Opinion ID: 1348839
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the judgment should be preserved for its public value

Text: An appellate court should deny an application to reverse a judgment on stipulation to effectuate settlement if the judgment has value to one not a party to the action. A published decision illustrates this principle. The parties to an appeal sought reversal of an interlocutory judgment dissolving a marriage and dividing the community property. The husband had died after judgment, and the executor appointed to administer his estate had been substituted in his place (see Code Civ. Proc., § 385). The executor and the widow entered into a settlement agreement that was conditioned on reversal of the judgment. The parties maintained that reversal was necessary because a division of the community property under the judgment, as compared to a distribution through probate proceedings, would cause the widow to `suffer substantial and unnecessary tax burdens.' ( In re Marriage of Shapiro (1974) 39 Cal. App.3d 460, 462 [114 Cal. Rptr. 277], italics omitted.) The Court of Appeal denied the application. Writing for the court, Presiding Justice Kaus explained that the parties' settlement did not moot the case, that the court knew nothing of the merits of the community property division, and that reversing the judgment would be improper because it would have consequences affecting interests not directly involved in this proceeding, that is, those of the taxing authorities. ( Id. at p. 464.) There are some cases in which a judgment has value for society at large, even though it has no particular value for any identifiable nonparty. In this category fall cases to which a public official or public agency is a party, and in which the propriety of that party's official acts is placed in issue. Certainly the public has an interest in an evaluation of the performance of public employees and public institutions. When that evaluation is made through litigation in state courts, and therefore obtained through the expenditure of public resources, the parties' preference for settlement is not a sufficient reason to nullify the judicial product. (See Matter of Memorial Hosp. of Iowa County, Inc., supra, 862 F.2d 1299, 1302 [When the parties' bargain calls for judicial action ... the benefits of settlement to the parties are not the only desiderata.].) Here, the majority has determined that the trial court's judgment has no value worth preserving. To show the error of this conclusion, it is necessary to briefly review the facts of the case. To avoid a scabies mite infestation, state and federal agricultural agencies treated George Neary's herd of pregnant heifers with the insecticide Toxaphene. At least 95 of the heifers died after the treatment, as did more than 400 calves. Neary believed that the treatment had caused these losses, and he was not shy about saying so. Eventually, Neary and state agricultural officials agreed to have the matter investigated by veterinarians employed by the University of California at Davis in its School of Veterinary Medicine. Three of the university veterinarians visited the ranch where the cattle had been treated. A few months later, over Neary's objections, the university published a report of the investigation, having concluded that publication was required under the California Public Records Act (Gov. Code, § 6250 et seq.). The report, which was written by two of the three veterinarians who had visited Neary's ranch, was discussed widely in the print and broadcast media. It concluded that the heifer and calf losses were not caused by pesticide poisoning, but instead by mismanagement at Neary's ranch. Neary sued the university and the veterinarians for libel. After a four-month jury trial, Neary obtained a verdict and judgment against all defendants for $7 million. As this account reveals, the judgment that Neary obtained is undoubtedly a matter of significant and legitimate public interest. The defendants in this lawsuit are a public university and three professionals who are its employees. The subject of the dispute is a report written by these professionals in the course of their employment for the university and published as a public record. Both the employees' salaries and the publication of the report were funded with public tax moneys. The jury determined that the report contained false statements and that the report's authors had made these statements with malice. It further concluded that these false statements had damaged the reputation of plaintiff, a locally prominent cattle rancher. Because the judgment embodies the jury's carefully considered assessment of the performance of a public institution in one not insignificant incident, it should not be set aside merely because some of the defendants insist on the judgment's destruction as a condition of settlement.