1993) 14 Cal.App.4th 203, 212-213 [abuse-of-discretion standard appropriate when lower court “is in the best position to determine the genuineness and effectiveness of the showing . . . .”].) Under either standard, we must accept this finding.

Before you do battle over the nature of a finding and thus the applicable standard of review, make sure the distinction makes a difference.

In Picklesimer, the court of appeal dismisses an appeal because the appeal is taken from an order denying the defendant’s post-conviction motion for relief from the sex offender registration requirements, which the trial court denied on the ground that it lacked jurisdiction to grant the requested relief.  The court of appeal agrees that the trial court lacked jurisdiction because the motion was not made until after the judgment of conviction became final on the prior appeal from the judgment, and thus the appeal must be dismissed because the order did not affect the defendant’s substantial rights.

A criminal defendant may appeal from “any order made after judgment, affecting the substantial rights of the party.” (§ 1237, subd. (b).) Because the trial court lacked jurisdiction to grant the relief requested by defendant, the order denying defendant’s motion did not affect his substantial rights and was not appealable. (See People v. Chlad (1992) 6 Cal.App.4th 1719, 1725-1726 [because trial court lacked jurisdiction to modify sentence, order denying motion to modify was not an appealable postjudgment order].) The appeal must be dismissed.

It seems to me that this effectively makes appealability dependent on the outcome of the appeal.  The court of appeal’s reasoning suggests that had defendant prevailed on appeal by showing that the trial court had jurisdiction to entertain his motion — or even if he had lost on substantive grounds following a determination that jurisdiction existed — the order would have been appealable.

Thus, I think it would be a grave mistake for defense counsel to read Picklesimer to prohibit appeals from orders denying post-conviction motions on jurisdictional grounds.  The way I read it, appeal is only prohibited if the trial court was correct about its lack of jurisdiction.  And the only way you’ll find that out for sure is if you . . . appeal.

In Hearns v. San Bernardino Police Department, case no 05-56214 (9th Cir. July 1, 2008), neither the parties nor the trial court got it right. Believing his deadline to appeal an order dismissing his compaint had already passed, Plaintiff filed a Rule 60(b)(6) motion for relief from the order.  The district court denied the motion, but granted a 10-day extension of time to appeal.  After plaintiff appealed, defendants cross-appealed the order granting the extension.

Clearly, all of the parties and the district court thought that the extension was necessary.

It wasn’t! Plaintiff’s appeal was timely even without the extension, and the Ninth therefore dismisses the cross-appeal as moot.

Determining the deadline to appeal is the very first thing I do when talking to a client – even before I determine whether the order is appealable — because the consequences of missing it are so severe.  This is especially important in California state court, where the deadline is jurisdictional.  This is why readers who click on the “Need a Lawyer on Appeal?” link at the top right of this blog are directed to a page with big, bold, capital, red letters near the top telling them to “act fast!”

UPDATE (7/1/08): As if to prove my point, the Third District Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal yesterday because the notice of appeal was untimely.  See California Appellate Law for details.

The ADA fee provision makes fees discretionary, but that has led to a practice of awarding fees to defendants only where the plaintiff’s case is frivolous.  The CDPA, on the other hand, makes fees recoverable by the “prevailing party.”  Since liability is coextensive – a violation of the ADA is a violation of the CDPA  -  the   federal provision wins out.

From an appellate angle, the interesting thing about the case is that the court addressed the preemption issue even though it was not raised in the district court.  Because it is an issue of law, the Ninth Circuit had discretion to consider the issue for the first time on appeal.

More interesting yet, this wasn’t the first time a district court missed the issue.  The defendants cited two district court opinions that awarded fees to prevailing defendants sued under both the ADA and the CDPA, but the Ninth cites a major flaw in both of them: “Neither of these cases, however, considered the issue of preemption.”  The Ninth finds a third district court decision consistent with its own, but even that decision failed to address preemption.

I suppose it’s easy to say that at least one of the lawyers or judges in these three cases should have seen and dealt with the preemption issue.  But in the the throes of litigation, the parties and the court sometimes miss an issue that later seems obvious in hindsight.  That can be dangerous, as the appellate court won’t always be able or inclined to address the missed issue.

California Attorney’s Fees has a good post, based on an unpublished decision filed last Monday, reminding everyone to appeal separately from a fee award in addition to any appeal from the judgment.  The appellant in the case filed an untimely notice of appeal from the judgment that did not include an appeal from the subsequent fee award, then filed an untimely notice of appeal from the fee award.  Result: untimely appeal, no jurisdiction, appeal dismissed.

In In re AFI Holding, Inc., case no. 06-56621 (9th Cir. June 17, 2008), the Ninth faces for the first time the issue of whether an order removing a trustee in an ongoing bankruptcy case is appealable, and, joining several other circuits, concludes that it is because it conclusively resolves a “discrete issue”:

Although the bankruptcy proceedings may continue, and here, in fact they have, the removal order resolves and seriously affects the substantive rights of the parties to a disinterested trustee and finally determines the discrete issue to which it is addressed—whether the bankruptcy court’s finding of a lack of disinterestedness was cause for the trustee’s removal under [11 U.S.C.]§ 324. 

See my earlier post for reference to a case that gives excellent guidance for evaluating the language of an order and the procedural posture of the bankruptcy case as aids in determining appealability.

The Court of Appeal determines that Rish waived the issue by failing to raise it.  As a matter of statutory construction, Section 2972, subdivision (d) does not impose a duty on the court to evaluate suitability for outpatient treatment sua sponte.

The court reached the issue even though it had been mooted by the trial court’s entry of a subsequent order extending Rish’s commitment for an additional one-year term and setting a hearing to address his suitability for outpatient treatment.  It found the issue “capable of repetition, yet evading review” because commitment petitions must be filed on an annual basis, making it likely the trial court would decide a new petition prior to appellate review of the prior sustained petition. 

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In People v. Arriaga, case no. S149898 (June 2, 2008), the Supreme Court explains the general scheme in a footnote:

After oral argument in this case, we were informed that defendant Arriaga died on March 14, 2008. Although defendant’s death will abate his appeal (see e.g., In re Sheena K. (2007) 40 Cal.4th 875, 879; People v. Anzalone (1999) 19 Cal.4th 1074, 1076; People v. Dail (1943) 22 Cal.2d 642, 659), we exercise our inherent authority to retain this case for an opinion in order to resolve the recurring conflict in the Courts of Appeal regarding whether prohibited firearm enhancements should be stayed or stricken under section 12022.53. (In re Sheena K., supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 879.)

Cope pled guilty to a single count of possession of child pornography and was sentenced to 120 months imprisonment and lifetime supervised release. His plea agreement stated that he waived appeal of his sentence so long as it met three criteria. On appeal, he challenged the length of his supervised release

The court walks you right through the steps, applying these rules:

• The waiver of a statutory right to appeal is reviewed de novo.
• A knowing and voluntary waiver of statutory rights to appeal a sentence is valid.
• The scope of a waiver in a plea agreement is subject to the same rules of interpretation as used for any other contract (at least, “for the most part”).
• Any ambiguity will be construed against the drafter (usually, the government).

It’s the last of these that allows Cope to reach the merits of his challenge to the length of his supervised release.  Because part of the language defining the scope of Cope’s waiver – which waived appeal of any sentence “within or below the range corresponding to the determined total offense level and criminal history category” – defines a non-appealable sentence in terms of criteria that apply only to the term of imprisonment, and not to the term of the supervised release, the court finds the provision ambiguous and construes it against the government:

As drafted, however, this provision cannot sensibly be applied to a term of supervised release. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, the offense level and criminal history category do not control the term of supervised release, as they do the term of imprisonment. Rather, the type of offense determines the length of the Guidelines range for the term of supervised release. See U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2(a) (Nov. 2002) (specifying supervised release range for Class C felonies); 18 U.S.C. § 3559(a)(3) (Class C felony defined as a crime with a maximum term of imprisonment between 10 and 25 years); 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(b)(2) (2003) (maximum term for Cope’s crime is 20 years). This ambiguity in the waiver provision makes it impossible for us to determine whether the prerequisites for waiver have been met with regard to Cope’s term of supervised release. Because we “steadfastly” apply the rule that “any lack of clarity” in a plea agreement should be construed against the government as drafter, [citation], we hold that this ambiguity in the waiver provision permits Cope to appeal the length of his term of supervised release.

It does Cope little good in the end, however.  While the court entertains his appeal, it affirms the lifetime supervised release.

In two cases with a local angle – both originating in neighboring Santa Barbara County and thus reaching the Supreme Court through our local Court of Appeal (Second District, Division Six) – the Supreme Court reaffirms that recusal motion determinations are reviewed only for abuse of discretion.  It rejects the justifications offered by the Court of appeal for heightened review in cases of “first impression,” capital cases, or the reviewing court’s “independent interest” in “policing conflicts of interest and addressing potential errors at the earliest opportunity”

In Haraguchi v. Superior Court (People), case no. S148207 (May 12, 2008), the Santa Barbara County deputy district attorney assigned to prosecute the accused rapist of an intoxicated victim published a novel (Intoxicating Agent) just a few months prior to the start of the trial, the heroine of which was – surprise! – a Santa Barbara County deputy district attorney prosecuting an accused rapist of an intoxicated victim.   In Hollywood v. Superior Court (People), case no. S147954 (May 12, 2008), the Santa Barbara deputy district attorney, while defendant Jesse James Hollywood (pictured) was still a fugitive, cooperated with some filmmakers making the movie Alpha Dog, about the kidnapping and murder being prosecuted in the case, by providing documents and serving as a consultant on the film.  He did so (according to him) “in the hope that the publicity would result in Hollywood’s apprehension.”

In each case, the defendant moved pursuant to Penal Code section 1424 to recuse not just the assigned deputy DA, but the entire Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s office.  In each case, the trial court denied the motion on the ground that no conflict warranting recusal was present. In each case, the Court of Appeal reversed, and in doing so invoked “independent review” of the ruling instead of the usual review for abuse of discretion.  And finally, in each case, the Supreme Court reverses the Court of Appeal and reaffirms that recusal motion determinations are reviewed only for abuse of discretion.

In Haraguchi, the Court of Appeal justified departing from the normal standard of review on the ground that the “novel circumstances” of the case made it one of first impression and because the court had an independent interest in policing conflicts of interest and correcting errors at the earliest possible stage of the proceedings,  In Hollywood, the court offered the additional justification that the death penalty potential of the case justified heightened review.  The Supreme Court makes quick work of all three proffered rationale.

It rejects the “first impression” justification because it “offers no clear boundaries”:

With respect to this case being a matter of first impression, we note that virtually every case is, to a greater or lesser degree, a matter of first impression.  The difference between each new set of facts and those that previously have been ruled upon may be small and immaterial or large and momentous.  Where on the continuum a new set of facts lies is to some extent in the eye of the beholder; a court of a mind to reverse may always point to those elements of a case that it views as distinguishing and on that basis assert the issue is a matter of first impression.

It rejects the “independent interest” rationale because the interest is not furthered by independent review:

The Court of Appeal’s concerns do not, however, support a change in the standard of review.  The assertion that pretrial review should be de novo rests on the unspoken assumption that independent review will reduce the rate of error — that appellate courts given a free hand to weigh the evidence and disregard trial court findings will reverse erroneous rulings and eliminate error more often than they reverse correct rulings and thereby introduce error.  That assumption is unfounded.  We review rulings on motions to recuse only for abuse of discretion precisely because trial courts are in a better position than appellate courts to assess witness credibility, make findings of fact, and evaluate the consequences of a potential conflict in light of the entirety of a case, a case they inevitably will be more familiar with than the appellate courts that may subsequently encounter the case in the context of a few briefs, a few minutes of oral argument, and a cold and often limited record.

In Hollywood, it rejects the notion that the potential for the death penalty justifies departure from the “abuse of discretion” standard of review, because that rationale likewise rests on an unfounded proposition that de novo review will reduce the frequency of error:

The punishment at issue in capital cases makes it all the more important to ensure fairness and arrive at accurate outcomes.  But nothing in the Court of Appeal’s proposed de novo standard of review promotes those twin goals.  For recusal motions in noncapital cases, we give trial courts primacy in fact finding and in assessing whether and how great a conflict exists not because the stakes are less and errors more conscionable, but because our trial courts are genuinely in the best position “to assess witness credibility, make findings of fact, and evaluate the consequences of a potential conflict in light of the entirety of a case, a case they inevitably will be more familiar with than the appellate courts that may subsequently encounter the case in the context of a few briefs, a few minutes of oral argument, and a cold and often limited record.” (Haraguchi v. Superior Court, supra, __ Cal.4th at p. ___ [at p. 7].)  Nothing about these circumstances suggests to us that de novo review of recusal motions in capital cases would increase either the accuracy or the fairness of these proceedings.  The same point answers the Court of Appeal’s concern about reducing the likelihood of belated reversal later on in the lengthy capital appeal process; we have no basis on which to conclude independent review would reduce the risk of error.  We therefore conclude that in capital cases, as in all others, the trial courts’ rulings should be reviewed only for an abuse of discretion.

Applying the abuse of discretion standard of review, the Supreme Court finds that neither trial court erred in finding the absence of a conflict requiring recusal.

UPDATE (5/13/08): I’m guessing I’m the only guy geeky enough to focus on the standard of review employed in these high-profile cases.  For less geeky coverage, see these reports from the AP, WSJ.com Law Blog, New York Times, and Los Angeles Times,

This was a public nuisance case brought by the People against the owners of a downtown motel under the “Red Light Abatement Law” to abate prostitution activity at the motel. The court entered a permanent injunction, and by stipulation the People were given an extended time to apply for fees and costs. The owners appealed from the permanent injunction, and while the appeal was pending, the People moved for and were awarded fees and costs. The court ordered an “amended judgment” that not only added the award for fees and costs, but

apparently changes some of the language in the prior judgment. The amended judgment appears to contain substantive changes beyond the insertion of the amounts awarded for attorney fees, investigative costs and court costs. For example, the amended judgment purports to add language that “[a]ny future costs relating to enforcement and/or modification of the [j]udgment shall also be recoverable by [respondent] in a sum according to proof.”

The owners filed an “amended notice of appeal” from the “amended judgment,” which the court liberally construed as a notice of appeal from the order awarding fees and costs.

Now, there’s no question the court had power to entertain and rule on the motion for fees. The other amendments to the judgment? Well, not so much:

The trial court acted in excess of its subject matter jurisdiction by entering an amended judgment modifying the terms of the permanent injunction after a notice of appeal had been filed. In Holtum v. Grief (1904) 144 Cal. 521, 524-525, overruled on another point in Phelan v. Superior Court (1950) 35 Cal.2d 363, 371, our Supreme Court said: “The decisions of this court are numerous and uniform to the effect that a judgment or order once regularly entered can be reviewed and set aside only in the modes prescribed by statute. If they have been entered prematurely or by inadvertence, they may be set aside on a proper showing [citation], and if the order as entered is not the order as made, the minutes may be corrected so as to make them speak the truth [citation], but subject to these exceptions the order is reviewable only on appeal, and the decision of the trial court having been once made after regular submission of the motion its power is exhausted–it is functus officio. [Citations.]” (Accord, Fallon v. Superior Court (1939) 33 Cal.App.2d 48, 52-53; see also Stevens v. Superior Court (1936) 7 Cal.2d 110, 113-114; APRI Ins. Co. v. Superior Court (1999) 76 Cal.App.4th 176, 185.)

One thing I like about this case is that it invokes a 104-years-old case without a hint of self-consciousness — and the quotation from that case invokes earlier, but undisclosed, authorities. Sometimes, an old case is the only one — or at least the best one — you’ve got. So long as it’s still good law, use it.

I covered the relevant holding regarding appellate jurisdiction in my original coverage:

The two defendants challenging their sentences in this case claimed that the trial court erred even though the sentences imposed were within the ranges stipulated in their respective plea agreements made under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(c)(1)(C). Both defendants contended that the trial court’s miscalculation under the sentencing guidelines and its failure to consider all section 3553 factors led it to impose higher sentences than it otherwise should have, and thus the sentences, even though they were within the ranges stipulated in the plea agreements, were “in violation of law,” which would make them appealable under Title 18 United States Code section 3742(a)(1).

The Ninth disagrees, holding that even if the trial court miscalculated the guidelines or erred in applying section 3553, section 3742 does not confer appellate jurisdiction over an appeal from a sentence that is within the range stipulated in a Rule 11 plea agreement. The court points out that the agreements permitted the trial court “full discretion to impose a sentence” within the stipulated range, and thus the defendants received the benefit of their bargains regardless of where in that range they were sentenced.

The Ninth has previously held that a sentence within the statutory guidelines may be reviewed if it is challenged as “unreasonable” under application of section 3553 factors. However, the court refuses to apply the same rule to sentences within the stipulated guidelines of a plea agreement, effectively holding that section 3553 does not apply to stipulated sentencing ranges, at least where the plea agreement does not explicitly require it.

The amended opinion holds that the court has jurisdiction to hear the appeal because a Rule 11 plea in itself deprive the court of appeals of jurisdiction and the defendants did not explicitly waive their appeal rights in their plea agreements.

In yesterday’s In re Valerie W., case no. D051056 (4th Dist., Apr. 4, 2008, ordered published Apr. 21, 2008), in which appellants sought reversal of judgments terminating their parental rights, the minors’ counsel asked the court of appeal to take post-judgment evidence, in the form of her declaration, pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 909. Section 909 is a little dense in form (it would benefit from being set forth in subdivisions), but worth reading in full (emphasis added):

In all cases where trial by jury is not a matter of right or where trial by jury has been waived, the reviewing court may make factual determinations contrary to or in addition to those made by the trial court. The factual determinations may be based on the evidence adduced before the trial court either with or without the taking of evidence by the reviewing court. The reviewing court may for the purpose of making the factual determinations or for any other purpose in the interests of justice, take additional evidence of or concerning facts occurring at any time prior to the decision of the appeal, and may give or direct the entry of any judgment or order and may make any further or other order as the case may require. This section shall be liberally construed to the end among others that, where feasible, causes may be finally disposed of by a single appeal and without further proceedings in the trial court except where in the interests of justice a new trial is required on some or all of the issues.

Counsel must be careful not to be drawn in by the “liberally construed” language. By the terms of the section, such liberal construction is to be afforded “except where in the interests of justice a new trial is required on some or all of the issues.” The rule is even stricter than this wording suggests, for the exception proves to be the rule, as the Valerie W. opinion makes clear:

The court in Zeth S. set forth the general rule that:

” ‘[A]n appeal reviews the correctness of a judgment as of the time of its rendition,
upon a record of matters which were before the trial court for its consideration.’
[Citation.] This rule reflects an ‘essential distinction between the trial and the
appellate court . . . that it is the province of the trial court to decide questions of
fact and of the appellate court to decide questions of law. . . .’ [Citation.] The rule
promotes the orderly settling of factual questions and disputes in the trial court,
provides a meaningful record for review, and serves to avoid prolonged delays on
appeal. ‘Although appellate courts are authorized to make findings of fact on
appeal by Code of Civil Procedure section 909 and rule 23 of the California Rules
of Court, the authority should be exercised sparingly. [Citation.] Absent
exceptional circumstances, no such findings should be made. [Citation.]‘
[Citations.]” (Zeth S., supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 405, italics added.

Bottom line: appellate counsel cannot rely on the mandated liberal construction of section 909 without first demonstrating that the case is an exceptional one where the interests of justice do not require the trial court to hear and decied the factual issues.  That will usually be difficult.

People v. Dobson, case no. F053531 (5th Dist. Apr. 16, 2008) teaches the limits of Wende. Dobson was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a state mental hospital. Six years later, he was released to outpatient status briefly before the court granted a petition to revoke his outpatient status. Dobson then petitioned for release on the ground of regained sanity and lost.

Dobson appealed, and his appointed counsel on appeal filed a Wende brief asking the court of appeal to independently review the record. The issue decided by the court here is whether they are required to conduct such an independent review under the circumstances.

The court of appeal concludes an independent review of the record is not mandated by Wende and dismisses the appeal. A petition for release is not a criminal proceeding, and the due process protections nonetheless present make an erroneous decision sufficiently unlikely that an independent review isn’t warranted.

There’s more to the analysis, of course, and the case serves as a pretty good primer on the test for evaluating when independent review is necessary.

Grissom pled guilty to one drug distribution count involving 49 grams of cocaine base in exchange for dismissal of the remaining two counts, which involved a total of 56 grams of cocaine base. The government contended that the trial court erred by not including the drug quantities from the dismissed counts in the calculation of the base offense level.

The district judge announced his reasoning for imposing an 87-month sentence –  including her decision not to include the drug quantities from the dismissed counts — and asked if there was any legal cause why sentence should not be imposed. Then:

The government responded, “No, your honor. I would simply note the government’s objection on the record.” At that point, the court stated, “I know. You know what you can do with that. Take it to appellate court, if that’s what you want to do. I don’t think it’s worth it myself, but that’s something you have to decide.”

Ordinarily, to preserve a sentencing objection for appeal, it “must have a specific substantive basis” in order to apprise the district court of the specific nature of the objection for its due consideration. Here’s the dilemma faced by the Ninth:

But what happens when the district court indicates that it has understood, and rejected, the substance of a party’s objection? This case presents the issue of forfeiture in novel circumstances. Neither party disputes that the government objected to the sentence imposed on Grissom. Before the government articulated a basis for its objection, however, the district court stated “I know[,]” and the government pursued the matter no further. The government now contends that its own general objection, coupled with the district court’s terse statement, reflects that the district court was fully aware of the government’s legal position regarding relevant conduct.

It turns out to be not such a dilemma after all, as the court looks past the facially deficient objection to find that the government had made its position plain throughout the sentencing process:

Despite the seeming facial inadequacy of the objection, we agree with the government that where the district court indicates that it understands the basis for the objection and that further argument is not desired, and the record reflects this understanding, a general objection may suffice to preserve an issue for appeal. As the government argues, the purpose of a specific objection is to allow for meaningful review by the district court and, if necessary, the appellate panel. Santiago, 466 F.3d at 803. Thus, the court’s reassurance that it “know[s]” the substance of a party’s complaint helps to allay concerns about the ability of the district court to address it. Cf. United States v. Pineiro, 470 F.3d 200, 204-05 (5th Cir. 2006) (concluding that the government preserved its objection to recalculating the defendant’s sentence by making statements throughout the sentencing hearing arguing that the prior calculations were still appropriate); United States v. Curry, 461 F.3d 452, 459 (4th Cir. 2006) (excusing the government’s failure to object at the end of the sentencing colloquy where the government argued vigorously throughout the hearing, such that it “made unmistakably clear its position”).

Reviewing the record, we are satisfied that the district court was indeed fully aware of the government’s position regarding the district court’s calculation of relevant conduct. First, the government consistently advanced its view that quantities of crack cocaine from the dismissed counts of the indictment should count for sentencing purposes. The plea agreement, PSR, and both parties’ sentencing memoranda all calculated Grissom’s offense level based on the total amount, 105 grams, rather than the 49 grams charged in the count of conviction. Neither party challenged this calculation at the sentencing hearing. Second, the district court’s comments indicate an awareness that its decision not to consider the amount from the dismissed counts produced the government’s objection. After commenting that determining the calculation based on 105 grams would not “amount to dismissing the other two [counts] because [the government would] still . . . count them out anyway[,]” the district court changed the base offense level to “reflect[ ] the 49 grams.” In short, the district court knew it was deviating from a calculation based on the total amount. Responding to the government’s objection, the district court challenged the government to “take it to appellate court, if that’s what you want to do.” The district court’s challenge to the government to appeal strongly suggests the district court recognized and disagreed with the claimed error. Therefore, we hold that the government’s objection was sufficient under the circumstances to preserve its objection to the district court’s calculation of Grissom’s sentence.

Bottom line: what matters is not so much the actual presentation of the objection, but whether the record discloses that the district court was well-enough advised of the nature of the objection that it could give it due consideration.

In Warner Bros. Int’l v. Golden Channel, case no. 05-55374 (Apr. 15, 2008), the Ninth Circuit panel takes a shortcut. The appeal is from the judgment after a bench trial and the only reference the opinion makes to any standard of review is this: “In light of the findings of fact and words of the contract the parties signed, the conclusions of law (which are not reviewed under the highly deferential “clearly erroneous” standard [fn.]) are problematic.” That’s it. The court says what standard it is not applying, but doesn’t specify what standard it is applying. You have to go to the case cited in the footnote to be certain that the court is applying de novo review to the conclusions of law reached by the district court.

Maybe I’m making too big a deal of this. Everyone knows conclusions of law are subject to de novo review, right? Well, we know the standard of review in lots of other circumstances, too. But that doesn’t usually stop the court from reminding us.

Of course, the standard of review isn’t always so easy. It can be downright tricky and even disputed by the parties.

A great starting point for anyone representing a party on appeal in the Ninth Circuit is the court’s own guide to standards of review, which it makes available on its website (PDF download). Follow the court’s caution, though, and use it only as a starting point for your own research.

In yesterday’s Daily Journal, Staff Reporter John Roemer has a front-page article about an apparent surge in en banc rehearings granted by the Ninth Circuit since Alex Kozinski became Chief Judge. (Full disclosure: yours truly is quoted in the article.)

Are the two phenomena related? Not according to Judge Kozinski, whom the article quotes:

“I’ve always been more en banc friendly than many of my colleagues,” he wrote in the e-mail. “But I frankly doubt that my being chief judge will have any effect on the process. I’ve had my share of successes as well as failures when calling for en banc review.

“There are not – and should not be – extra points for being chief judge. It is not a bully pulpit, nor is it a platform for proliferation of my substantive views .”

Roemer provides interesting background on Judge Kozinski’s history of fervent advocacy for en banc review, including a colorful description of his frequent dissents from orders denying rehearing en banc as “prose hand grenades lobbed to blast the court away from the status quo.” I think Judge Kozinski would approve.

It seems possible, at least, that the judges may be more willing to take on en banc rehearings since last July, when it reverted to 11-member en banc panels after a brief experiment with 15-member panels. That would make a greater number of en bancs more manageable. But I don’t have any information on whether en bancs went down during the roughly 18 months they required 15-member panels, so I have no idea if the size of the panel is affecting the judges’ thinking.

For anyone considering petitioning for rehearing en banc, the article contains some sobering numbers: 1,097 petitions for rehearing en banc were filed in 2007, and through November, only 18 had been granted. That’s less than 2%.

By the way, Judge Kozinski is the subject of the cover article in April’s California Lawyer.

What to make of the district court’s intent when its order dismissing a complaint does not specify whether or not leave to amend is granted? In Mendiondo v. Centinela Hospital, case no. 06-55981 (9th Cir. Apr. 1, 2008), the Ninth Circuit notes that failure to address amendment means that the court denied leave to amend. Accordingly, it infers that the district court intended the order to finally dispose of the action, and that it has jurisdiction over an appeal from the order under section 1291.

My original post about the case concerned what some might consider a procedural oddity: a new trial motion where no trial ever occurred. A new trial motion is validly made after a grant of summary judgment.

Here are the remaining points I think worth bringing out of the case:

The Protective Cross Appeal. Congratulations, you’ve won your new trial motion! Your adversary appeals the grant of a new trial. And if you think you’re going to be disappointed if they prevail on appeal, you’re going to be absolutely horrified if you forgot to file a protective cross-appeal from the underlying judgment.

Forfeiture of Evidentiary Objections. California decisions generally hold that objections to evidence offered in summary judgment are not preserved for appeal unless the objecting party secures a ruling from the trial court. But with the recent development of a split of authority, the Supreme Court has agreed to review the issue.

Affirmance of New Trial Orders on Alternative Grounds. Read that new trial statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 657) closely. Section 657 provides, in part, that (emphasis added) “[o]n appeal from an order granting a new trial the order shall be affirmed if it should have been granted upon any ground stated in the motion, whether or not specified in the order or specification of reasons,” followed by exceptions to this rule.

One of the points Ben raises is that there is no lateral stare decisis in the California Court of Appeal. One district is free to depart from a decision from another district, or even from prior decisions from other panels in the same district.

As I pointed out in a recent post, you can take on adverse Court of Appeal precedent no matter how squarely it seems to hold against you. A Court of Appeal is free to depart from a case that is wrongly decided, and might even be hoping for you to give them a good reason to do so.

NOTE: Somehow this post got marked “private,” so I’m not sure it ever showed up on the blog before.  But it’s possible it was posted for a while befopre it got marked “private,” in case you’re looking for an explanation for any deja vu you’re experiencing.)

Several weeks ago, I reported on Adaimy v. Ruhl, case no. B193745 (2d Dist. Feb. 28, 2008), in which the court of appeal held that serving just one of multiple attorneys representing a party with a notice of entry of an order denying a motion for new trial suffices to trigger the deadline to appeal.  In this order modifying the opinion without change in the judgment and denying rehearing, the court tacks two paragraphs on to its original opinion that lead me to the question posed in the title of this post.

Though the original opinion refers to an August 7, 2006 “notice of entry of the order” denying the appellant’s new trial motion, the modified opinion refers to a document of the same date titled “Ruling on Submitted Matter,” apparently the same document.  The generic reference has some significance in the context of the new argument that the court quickly disposes of.

Appellant claimed that the “Ruling on Submitted Matter” was not a notice of entry of order within the meaning of rule 8.108(b)(1)(A), California Rules of Court (extending the time to appeal to 30 days after notice of entry of order denying new trial) because it was not titled “Notice of Entry of Order” and was not file-stamped with the date of entry.

The court notes, however, that the words “Notice of Entry of Order” appear at page 6 of the document.  That’s enough.  But is that necessary?  Rule 8.108(b)(1)(A) triggers the deadline for appealing from the service of “an order denying the motion or a notice of entry of that order.”  It’s hard to say exactly what this document was comprised of, but I’m guessing that the “Ruling on Submitted Matter” was not the order itself, but a document with the order attached. If it were simply the order itself, it seems the court could have found it sufficient to trigger the appeal deadline regardless of the presence of the words “notice of entry.”

As for the missing file stamp, the court notes that while a file-stamp must appear on any copy of the judgment served in lieu of a notice of entry of judgment (rule 8.104(a)(1)), there is no such requirement under rule 8.108 for notice of entry or a copy of the order denying a new trial.

The plaintiff association prevailed at trial, getting an injunction requiring the defendant to comply with covenants, conditions and restrictions and architectural guidelines by modifying a structure on their property.  So far so good, but the judgment also required the homeowners association to pay two-thirds of the cost, so long as certain conditions were met. So when the defendant appealed, the association cross-appealed, arguing that the court was wrong to make it responsible for costs in moving the gate.

The association then asserted — apparently in its briefs, since the court does not mention a motion — that its appeal was moot because the defendant had not timely met the conditions triggering the association’s obligation to pay. In light of this contention, the association apparently asked the court of appeal to rule that the association no longer had an obligation to pay because the time for satisfying the conditions had passed.  The reasons the court gives for declining to do so should have been anticipated by the association:

Plaintiff asserts that its appeal “is apparently moot” because defendants did not timely elect to move the gate back at least 20 feet from the property line, and asks for a “clarification of the effect of the passage of [the] time lines” set out in the judgment. We decline to do so. There is nothing in the record to show what occurred after judgment was entered with respect to the gate. Nor do we give advisory opinions. [Citation.]

The Ninth originally remanded with instructions to strike a conviction and sentence on count four and for the court to determine if it would have imposed the same sentence if it had known that the sentencing guidelines were advisory rather than mandatory.  The district court struck the conviction and sentence on count four, declared it would have imposed the same sentence had it considered the guidelines advisory only, but then substantially increased the sentence on count three.

Where this court expressly limits the scope of remand, the district court is without authority to reexamine other sentencing issues on remand. United States v. Pimentel, 34 F.3d 799, 800 (9th Cir. 1994). In this case, the district court exceeded its authority when it increased Davis’s sentence on count three. We therefore vacate Davis’s sentence and instruct the district court to reimpose his original sentence, except that no sentence shall be imposed on count four. No adjustment shall be made with respect to any other count.

As if worried that didn’t get the point across, the opinion finishes by noting the case is remanded “for the sole purpose of resentencing as provided in this opinion. ”

Point made.  By the way, Davis is a wonderfully succinct opinion that is barely longer than this post.

I haven’t tried it out with an actual brief yet, but it looks pretty straightforward. I’ll be able to try it out in a week or two and will report on it then.

Hat Tip: Jeffrey Lewis at Nota Bene.

The order at issue is an order unsealing documents related to a plea agreement.  The order rather obviously meets both criteria for review under the collateral order doctrine because it “conclusively decides an issue” and “it is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment,” both for the same reason: once secret documents are made public, there’s no going back.

Judge O’Scannlain, joined by five other judges, dissents from the order denying rehearing en banc, and Chief Judge Kozinski writes a second — and very brief — dissent to highlight Judge O’Scannlain’s criticism of the “smell test” that the district court explicitly applied in granting the motion to dismiss. It’s hard to say how sarcastic the district court was when it made that remark on the record, but Chief Judge Kozinski writes: “A test based on the olfactory apparatus of each district judge, rather than on well-defined and closely cabined legal standards, would give the district courts far too much say over who gets prosecuted and when.”

Clever, but initially I thought that was a bit over the top. After all, the panel did not defer to the district court’s discretion; it adopted a de novo standard for reviewing an order dismissing the indictment on the ground of prosecutorial vindictiveness, then set about a very detailed review of the facts and law. Neither Judge O’Scannlain nor Chief Judge Kozinski take issue with the panel adopting a de novo standard of review, but both appear to believe that the analysis the panel conducted under that standard doesn’t improve much — if at all — on the district court’s “smell test.”

(Public domain image courtesy of United States Fish & Wildlife Service.)

UPDATE (3/6/08): Robert Loblaw at Decision of the Day “smells” a law review article to be spawned from the case.

UPDATE #2 (3/6/08): I noticed after posting the first update that the type offset caused by the photo may have made it look like the excerpt from Judge Kozinski’s opinion (which was intended to be in a block quote format) was my writing. I’ve removed it from the block quote and placed it in quotation marks to clear that up.

Ninth Circuit Blog’s post concludes that there’s advantage to be had from ambiguity:

Come to think of it, if the federal judiciary is increasingly hostile to the rights of criminal (and particularly, indigent) defendants, maybe plurality decisions are good things. After all, an exploitable ambiguity is far better than a clear defense defeat. If that’s the case, keep up the good work, Supremes and Ninth!

Correction (3/3/08): The post addresses Supreme Court plurality opinions as well as en banc Court of Appeals decisions.

Notwithstanding such a request, the court of appeal holds in Adaimy v. Ruhl, case no. B193745 (2d Dist. Feb. 28, 2008) that the mailing of notice of entry of judgment to just one of multiple firms representing a party triggers the deadline for that party to file its notice of appeal.

Adaimy claimed the notice of entry of the order denying his new trial motion was ineffective, thus giving him 180 days from the date of entry of judgment to file his notice of appeal (rather than the shorter period of 30 days from notice of entry). (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.108(a).) The court finds, however, that as long as one of Adaimy’s attorneys received notice, it was effective notice and due process was satisfied. Adaimy thus had only 30 days to file his notice of appeal. Since he filed it on the 31st day, his appeal is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

A costly lesson in the jurisdictional nature of the notice of appeal.

I got to thinking about the complexity of the abuse of discretion standard again when I read a post last week at Legal Writing Prof Blog concerning an oft-quoted definition of the standard from the Fourth Circuit. The post was meant to be amusing, but the quoted definition actually struck me as not too bad. Certainly no worse than the description in Ticconi v. Blue Shield, case no. B190427 (2d Dist. Feb. 27, 2008), in which the court described the abuse of discretion standard in the context of an appeal from an order denying class certification:

“Because trial courts are ideally situated to evaluate the efficiencies and practicalities of permitting group action, they are afforded great discretion in granting or denying certification. The denial of certification to an entire class is an appealable order [citations], but in the absence of other error, a trial court ruling supported by substantial evidence generally will not be disturbed ‘unless (1) improper criteria were used [citation]; or (2) erroneous legal assumptions were made [citation]’ [citation]. Under this standard, an order based upon improper criteria or incorrect assumptions calls for reversal ‘ “even though there may be substantial evidence to support the court’s order.” ’ [Citations.] Accordingly, we must examine the trial court’s reasons for denying class certification. ‘Any valid pertinent reason stated will be sufficient to uphold the order.’ [Citation.]” [Citations.]

It looks to me like there are several standards of review buried in there..

According to this definition, discretion can abused by the court’s employment of an improper legal assumption or improper criteria. That is an improper application of the law. Such questions are usually subject to de novo review. After all, you can’t give a court discretion to apply the wrong law.

Also according to the definition, the court abuses its discretion if it relies on a factual premise for which there is no substantial evidence. So, the substantial evidence standard must be used to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion by relying on a faulty factual premise.

It seems that the true abuse of discretion standard only comes into play after the court of appeal has determined by de novo review that the court employed the proper legal standards and decided on the basis of substantial evidence which of the court’s factual bases are supported. Then, the court can start from that point and determine whether the trial court abused its discretion.

I think Ticconi bears out my thinking, or at least the first stage of it. The court finds that the court analyzed class certification under a mistaken view of the substantive law underlying the claim. Since that mistaken view of the law led it to consider factors that it should not have considered, and to fail to consider facts that it should have, the court remands with instructions to reconsider the class certification motion in light of the correct law and factors for consideration.

In Planned Parenthood v. American Coalition, case no. 06-35733 (Feb. 11, 2008), we see an example in the context of a federal requirement; specifically, where the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure impose an obligation ot the Court of Appeals and the court fails to honor it.

The rule at issue is FRAP 37(b), which provides that “[i]f the court modifies or reverses a judgment with a direction that a money judgment be entered in the district court, the mandate must contain instructions about the allowance of interest.” In a previous appeal in the case, the Ninth reversed a punitive damages award as violative of due process and remanded for retrial unless the creditors accepted the judgment with a reduced punitive damages component, but the court failed to include in its mandate the date on which interest started to accrue on the judgment. The trial court entered a new judgment allowing for accrual of post-judgment interest as of the date of the original judgment.

The Ninth holds that failure to specify a judgment accrual date where required by FRAP 37(b) precludes a district court from entering the newly mandated judgment with interest accruing from the date of the original judgment. Interest accrues from the date where the amount of the judgment is “meaningfully ascertained.” and this ordinarily means the date of the mandate from the Court of Appeals if the mandate directs entry of a money judgment different from that in the original judgment.

Here, however, the judgment creditors get interest from the date of the original judgment in any event. The court recognizes that its omission was inadvertent and that despite the reduction in punitive damages on remand, the creditors’ right to interest on the reduced amount had been “meaningfully ascertained” in the original trial. Accordingly, it exercises its right to recall its prior mandate and amends it to include interest from the date of the original judgment.

That said, the court makes clear that it is affording this courtesy only because its prior jurisprudence was unclear, and that litigants should treat this case as a cautionary tale:

Henceforth, we expect that litigants in this circuit will clearly understand that if we modify or reverse a judgment with a direction that a money judgment be entered in the district court, our mandate must contain instructions about the allowance of post-judgment interest. Fed. R. App. 37(b). If our mandate omits such instructions, a party that believes it is entitled to interest from a date other than the date of entry of judgment on remand must expeditiously seek reform of the mandate.

Professor Martin calls this “an entirely just and equitable opinion.” I think that’s correct. But keep the court’s caution in mind.

I think a federal court litigant in this situation can have much more peace of mind than a party in a California case involving a new trial or summary judgment situation mentioned above. A party can expect a ruling one way of the other on a motion to recall and amend the mandate. Pleas to California trial courts to rule definitively on evidentiary objections often fall on deaf ears. And a party seeking a new trial is prohibited from doing too much to facilitate the trial court’s compliance with new trial procedures. Nonetheless, this greater peace of mind only applies if the party remembers to “expeditiously seek reform of the mandate.”

Until now, the answer has generally been “no.” That’s a rule that has always rankled me because securing a ruling can be out of the objecting party’s hands. No matter how much prodding one does, the court may fail to rule.

Tom Caso at the Opening Brief pointed out this likelihood last October, when he covered a series of decisions creating a conflict on this issue in the courts of appeal.  CalBizLit posted on Friday that trial court practice as to how a court purports to rule on the objections has been “all over the map.”

It will be good to get this issue settled.  The parties have only so much control over the state of the record sometimes. (Just ask the Oakland Raiders, for an example in another context.)

In this trademark license dispute in which the district court dismissed all claims in its order compelling arbitration, the appellant had 180 days to file its notice of appeal because the district court did not enter judgment on this appealable order.  (Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7)(A)(ii).)  But the appellant waited 287 days, until the arbitration was concluded and the arbitration award was confirmed, to do so.

The appellant was probably under the mistaken belief that no appeal was allowed from the order compelling arbitration and that the order could only be challenged on appeal from an order confirming the arbitration award.  But the district court’s simultaneous dismissal of all claims made the arbitration order final for purposes of appeal.

Appellant nonetheless gets some relief in this case, as it partially succeeds on its appeal from the order confirming the arbitration award.

Once I questioned some justices about whether they look around the courtroom during oral argument to figure out who the parties [are]. If the attorney sits next to the clients, the answer is obvious. Sometimes, clients sit in the back, leaving the attorney alone to prepare for oral argument. Surprisingly, the justices admitted they had a certain curiosity as to who the participants were. More than that, there was also a curiosity as to why clients failed to show up for oral argument when the court’s decision could have a huge impact on their lives.

Her post falls short of saying how this curiosity typically impacts the thinking of a justice. Usual local practice would make it impossible for it to have a lot of impact unless the justices were willing to engage in a lot of guesswork, as I rarely see clients seated at counsel’s table. But even if the presence of clients were readily determinable, I think that this would have, at most, negligible impact — unless certain things we appellate lawyers tell ourselves and our clients about the appellate process are wrong.

The most gifted trial lawyers can make for lousy appellate lawyers — and vice versa — without tailoring their presentations for each forum. A commonly noted difference between the trial and appellate courts is that in the trial court, a lawyer tries to set a mood and may even seek to sway jurors based on emotional appeals, while the appellate lawyer’s presentation must be restricted to reason (which is not to say that the appellate lawyer cannot also tell a compelling story). Unless we’ve been kidding ourselves about this distinction, I have to think that the presence or absence of the client at oral argument is largely immaterial and impacts only the justices’ curiosity. Which may account for why Bader found this curiosity surprising.

Even more interesting to me: the order does not set out the entirety of the language to be deleted. Instead, it references the sentence to be deleted only by the beginning words in that sentence: “Lawyers should learn . . . .” Which gives you a hint that the excised language is a little snarky, and may even prompt the average reader to look up the original opinion. Which you won’t have to do if you go to California Appellate Report.