Court Opinion

ID: 9539555
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:05:59.990695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:57.360118
License: Public Domain

BAXTER, J.
I concur fully in the reasoning and judgment of the majority. I do so because the evidence does not support a conclusion that no bookstore handling “adult” materials would be able to rent space in National City. No evidence was offered that would support a conclusion that a bookstore which is clean, is well maintained and supervised, and which expects both staff and customers to abide by the law and socially acceptable norms of public conduct would be unable to rent space in a mall in National City.
While I also agree with Justice Mosk that the evidence in this case would support a judgment that Chuck’s Bookstore was a common law public nuisance, the trial court did not make such a finding. In its statement of decision, the court expressly noted that the decision would focus on the city’s claim that defendant’s operation violated the municipal code. This confirms that the trial court judgment rested solely on the theory of statutory public nuisance. This court may not affirm the judgment on a theory that a *850common law public nuisance was established. The rule which requires that a reviewing court sustain a judgment if the result is correct even if the trial court based its decision on an erroneous legal theory, has no application here.
International etc. Workers v. Landowitz (1942) 20 Cal.2d 418 [126 P.2d 609], on which Justice Mosk relies, was an action in which plaintiffs sought an injunction against future violations of a local ordinance. The trial court sustained a demurrer on the ground that the statute was constitutionally invalid. This court disagreed but nonetheless affirmed the judgment of dismissal because subsequent to the entry of judgment the enabling legislation which authorized adoption of the local ordinance had been repealed. There being no other basis for the action, we applied the rule of Sewell v. Johnson (1913) 165 Cal. 762, 769 [134 P. 704]: “[W]here matters of which the court has judicial knowledge occur subsequent to the trial court’s action and have the effect of destroying the basis for the plaintiff’s cause of action, it has been held that the appellate court may dispose of the case upon those grounds.” (International etc. Workers v. Landowitz, supra, 20 Cal.2d at p. 423.)
The rule that an appellate court will affirm a correct judgment even if the trial court’s reasoning was faulty was adopted by this court in Davey v. Southern Pacific Co. (1897) 116 Cal. 325, 329-330 [48 P. 117]: “The fact that the action of the [trial] court may have been based upon an erroneous theory of the case, or upon an improper or unsound course of reasoning, cannot determine the question of its propriety. No rule of decision is better or more firmly established by authority, nor one resting upon a sounder basis of reason and propriety, than that a ruling or decision, itself correct in law, will not be disturbed on appeal merely because given for a wrong reason. If right upon any theory of the law applicable to the case, it must be sustained regardless of the considerations which may have moved the trial court to its conclusion, [f] . . . [][] In other words, it is judicial action, and not judicial reasoning or argument, which is the subject of review; and, if the former be correct, we are not concerned with the faults of the latter.”
This rule may not be used to uphold a judgment granting relief on the basis of only one of two or more counts pleaded in the complaint, each of which counts asserts a different basis for relief.
“Exceptions exist to the rule of nonreviewability of a trial court’s reasons for its decision. The exception . . . most germane to this appeal allows for reversal where the trial court has refused to pass on an issue and disposes of the case on an entirely different ground. If the trial court thus chose an *851improper ground, an appellate court will not uphold the judgment on the ground not addressed by the trial court, if resolution of that issue depends upon conflicting evidence.” (United Pacific Ins. Co. v. Hanover Ins. Co. (1990) 217 Cal.App.3d 925, 933, fn. 9 [266 Cal.Rptr. 231], italics in original. See also, Zak v. State Farm etc. Ins. Co. (1965) 232 Cal.App.2d 500, 506 [42 Cal.Rptr. 908]; Kyne v. Kyne (1943) 60 Cal.App.2d 326, 332 [140 P.2d 886]; 9 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (3d ed. 1985) Appeal, § 262, p. 269.)
The trial court in this case did make factual findings that might also support a conclusion that Chuck’s Bookstore was a common law public nuisance. It did so only insofar as that evidence was relevant to determining that the bookstore had undesirable “secondary” effects, however. The court did not make the findings necessary to resolve whether Chuck’s Bookstore was, at the time the action was brought, a common law public nuisance.1 It would not be appropriate, therefore, to uphold the judgment on the basis suggested by Justice Mosk.

Two of the three witnesses who testified regarding the activities and conditions described in footnote 4 of the majority opinion, ante, made their observations a year or more prior to trial. Both acknowledged that prior to trial changes had been made in the interior of the bookstore. Subsequent to their observations a fence had been constructed to separate the rear alleyway from the rear yard of the home directly behind the bookstore. Therefore, although their testimony was uncontradicted, it was not adequate to establish that either the bookstore employees or the patrons currently engaged in the objectionable conduct. The third witness, who lived behind the bookstore, testified that she continued to be bothered by patrons even after the fence was constructed and that her neighbors were also bothered. Her testimony did not establish a common law nuisance as a matter of law, however.