Last updated on November 4, 2021 by Tim Kowal
When settling a case after a judgment, parties sometimes explore the possibility of a stipulated reversal of the judgment. This may be an attractive option to the losing party because it essentially takes a negative judgment off the books. Unfortunately, the burden to obtain a stipulated reversal is very difficult to meet, because Code of...
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Last updated on November 3, 2021 by Tim Kowal
This will surprise appellate attorneys. The Court of Appeal in Pettie v. Amazon.com, Inc. (D4d2 Sep. 21, 2021) 2021 WL 4270631 (no. E074241) (nonpub. opn.) recently reversed an order denying a motion to compel arbitration — but not because the trial court did not cite valid grounds to deny the motion. Instead, the majority reversed because the...
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Last updated on October 28, 2021 by Tim Kowal
One of the nice things about bench trials is that there is no need for jury instructions and verdict forms, which can be very laborious to prepare. In a bench trial, instead of a verdict turned in by the jury, the parties get a statement of decision turned in by the judge. But what happens...
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Last updated on October 27, 2021 by Tim Kowal
One of the many ways the deck is stacked against appellants on an appeal has to do with the implied findings doctrine. What is the implied findings doctrine? It says that even if the appellant is absolutely correct that the trial court did, in fact, fail to make the findings necessary to support the judgment...
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Last updated on October 26, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Trial attorneys are familiar with the three common standards of appellate review: substantial evidence, abuse of discretion, and de novo. But what standard of review applies when an unsuccessful plaintiff appeals? When the plaintiff is arguing that the trial court should have found its evidence more persuasive, a fourth standard of review applies, something like...
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Last updated on October 22, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Appealability is a jurisdictional question. A jurisdictional question is one that the law answers either one way or the other, and there is nothing the court can do about it. So when a court answers a jurisdictional question with, "under the circumstances," that is a clue that something strange is going on. That is how...
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Last updated on October 19, 2021 by Tim Kowal
When a court orders a party to move out of a residence, that is a mandatory injunction, which is automatically stayed upon appeal. But if the court also orders the sale of the property, the order is stayed on appeal only if a bond is given. And if the parties later stipulate to a different...
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Last updated on October 15, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Filing an appeal is not hard. There is no particular form required. All that is needed is to identify the order you are appealing, and to file it before the deadline. But as a recent case illustrates, you might not even have to identify the right order. As long as it is filed on time,...
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Last updated on October 13, 2021 by Tim Kowal
I have written before that checking the wrong box on the Judicial Council form notice of appeal likely will not doom your appeal. But I have also written that, if you continue using the Judicial Council form, you are likely to continue giving your adversary — and the courts — cause to question the sufficiency of your...
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Last updated on October 12, 2021 by Tim Kowal
It is rare that the Court of Appeal will issue a writ instructing the trial court to grant summary judgment. But that is what happened in the published opinion in Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association v. Superior Court (D4d2 Oct. 7, 2021) ___ Cal.Rptr.3d ___ 2021 WL 4618080 (no. E076549)(https://lnkd.in/gmx5GNmi). After the defendant filed a motion for summary...
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Last updated on October 7, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Devastating trial court orders should be appealable. That is a natural assumption. And that it why it can be disconcerting to learn about appeals dismissed on grounds of nonappealability. (That is why I write about them.) But actually, the opposite may be true: When more orders are made independently appealable, it means there is more...
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Last updated on October 6, 2021 by Tim Kowal
It is not enough to appeal your case. You have to keep your case alive until the Court of Appeal has a chance to get to it. That is the lesson of Badea-Mic v. Detres (D3 Nov. 23, 2020) **no. C085459 (nonpub. opn.). The appellant appealed an order authorizing the sale of the property, but the property...
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Last updated on October 5, 2021 by Tim Kowal
There are two reasons I am surprised the Court of Appeal published the opinion in Findleton v. Coyote Valley Band of Pomo Indians (D1d2 Sep. 29, 2021) 2021 WL 4452323 nos. A156459 etc., ---- Cal.Rptr.3d ----. The first is that it holds, more forthrightly than I have seen before, that a final collateral order is treated as...
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Last updated on October 1, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Pop quiz: How much time do you get to file a motion for attorneys' fees (or a notice of appeal) after an order denying a new trial motion? a. 30 days b. 60 days after notice of entry of judgment c. 180 days after entry of judgment d. It depends on how order denying the...
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Last updated on September 30, 2021 by Tim Kowal
CEB has republished my article Excessive Interrogatories Violate the Rules of Civility, Appellate Court Says at their website as, "The Risks of Serving Too Many Interrogatories". The article is about two important but subtle rules of civil discovery in Estate of Huang (D2d4 Aug. 17, 2021) no. B307671 (nonpub. opn.). The first is that you cannot submit...
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Last updated on September 29, 2021 by Tim Kowal
When opposing a motion for summary judgment, seeking a continuance to conduct additional discovery should always be considered. A single piece of evidence may be enough to successfully oppose summary judgment, both in the trial court and on appeal, so even if you don't have that piece of evidence yet, making a record that it...
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Last updated on September 24, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Judge David O. Carter of the Central District of California made national news when he ordered Los Angeles to put up $1 billion to address its homelessness crisis. But that order was based on claims the plaintiffs did not allege, relief the plaintiffs did not request, and evidence the plaintiffs did not adduce. While trial...
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Last updated on September 23, 2021 by Tim Kowal
There are two noteworthy things about the published opinion in Strobel v. Johnson & Johnson (D1d4 Sept. 21, 2021) 2021 WL 4272711 no. A159609. First, it suggests how litigants might avoided the dreaded Sanchez rule that prevents experts from offering "case-specific hearsay" in their opinions. Second, it suggests some evidentiary rulings may be reviewed under the appellant-friendly de novo...
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Last updated on September 22, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Rarely does it give such satisfaction to report the dismissal of an appeal. A group of businesses who had benefited from local protectionism — which had prevented newer businesses from competing with the incumbents — were dismayed when the trial court struck down the protectionist scheme as unconstitutional. Though the incumbents were not parties to...
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Last updated on September 21, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Orders entered prior to a judgment typically are not appealable unless they are separately listed in Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, the statute defining what orders are appealable. One exception is for collateral orders. A collateral order an order that has nothing to do with the merits of the lawsuit. So when a collateral...
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Last updated on September 15, 2021 by Tim Kowal
There are two important reminders about motions for summary judgment in Steger v. CSJ Providence St. Joseph Medical Center (D2d5 Aug. 16, 2021) 2021 WL 3615548 no. B304043 (nonpub. opn.). The first reminder is that the appellate court may affirm on any ground, even if the trial court never reached that ground. The second reminder is that,...
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Last updated on September 14, 2021 by Tim Kowal
You probably have heard of appeals being dismissed on procedural grounds, or as frivolous. But you could practice law rather a long time and never hear of an order being summarily reversed on appeal. But that is what happened in the improbably titled case IAHLDHFAPIMP_PAP, LLC v. Noll (D4d1 Aug. 11, 2021) no. D077727 (nonpub. opn.) But don't get...
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Last updated on September 10, 2021 by Tim Kowal
In appeals from mixed discretionary and factual findings, it can be tempting to fault the trial court for failing to consider all the great evidence in the appellant's favor. But be careful not to ignore the "heavy burden" required to get review of factual questions. Failing to comprehensively evaluate the evidence against the appellant resulted in a...
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Last updated on September 8, 2021 by Tim Kowal
You may think this is obvious, but I continue to see attorneys get tripped up by this question: When an appeal from a judgment is taken, which generally stays matters in the trial court (matters that are are "embraced therein or affected thereby" (CCP § 916)), does the appeal prevent the trial court from awarding...
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Last updated on September 2, 2021 by Tim Kowal
You might know that petitions for writs of mandate filed in the California Courts of Appeal are rarely granted. And that petitions for review in the Supreme Court are granted even more rarely. But a recent case gives an idea what it looks like when they are granted. Promptly after the assignment of a judge...
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Last updated on September 1, 2021 by Tim Kowal
After a disappointing ruling, a motion for reconsideration is often tempting. It is much cheaper and faster than an appeal, and, who knows, maybe the judge really did just overlook a key fact and will correct it after taking a second look. But in the case of a final judgment having been entered, the trial...
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Last updated on August 31, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Three years and one SLAPP appeal into litigation over a commercial real estate dispute, defendants filed a second anti-SLAPP motion in in Newport Harbor Offices & Marina, LLC v. Morris Cerullo World Evangelism (D4d3 Aug. 20, 2021) 2021 WL 3700752 [no. G058687] (nonpub. opn.). But the statute says anti-SLAPP motions must be filed within 60 days...
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Last updated on August 30, 2021 by Tim Kowal
When it comes to expert evidence, the trial court may properly exclude evidence that was not actually prepared by the expert. The normal rules of evidence authentication still apply, even where experts are concerned. But when an expert wants to offer opinions based on the same unauthenticated and unadmitted evidence, excluding that opinion is an...
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Last updated on August 26, 2021 by Tim Kowal
An order of contempt is not directly appealable. (Code Civ. Proc., § 1222.) It is reviewable only by writ. But what about an order of fees following a contempt order? The statute does not provide for appellate review or writ review, and the factors for writ review just do not apply to a cost order....
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Last updated on August 25, 2021 by Tim Kowal
Closing arguments at a jury trial are critical for trial counsel because it provides the opportunity to tie together all the disparate threads presented to them during the course of the trial. But often, opposing counsel will see things very differently. And they will draw very different inferences from the evidence — and lack of...
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