Court Opinion

ID: 9724479
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:57:53.390957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:00.777523
License: Public Domain

RACANELLI, P. J.
I reluctantly concur.
I agree that under the law as presently written, appellant’s notice of appeal was timely. I am therefore compelled to concur in the result. However, I doubt that the drafters of California Rules of Court, rule 2(a) intended the 180-day period to apply to a party who received actual notice of the judgment.
In earlier times, the time for filing a notice of appeal was 60 days from the entry of judgment; notice was not required. Thus, the time could easily slip away without the aggrieved party realizing that judgment had been entered. The harshness of this rule was eliminated in 1965 by the revision of rule 2(a). (See generally, 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Appeal, §§ 379, 380, pp. 381-382.) Now the 60-day period starts upon notice of entry of judgment; the time period is extended to 180 days if no notice is given. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 2(a).)
Here, appellant received notice that judgment had been entered in the form of a filed copy of the trial court’s order. The 60-day period did not transpire without her awareness that judgment had been entered. Yet, she did not file her notice of appeal until the 114th day. In my view, she is able to avoid the conventional sanction for such tardiness only because of the confusion which presently exists in the language of rules 2(a) and 309 of the Rules of Court.
Rule 2(a) provides two methods by which notice may be given so as to start the shorter 60-day period: “mailing notice of entry of judgment by the clerk of the court pursuant to section 664.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure” (italics added) or service of such notice by a party. In the days when court clerks were required to give notice of entry of every appealable order, this language assured that the 60-day period would apply in the normal case. Today, however, in light of the Legislature’s revision of section 664.5, the former method is virtually obsolete. Because the superior court clerks no longer mail notices of entry of judgment, the 60-day period now comes into *955play only when service of the notice of entry of judgment is made by a party.1
A notice of entry of judgment has a useful purpose only when the parties are unaware of the judgment — i.e., when the matter has been taken under submission. Yet, under the rules as presently written, a notice of the ruling on a submitted matter from the court clerk will not start the 60-day period running. Rule 309 imposes an affirmative duty upon court clerks to notify the parties of the ruling on matters taken under submission. But the rule then declares, inexplicably, that such notice does not qualify as notice of entry of judgment unless “the clerk is required to give notice pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 664.5.” Now that section 664.5 has been revised by the Legislature to eliminate the requirement that superior court clerks give notice, the language of rule 309 emasculates the 60-day rule. As demonstrated in the present case, because the clerk’s notice of judgment is no longer “required” by section 664.5, a party who receives such notice has 180 days in which to file an appeal even though the party has actual notice of the entry of judgment.
In short, I believe rules 2(a) and 309 fail to account for the Legislature’s changes in section 664.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure. I would therefore urge the Judicial Council to consider remedial changes to correct this oversight and to conform rules 2(a) and 309 to the underlying objective of providing a 60-day appeal period to parties with actual notice of the entry of judgment.

 There will continue to be infrequent instances when superior court clerks will mail notices of entry of judgment: in dissolution cases and in cases when the trial court so orders. (Code Civ. Proc., § 664.5.)