On demurrer, the plaintiff saw his main claim—though not the entire case—get gutted. So the plaintiff decided to dismiss the rest of his claims and appeal. After all, you can do that in this situation.
But how you do it matters. A lot. The holding of Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants' Medical Group, Inc. (Jan. 30, 2025, No. D085025) 2025 WL 617972, as modified on denial of reh'g (Feb. 26, 2025): A voluntary dismissal—using the (mandatory) Judicial Council Request for Dismissal form—is not an appealable order.
But frankly, I don't get this one. Consider a very similar situation in Tos v. State (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 184. Just like here, the plaintiff in Tos saw his main claim gutted when the trial court denied his constitutional argument in his MJOP. So the plaintiff—just like here—decided to expedite the appeal. He filed a stipulated judgment dismissing his case. The Court of Appeal held that this was a proper appealable order because it was expressly for the purpose of expending the appeal.
So why was the stipulated (voluntary) judgment of dismissal in Tos appealable but the voluntary dismissal with prejudice in Maniago not appealable?
The Maniago court says it is because entry of a request for dismissal is "ministerial." But this is not a satisfying answer because entry of a judgment is ministerial, too—at least in the sense that the court "shall" enter it. (See Code Civ. Proc., § 664.)
Maniago also says that allowing appeals from voluntary dismissals would invite piecemeal appeals. But that is not actually true. That was the issue addressed in Tos, distinguishing a textbook case of improperly attempting manufacturing appellate jurisdiction in Kurwa v. Kislinger (2017) 4 Cal.5th 109, as modified (Jan. 31, 2018) [applying the general rule that stipulated judgments are not appealable]. The lesson of Kurwa is that the plaintiff still has to dismiss the rest of its claims with prejudice and not attempt to manufacture appellate jurisdiction: if you try to preserve the rest of your claims (via dismissal without prejudice and with a tolling agreement), that is where the court will conclude you are just “manufacturing appellate jurisdiction,” so there is no appealable order. But if you actually dismiss the rest of your claims so that all that’s left is the adverse ruling on the core issue, then your appeal is ripe. That is what happened in Tos. That is what happened in Maniago, too, yet the court's result is opposite.
Takeaway: It seems like the only practical takeaway from Maniago, then, **is not to use the form Request for Dismissal (to be signed by the clerk) when the dismissal follows an adverse ruling, but instead to submit a stipulated judgment of dismissal (to be signed by judge), like in Tos. (Email me if you’d like me to send you the stipulated dismissal from Tos.)
But if there's a reason why the Tos stipulated dismissal worked but the Maniago form dismissal didn't, I don't know what it is. I'll just be sure to remember: Don't use the form.
