Opinion ID: 1151065
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Amended section 904.1(a)(4)

Text: The Legislature responded to these concerns in 1982, by adding subpart (4) to section 904.1(a), operative July 1983. (Stats. 1982, ch. 1198, § 63.2, p. 4323.) As revised, the section reads: An appeal may be taken from a superior court in the following cases: [¶] (a) From a judgment, except (1) an interlocutory judgment ..., (2) a judgment of contempt which is made final and conclusive by Section 1222,[ [3] ] (3) a judgment on appeal from a municipal court ..., or (4) a judgment granting or denying a petition for issuance of a writ of mandamus or prohibition directed to a municipal court ... which relates to a matter pending in the municipal ... court. However, an appellate court may, in its discretion, review a judgment granting or denying a petition for issuance of a writ of mandamus or prohibition ... upon petition for an extraordinary writ. (Italics added.) During the eight years since subpart (4) was added to section 904.1(a), there have been only two published decisions involving appeal from a superior court denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari challenging a municipal court contempt order. [4] The first was McCann v. Municipal Court (1990) 221 Cal. App.3d 527 [270 Cal. Rptr. 640]. Consistent with 50 years of precedent (see cases cited ante, p. 858), and without discussing the issue of appealability, the McCann court proceeded to entertain the appeal. The second decision was the present case. The Court of Appeal declined to allow the appeal. As an initial matter, the court implicitly acknowledged that, based on both (i) the case law predating the amendment, and (ii) the Legislature's failure to include certiorari in section 904.1(a)(4)'s provision barring appeal following a superior court's denial of jurisdiction under mandamus and prohibition, an appeal will generally lie from a superior court judgment disposing of a petition for a writ of certiorari. The Court of Appeal concluded, however, that when the legal issue underlying the petition for certiorari is an order of contempt issued by a municipal court, the general rule permitting appeal from the superior court's judgment on certiorari does not apply. (1)(See fn. 5.) The court noted that under the Code of Civil Procedure, a contempt order is not itself appealable. [5] Accordingly, the court reasoned, the superior court's denial of the certiorari petition in this case was not appealable. It rejected as nonauthoritative the numerous decisions in which other appellate courts have entertained such appeals (see cases cited ante, p. 858), noting that in each of those cases the reviewing court simply assumed appealability without discussing the question. (2) The Court of Appeal's reasoning does not withstand analysis. The court asserted that although the attempted appeal in the present matter was from the superior court's judgment denying relief by certiorari, [t]here can be no question that it is the contempt order which is being appealed.... The effect and substance of the judgment [appealed from] should determine its appealability. (See Peninsula Prop. Co. v. County of Santa Cruz (1951) 106 Cal. App.2d 669, 678 [235 P.2d 635].) (Italics added.) But the cited case does not so hold. Instead, it stands for the proposition that statutory designation of an order as final or interlocutory, and not the trial court's own characterization of an order, controls the question of appealability. Indeed, if the Court of Appeal were correct on this point, then Burrus, supra, and Gilbert, supra  the decisions that highlighted the appellate loophole and triggered the legislative response  were both wrong and unnecessary, because the underlying orders in those cases were not appealable. (See Burrus, supra, 36 Cal. App.3d 233; Gilbert, supra, 73 Cal. App.3d 723.) Moreover, the premise underlying the Court of Appeal's interpretation of the statutory scheme does not survive close scrutiny. Although the Court of Appeal suggests there are some cases in which (i) the order challenged is appealable, but in which (ii) appeal from the denial of certiorari will nevertheless be allowed under the amended version of section 904.1(a)(4), there is, in fact, no such class of cases. It is well established that review by certiorari is not allowed if appeal is available (§ 1068 [certiorari lies only when there is no appeal]; 8 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Extraordinary Writs, § 33, p. 667), and hence there is no class of cases in which the order challenged is both appealable and subject to certiorari review. Accordingly, we reject the suggestion that the substance of the underlying order determines the appealability of a superior court judgment on a petition for a writ of certiorari. In a related argument, the Court of Appeal reasoned, the specific policy of section 1222 making contempt orders final and conclusive controls the general appealability provisions of section 904.1[(a)]. ( Gale v. Tuolumne County Water Co. (1914) 169 Cal. 46, 51 [145 P. 532].) Again, the cited case is inapposite. It did not involve an appeal from a superior court's denial of certiorari jurisdiction, and stands only for the established proposition that a finding of contempt is not itself appealable. Moreover, the Court of Appeal's conclusion is suspect. The right to appeal from a superior court judgment denying certiorari in municipal court contempt cases has not been questioned since creation of the municipal courts in 1925 (see ante, p. 858), even though both section 1222 and the predecessor to section 904.1(a) (former § 963) have coexisted during that time. Indeed, one respected commentator, citing an early decision in this long line of cases, has maintained for almost 40 years that such judgments are appealable. (See 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (1st ed. 1954) Appeal, § 18, p. 2161; 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, Appeal, supra, § 78, at p. 103 [quoted ante, pp. 858-859]; id. (1991 supp.) at pp. 14-15.) Although none of these prior cases specifically addressed the question of appealability, we cannot conclude, as the Court of Appeal apparently did, that the Legislature intended that section 1222 restrict appeal from a judgment on certiorari following a municipal court contempt order. Had the Legislature so intended, we believe it would have acted sometime between 1925 and the present to plug the loophole that has been highlighted in nine published opinions since 1940, allowing appeals from a superior court judgment denying certiorari following a municipal court contempt order. Perhaps because it appreciates the weakness of the Court of Appeal's attempt to distinguish between contempt based certiorari and all other legal bases for certiorari, respondent municipal court offers a different and more expansive approach to reach the same conclusion. Respondent asserts that although section 904.1(a)(4) speaks only in terms of barring appeal following the superior court's granting or denial of a petition for mandamus or prohibition, we should consider the legislative history of the amendment and interpret that section to preclude appeal from the superior court's grant or denial of a petition for mandamus or prohibition or certiorari.  We agree, however, with the Court of Appeal's implicit rejection of this proposal. The Legislature's failure to preclude appeal following the superior court's granting or denial of a petition for certiorari, while at the same time barring appeal following the superior court's granting or denial of a petition for mandamus or prohibition, evinces legislative intent to retain the status quo concerning the former category of appeals. Nothing on the face of the statute suggests any ambiguity in this regard. To interpret the statute as respondent suggests would require us to rewrite section 904.1(a)(4) to include the certiorari category omitted by the Legislature. This we cannot do. ( People v. Woodhead (1987) 43 Cal.3d 1002, 1007-1008 [239 Cal. Rptr. 656, 741 P.2d 154], and cases cited.) In any event, the legislative history offered by respondent does not support its view, but merely confirms our interpretation of the statute as precluding appeal only from the superior court's granting or denial of a petition for mandamus or prohibition. [6] Nor can we agree with respondent's suggestion that section 904.1(a)(4)'s repeated use of the phrase mandamus or prohibition was intended to be merely illustrative rather than specific. The language used by the Legislature gives no hint that the listing of mandamus and prohibition was illustrative of other types of unnamed writs that the Legislature also intended to be brought within the appellate bar. Instead, the express mention of mandamus and prohibition in this context implies exclusion of all other types of writs. (See, e.g., Wildlife Alive v. Chickering (1976) 18 Cal.3d 190, 196 [132 Cal. Rptr. 377, 553 P.2d 537].) Ultimately, respondent's point seems to be that it is unwise to allow an appeal in a case such as this. The Court of Appeal echoed a similar concern, noting that the order at issue here is not appealable to the superior court and that [i]t does not make any sense to make it appealable [to the Court of Appeal] merely by the device of filing a petition for a writ of certiorari. But as noted above, the Legislature failed to close this particular aspect of the statutory loophole when it precluded the closely related mandamus and prohibition appeals in its 1983 amendment. Whether or not we believe this is a wise result in terms of policy, we are bound to construe the statute as we find it. [7] Under the present statutory scheme, the right to appeal a superior court judgment on a petition for a writ of certiorari arises from the superior court's entry of a judgment not listed in the exceptions enumerated in section 904.1(a). Unless and until the Legislature acts to preclude appeal of a superior court judgment on a writ of certiorari, a statutory right to such an appeal will continue to exist as it has since 1925.