Headnotes Jul. 18, 2024

Tim Kowal July 18, 2024

Here are a few cases I did not have time to write up but seemed either important or irritating enough to mention:

Tax initiative held invalid because too narrow: On the heels of the Supreme Court’s Legislature v. Weber holding that anti-tax initiative was too sweeping to be valid, the Court of Appeal held in Loeber v. Lakeside Joint School District (Jun. 24, 2024 No. H050688) [cert. for pub.] that a senior-citizen school-district tax exemption was too narrow to be valid.
No meet and confer, get sanctioned: A party and her attorney in Gordon v. Chandler (Estate of Ambrose-Gordon) (Jun. 24, 2024 No. A169189) [nonpub. opn.] were sanctioned almost $10,000 for failing to meaningfully meet and confer before filing a discovery motion. Affirmed. (Advice: Your meet and confer letters need to persuade the court that you hate having to bring the motion as much as the court hates having to read it.)
A minute order is not a statement of decision: The defendants in O'Neill v. Cara (Jul. 10, 2024 No. G062076) [nonpub. opn.] tried to impeach the judgment with something the judge said in a minute order. Nope, doesn’t work—a minute order isn’t a statement of decision.
The disposition in an appellate opinion means what it says: Here’s a nerdy one. Petitioner won a coram nobis petition vacating a disqualified judge’s orders, but in Cricket Commc'ns v. Superior Court (Jun. 27, 2024 No. H051568) [nonpub. opn.], the court explained the trial court must follow the language in the disposition of the opinion, and that didn’t reference the jury verdict, which stands.

(Artwork by Randall Holbrook, RNDL.DESIGN.)

Tim Kowal is an appellate specialist certified by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Tim helps trial attorneys and clients win their cases and avoid error on appeal. He co-hosts the Cal. Appellate Law Podcast at CALpodcast.com, and publishes summaries of cases and appellate tips for trial attorneys. Contact Tim at [email protected] or (949) 676-9989.

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“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?”

— James Madison, Federalist 62

"So far as the beginnings of law had theories, the first theory of liability was in terms of a duty to buy off the vengeance of him to whom an injury had been done whether by oneself or by something in one's power. The idea is put strikingly in the Anglo-Saxon legal proverb, 'Buy spear from side or bear it,' that is, buy off the feud or fight it out."

— Roscoe Pound, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

"Moot points have to be settled somehow, once they get thrust upon us. If an assertion cannot be proved, then it must be settled some other way, and nearly all of these ways are unfair to somebody."

—T.H. White, The Once and Future King

"God made the angels to show Him splendor, … Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind."

— Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons

Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly.

— Leviticus

"It may be that the court is thought to be excessively legalistic. I should be sorry to think that it is anything else."

— Hon. Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of Australia

"Upon putting laws into writing, they became even harder to change than before, and a hundred legal fictions rose to reconcile them with reality."

— Will Durant

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."

— Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"At common law, barratry was 'the offense of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels' (4 Blackstone, Commentaries 134) and was punished as a misdemeanor."

— Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187

"Counsel on the firing line in an actual trial must be prepared for surprises, including requests for amendments of pleading. They cannot ask that a judgment afterwards obtained be set aside merely because their equilibrium was slightly disturbed by an unexpected motion."

— Posz v. Burchell (1962) 209 Cal.App.2d 324, 334

Headnotes Jul. 18, 2024

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"Moot points have to be settled somehow, once they get thrust upon us. If an assertion cannot be proved, then it must be settled some other way, and nearly all of these ways are unfair to somebody." —T.H. White, The Once and Future King

"God made the angels to show Him splendor, … Man He made to serve Him wittily, in the tangle of his mind." — Sir Thomas More in Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons

Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly. — Leviticus

"It may be that the court is thought to be excessively legalistic. I should be sorry to think that it is anything else." — Hon. Sir Owen Dixon, Chief Justice of Australia

"Upon putting laws into writing, they became even harder to change than before, and a hundred legal fictions rose to reconcile them with reality." — Will Durant

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." — Plato (427-347 B.C.)

"At common law, barratry was 'the offense of frequently exciting and stirring up suits and quarrels' (4 Blackstone, Commentaries 134) and was punished as a misdemeanor." — Rubin v. Green (1993) 4 Cal.4th 1187

"A judge is a law student who grades his own papers." — H.L. Mencken