Source: http://www.calblogofappeal.com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 14:03:07+00:00

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Or, should I say, the blog is back. I’m not sure how much blogging I will do in the near future, but at least the old posts are up again after an extended outage. The fix was really simple, but it took three tech support guys at my hosting provider, over the course of a week, to figure out that simple solution.
My apologies to my regular readers. That means Ben and . . . anyone? Anyone?
Or, as the headline over Judge Kozinski’s opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal calls it, “voodoo science.” And what this justice on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (a federal appellate court) has to say has nothing to do with global warming (at least not directly).
Judge Kozinski asserts flaws in analysis of fingerprints, bitemarks, firearms, footwear, hair, and “char patterns.” The last of these is used to determine whether a fire is the result of arson, and, according to Judge Kozinski has been shown by studies to have “absolutely no scientific basis.” Judge Kozinski notes that at least one person has been executed following a conviction based on char pattern analysis.
Judge Kozinski has a knack for challenging political ideologies of all stripes, and I think his highlight of the PCAST report (and, of course, the report itself) could prove challenging, and not just on the issue of criminal justice reform. “Law and Order” types who claim the science on climate change is unsettled may have a hard time rejecting Judge Kozinski’s call for reform, while full-throated advocates of the judge’s suggested reforms who also campaign on legislation to combat climate change may have to admit that maybe the science on climate change is not as settled as they say it is. In short, the report profiled by Judge Kozinski should get a lot of people thinking.
UPDATE: It occurred to me immediately after publishing this post that the challenge to politicians would be even greater if the AEDPA had originally passed with broad bipartisan support, so I looked up the vote and . . . yes, this is going to be a problem for a lot of politicians: the votes for the AEDPA, which was passed in identical form in both houses of Congress, was 91-8 in the Senate and 293-133 in the House of Representatives.
Will appeals lawyers be replaced by computers?
Will your future lawyer be a computer? A robot?
Technology has been displacing low-wage and less-skilled workers for a long time. Is it time for white collar professionals – including lawyers – to fear they are next?
At The American Interest blog: “Venture capital money keeps flowing to promising new tech companies that are working to automate many of the routine tasks conducted highly-paid 20-somethings at big city corporate law firms.” After noting that professionals may soon feel the squeeze from technology that low-wage workers have long endured, the pot continues, “Big law firms are especially overdue for disruption … The next stage of the information revolution may end up looking more egalitarian than the last” (see the difference with Hoyer Law Firm).
I sense a little hostility there, but maybe I’m just being defensive.
That’s what Invoke Capital, the London-based venture firm run by former Autonomy Plc Chief Executive Officer Mike Lynch, is betting with its latest project financing. Invoke said Wednesday that it’s making an investment in Luminance, a U.K. startup using artificial intelligence to process legal documents and automate due diligence in mergers and acquisitions.
Well, that’s a relief! They’re just gunning for M & A work. For now. But if you use computerized legal research services like Lexis or Westlaw, ask yourself: is it all that hard to imagine those services advancing to where, armed with facts provided by an online form, they can take over the research completely, and maybe put the results together into a cohesive argument? Wouldn’t the ultimate end be there would be no more argument, but instead only one correct legal result arrived at by a computer? Even appellate justices would not be safe.
I think there are a few things standing in the way of that end. People would not accept it because they would not trust the programmers. But the biggest obstacle? Teaching a computer how to apply the “abuse of discretion” standard of review.
Shiffer v. CBS Corporation (2015) 240 Cal.App.4th 246 (new theory developed by expert witness does not merit new trial where evidence upon which theory is based was previously in party’s possession).
Unfortunately, the Review appears to be available online only to members of the Litigation Section of the California State Bar. If you are a litigator who is not a member, find a friend with a copy of the Review and browse it. Besides articles on appellate issues, there are articles on alternative dispute resolution, class actions, employment law, etc. It is a great resource for catching up on developments you may have missed.
UPDATE: I should have given credit for the great year-end write-up on Appeals and Writs not just to the review generally, but to the two lawyers who authored it: Ben Feuer (who graciously thanked me for the post even though I had not mentioned him by name) and Anna-Rose Mathieson of Appellate Law Group LLP. Thanks, guys!
If your attorney moves like this sloth, you’ve got trouble.
I wrote the other day about one aspect of Younessi v. Woolf, case no. G051034 (4th Dis. Feb. 16, 2016) (its illustration of the rule that a court of appeal may affirm on an alternate ground supported by the record), but there is a second lesson to glean from the case, regarding the limits of the appellate courts’ patience with counsel’s untimely submissions.
This court has the discretion to grant relief from a party‟s failure to timely file a brief “[f]or good cause.” (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.60(d).) However that phrase may be defined (see Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.63), plaintiffs’ request does not qualify. The motion and its supporting declarations reflect the legal representation provided by plaintiffs‟ current attorneys is little better than that provided by Wass. Casey from https://ramsdenlaw.com.au admittedly knew in August that Wass had failed to timely file the respondents‟ brief, but when he substituted in as plaintiffs‟ counsel a month later, he still took no action to seek relief from this default. Rather, Casey waited another month and a half for Wass to prepare the brief. Even then, nothing was done for another two weeks when plaintiffs associated in a second attorney. Once the motion for relief from default was prepared, it took another two weeks to file it with this court.
Sometimes, the trial judge’s reasoning underlying a judgment is so obviously wrong that it seems to present a “slam dunk” appeal. But the rules of appellate review favor the judgment below, and that slam dunk (really, there is no such thing on appeal) can turn out to be a miss.
The appellants in Younessi v. Woolf, case no. G051034 (4th Dis. Feb. 16, 2016) learned this the hard way. The appellants were defendants who successfully moved for an entry of dismissal after the plaintiff failed to file an amended complaint following an order sustaining demurrers with leave to amend. The plaintiff filed a motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 473(b) to set aside the dismissal, on grounds of excusable neglect and attorney fault. In granting the set-aside motion, the trial judge stated that she relied on section 473, subdivision (b)’s “discretionary” provision.
The appellants succeeded in convincing the court of appeal that the trial judge had abused her discretion in granting discretionary relief. The plaintiff offered no explanation for not seeking relief promptly and the attorney’s affidavit offered only “cryptic explanations” for his conduct, thus failing to establish that his neglect was excusable.
Long-time readers may recall I have warned against some pitfalls in this type of motion, and noted a significant split of authority regarding the applicability of this provision. But in this case, the plaintiff got it right. The motion was timely, the affidavit of fault was sufficient, and the trial court disposition was “the procedural equivalent of a default judgment” (though this was not obvious).
Appeals from orders granting section 473, subdivision (b) motions, in the abstract, will frequently present an opportunity for the appellate court to affirm on alternate grounds, since the statute itself provides for alternate grounds for relief from certain defaults and judgments. Be on the lookout for this whenever you are the respondent in such an appeal.
It is worth noting that Ortiz departs from two decisions – one in the Fourth District and one in the Third District – which held that Section 490.2 did not apply because Section 10851 does not proscribe theft. But another Court of Appeal decision created a split of opinion within the Fourth District, coming out the same way as the Ortiz court. The issue may be teed up for Supreme Court review.
Perhaps you have been wondering what kind of car could have been worth less than $950 at the time the defendant stole it. Answer: a 22-year old Honda Civic. Even though its owners had paid just $1000 for it and sold it for $300 after recovering it, the evidence was insufficient to establish its value at the time of the theft. Nonetheless, this was not a hollow victory for the defendant. In reversing the trial court, the Court of Appeal ordered the resentencing petition dismissed without prejudice, which gives the defendant the opportunity to petition again if and when he can garner evidence that the value of the car was $950 or less when it was stolen.
Last week, I wrote about Miranda v. Anderson Enterprises, Inc., case no. A140328 (1st Dist., Oct. 15, 2015), describing how the appellant there benefited from a Supreme Court decision (Iskanian) that came out after the judgment from which the appellant appealed, and which so squarely addressed the issue on appeal that the Court of Appeal spent only a paragraph on its substantive discussion of the case.
Given that controlling authority and the rules of stare decisis, under which a California Supreme Court opinion binds all lower courts in the state, what could the respondent — or any similarly situated respondent — do?
First, a respondent can look for ways to challenge the appealability of the judgment, as the Miranda respondent did (unsuccessfully). Second, a respondent can do its best to distinguish the case from the case on appeal; perhaps it is not as controlling as it appears to be at first blush. But given how concisely the Court of Appeal dealt with the merits, distinguishing Iskanian probably was not an option for the Miranda respondent.
It can be awfully difficult for a respondent to concede anything on the appeal. But, if the Court of Appeal is correctly characterizing the respondent’s argument, this “wrongly decided” argument never really stood a chance.
We’ve all heard of doctors lamenting the need to order lots of tests for the most mundane symptoms in order to protect themselves from malpractice lawsuits. Are lawyers exhibiting equivalent behavior?
Aside from sanctions, the litigation tactics summarized by the district court ( and detailed in the magistrate judge’s report) posed the risk that the better points in each side’s case got lost in the noise of all the unnecessary chatter.
That risk is also quite high, and arguably higher, when similar tactics are adopted in an appeal. In trial proceedings, various “overlitigation” tactics might be employed piecemeal over time, and the occasional golden nugget has a chance to stand out because it is presented in relative isolation. In an appeal, however, the appellant’s opening brief hits the appellate court with all of his arguments at one time, which might make it harder for the decent argument to stand out from the clutter.
I think that lawyers that forego any careful consideration of how to narrow the issues, and wind up throwing in the kitchen sink, might be depending on the good graces of the appellate court to pluck the meritorious needles out of the legal haystacks presented in their briefs. Appellate judges don’t simply throw up their hands and discount every argument raised by an appellant every time an opening brief contains a lot of different arguments that seem unmeritorious at first. Aside from the matter of professional integrity, there’s also the matter of having to justify their ruling in a written opinion, so you can bet they spend time trying to decide if there is a meritorious argument in the bunch.
Perhaps you’re thinking, As long as the court is going to look for my best arguments anyway, what’s the risk? I’ll throw in everything and let the court sort it out. The risk is that you might actually conceal your best arguments. Appellate judges (and their research attorneys) are smart, but they are not infallible. Clutter your brief enough, and the one argument that actually stood a chance at winning might not be recognized. And, if none of your arguments is any good, I suspect you are better off minimizing their number. A brief containing 15 meritless arguments is probably more likely to draw monetary sanctions than a brief containing just one or two meritless arguments, as the court will consider the former a greater waste of its time and the number of meritless arguments may be seen as evidence of the frivolousness of the appeal.
UPDATE (9/29/15): At his Briefly Writing blog, Alabama appellate lawyer Michael Skotnicki shares some related thoughts. In a post called The Risks of a “Hinge Point” Appellate Argument, he comments on the ultimate narrowing of issues: asserting a single issue on appeal.
California trial courts classify civil cases as either “limited jurisdiction” or “unlimited jurisdiction,” depending on the amount in dispute. If the amount in dispute is $25,000 or less, the case is a limited jurisdiction case. If the amount in dispute is more than $25,000, it is an unlimited jurisdiction case. Thus, a court in a limited jurisdiction case cannot award more than $25,000 . . . except under the quirky circumstances of AP-Colton, LLC v. Ohaerie, case no. E059505 (4th Dist., Sept. 15, 2015).
AP-Colton is a commercial landlord-tenant dispute, in which the landlord originally sued to evict the tenants and for damages of less than $25,000. The tenants surrendered the premises, then cross-complained for: one million dollars!
At that point, the case should have become an unlimited civil case, right? The problem is that the tenants never paid the $140 “reclassification fee” necessary to convert the case from limited to unlimited status, so the clerk never reclassified the case. (Code Civ. Proc., § 403.060, subd. (b).) When the landlord amended its complaint to seek in excess of $25,000, it presumed the case had already been reclassified.
Starting with the filing of the tenants’ cross-complaint, all the parties identified the case as “unlimited” in the captions of their pleadings, and the tenants put the same label on a case management statement. The trial court entered a judgment against the tenants for about $120,000.
On appeal, the tenants contended that the judgment had to be reversed because the case had never been reclassified, the case was thus a limited one, and the judgment therefor could not exceed $25,000. Would such a result seem equitable to you, considering that the tenants were the ones to identify the case as unlimited and maintained that fiction all the way through judgment?
The Court of Appeal doesn’t think so. It invokes the equitable doctrine of judicial estoppel to prevent the tenants from benefiting from their change of position. They had, after all, contended the case was unlimited from the moment they filed their cross-complaint, and maintained that position through the entry of judgment. In other words, so long as the tenants still had a chance of winning in excess of $25,000, they maintained the case was unclassified. Once they lost, they changed their tune and tried to limit the judgment against them to the limited case limit of $25,000. Under the doctrine of judicial estoppel, a party cannot successfully take one factual position in judicial proceedings, then take a contrary factual position in later proceedings; the party is bound to its earlier position, so long as it was not the result of ignorance, fraud or mistake. The Court of Appeal finds that the doctrine applies here to preclude the tenants from taking the position that the case was a limited case.
Where was the requisite “success” the tenants had in asserting that the case was unlimited? Well, it does not take much to meet that threshold. A party’s earlier position is a “success” if “the tribunal adopted the position or accepted it as true[.]” Most times, that means the court’s adoption of the position resulted in some victory or benefit, such as a ruling in that party’s favor. Here, however, all it took to establish success was that the trial court had tried the case as an unlimited case and awarded damages accordingly against the party asserting the position. Some success! But in the judicial estoppel sense, it was a success because the court adopted the position that the case was unlimited.
Judicial estoppel does not apply if the earlier position was taken because of fraud, ignorance, or mistake. Since the tenants represented themselves from the beginning of the case to the entry of judgment in the trial court, one would think they might plead ignorance that their failure to pay the fee kept the case a limited one. Surprisingly, however, they apparently never moved to vacate the judgment on that ground (arguably forfeiting the argument), and the Court of Appeal notes that the tenants “never claimed” the benefit of this exception, even on appeal.
For purposes of a new trial motion, evidence is considered “newly discovered” if the party seeking the new trial “could not, with reasonable diligence, have discovered and produced [the evidence] at trial.” (Code Civ. proc., § 657, subd. 4.) Suppose the evidence is available just a few days before trial, but expert analysis can’t be completed until afterward?
That’s easy, you day. It’s trial, for crying out loud! You get your expert on it right away!
Let’s see if your answer is the same under the facts of Shiffer v. CBS Corp., case no. A139388 (1st Dist., Sept. 8, 2015), an asbestos exposure case, in which the new trial motion was filed after the defendant prevailed on its summary judgment motion rather than after a trial. In opposition to the summary judgment motion, the plaintiff’s proffered evidence of his “bystander” exposure to asbestos during the installation of piping insulation at a power plant, but it was considered inadequate.
When plaintiff moved for a new trial, he proffered a new declaration from one of his experts, dated two weeks after the summary judgment hearing, that asserted a new theory of “re-entrainment” exposure (asbestos fibers re-entering the air upon being disturbed). The expert based his analysis on two documents plaintiff had received in discovery about a month prior to the summary judgment hearing and the deposition testimony of one of defendant’s experts, who was deposed about the documents four days before the hearing. The expert had signed his original declaration in opposition to summary judgment between the time plaintiff received the documents and the deposition of defendant’s expert, which plaintiff’s expert apparently did not attend.
The plaintiff knew very well that the use of asbestos has caused significant damage and now just wants to prove this in the case . While researching more about asbestos I came across a Asbestos removal Perth website and saw how it has taken the initiative of completely removing the use of asbestos from various places. This form of an initiative is extremely good as they know the significant amount of damage it causes to a person’s health and are now helping various people get rid of asbestos before it affects them.
The court states there was “no justification for the delay,” but does not detail any argument by which plaintiff tried to justify it. One presumes that plaintiff argued that the documents received a month before the hearing did not allow for the supplemental opinion without the testimony of the defense expert, given just days before the hearing. But even if the plaintiffs could establish this, it seems like the court would have found the plaintiff had enough lead time, for the court also notes that the transcript of the deposition taken just days before the hearing was only 37 pages long.
Lesson learned: Don’t put off discovery to the last minute, especially when opposing a summary judgment motion. Had these depositions been conducted just a week or two earlier, plaintiff’s expert likely would have been able to formulate his conclusions prior to the hearing. If you do get jammed on discovery, at least get the rough transcripts to your experts. And, finally, why not have your expert attend the deposition of his counterpart? Yes, it will cost a few dollars, but they would have been dollars well spent in this case.

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