Court Opinion

ID: 9549352
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:16:41.868347+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:20:11.382500
License: Public Domain

RICHARDSON, J.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s order summarily denying the timely filed petition for rehearing and making the decision in this case “final forthwith” only two days after that petition was filed. Decisions of our court ordinarily become final “30 days after filing.” (Rule 24(a), Cal. Rules of Court.) No valid special considerations, peculiar to this case, justify the majority’s deviation from our usual practice of awaiting expiration of the full 30-day period.
There are good reasons for our traditional compliance with the rule. During the rule’s 30-day period, we may (and frequently do) receive constructive and useful criticism from the litigants, from the bench, the bar, legal scholars, amici curiae, and from other interested persons. These criticisms or suggestions often may persuade us to grant a rehearing or at least to modify our opinion in various important respects. (See rule 27(a).)
In the present case, although counsel for the respective parties had filed a purported “Stipulation re Finality of Decision” agreeing that our decision may become final forthwith, one of those parties (a real party in interest herein) subsequently and timely moved to strike that stipulation on the basis that he never authorized his counsel to sign it. According to real party’s declaration, he has discharged his former attorney, obtained new counsel, and now withdraws the stipulation. In addition, real party has filed a timely petition for rehearing challenging the merits of our decision. Real party’s briefs in support of rehearing contain, among other things, two arguments not heretofore considered by this court. First, he notes the failure of the statute at issue herein (Stats. 1981, ch. 959) to comply with the constitutional mandate that the commission con*259firming any appellate court nominations must include a representative of the Court of Appeal (Cal. Const., art. VI, §§ 7, 16, subd. (d)). As real party observes, chapter 959 purported to create a new Sixth District of the Court of Appeal having no preexisting justices qualified to perform such representation.
In addition, the petition for rehearing points out that the 1982-1983 Budget Act has not cured the unconstitutional defect in section 6 of chapter 959, which purports to deprive the new Orange County Division of the Fourth District Court of Appeal of any appropriated public funds to support a library and the equipment essential for the functioning of that new division. As the petition correctly observes, the 1982-1983 Budget Act merely provides a temporary funding of such needs that will expire on June 30, 1983.
The various points raised by real party may or may not have merit or justify a rehearing. Unfortunately, despite the timely filing of his petition for such rehearing, the majority has summarily denied that petition without according it the appropriate consideration heretofore given to petitions filed with this court.
The majority’s break with tradition does not end there, for it also has ordered its former decision “final forthwith,” thereby prematurely terminating our authority (rule 27(a)) to order a rehearing or modification of the opinion sua sponte. In addition to the petition for rehearing filed by one of real parties, we have received from amici curiae herein a letter indicating amici’s intent to file additional authorities and argument which might induce this court, if reasonable time was afforded, to order a rehearing sua sponte. It is most unfortunate that the majority, in its rush, denies amici opportunity, during our rule time, of presenting their additional contentions. The majority’s finality order forecloses and summarily rejects amici’s presentation without even considering its possible merits, and without explaining why immediate finality is appropriate in this case.
While the majority recites that its order is issued for “good cause,” no one has suggested what that “good cause” is. The only document filed in support of the finality order is the now withdrawn stipulation of counsel referred to above, which recites merely that counsel had agreed to finality, without more. What possible emergency exists to justify any deviation from our usual procedures?
Only rarely and under exigent circumstances are we justified in making our decisions “final forthwith.” As one distinguished commentator has observed: “If a promptly effective decision is of vital importance to the public or to the parties, the Supreme Court may make its judgment ‘final forthwith’ . . . .” (6 Witkin, Cal. Procedure, Appeal, § 519, at p. 4466, italics added.)
*260We have used the foregoing power sparingly. For example, we adopted such a procedure in Assembly v. Deukmejian (1982) 30 Cal.3d 638, 679 [180 Cal.Rptr. 297, 639 P.2d 939], the reapportionment case, so that election officials would know the precise boundary lines in time for the orderly conduct of the June 1982 Primary Election. Similarly, in Carmel-By-The-Sea v. Young (1970) 2 Cal.3d 259, 272 [85 Cal.Rptr. 1, 466 P.2d 225, 3 A.L.R.3d 1313], our decision to invalidate an extensive financial disclosure law as an unconstitutional breach of privacy was made “final forthwith” to afford immediate relief to candidates and government officials who were subject to that law. We stressed the “exigent circumstances” which required our immediate attention. (P. 263.) No similar urgency or “good cause” justifies immediate finality in the present case.
Charles Evans Hughes left us with a gentle reminder: “There are two things against which a Judge ought to guard, precipitancy and procrastination. ” This court has not procrastinated in its disposition of this matter, having taken it from the Court of Appeal before which it was pending and having given it expedited hearing. We now are within our rule 24(a) period. Our Court of Appeal has continued to function during this period, and we are told that existing vacancies on the court have been unfilled for months.
In my view, the majority’s action is precipitous and unwarranted under the circumstances. There has been no demonstration of any unusual legal necessity which might justify our departure from the traditional, orderly disposition of this appeal. We should not do so for any unspoken reasons.
Caldecott, J.,* and Franson, J.,* concurred.

 Assigned by the Acting Chairperson of the Judicial Council.