Court Opinion

ID: 9728131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:59:24.714774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:46.109157
License: Public Domain

KINGSLEY, J.
I dissent.
, The case at bench is one of first impression—primarily, I assume, because “all purpose” assignments ordinarily are made after consultation with all counsél and on a stipulation by them as to the assignee judge. Here, as the record before us shows, the assignment was made by the presiding judge without securing such a stipulation. No one now contests his authority, in the exercise of his administrative powers, so to act.
The reason for an “all purpose” assignment lies in the pragmatic value of having all matters arising in a complicated and potentially long drawn-out case to be heard by one judge, so that the time of litigants, counsel and the superior court need not be wasted in the repetitive education of successive judges in the intricacies of that kind of case. The situation, thus, differs from t|iat involved in the cases relied on by the majority, where the assignment was to a department of the court and not to a particular judge by name. While the departmenal assignment may have been made on the assumption that one judge would continue to control the case, that was neither the legal nor the practical effect of those assignments. Many circumstances might result in a transfer of the original judge to another department, or the temporary assignment of a different judge to the designated department. The assigned case would, absent some new assignment, remain in the designated department, regardless of the judge sitting on any particular day. Not so with the “all purpose” assignments. The instant case was assigned to Judge Jefferson by name, it traveled with him into any department to which he might thereafter be assigned or re-assigned. To permit a challenge under section 170.6 after the parties have held hearings before the designated judge, and more than a year after all parties *857and counsel knew that he was to hear every motion and to preside at the trial, totally frustrates the purpose of the original assignment. I conclude that the controlling language in section 170.6 was not that relied on by the majority but the language which is directed to cases “of trials or hearings not herein specifically provided for” and that it falls under the rule that a party may not, after proceedings have commenced, compel a change of judges in midstream. In my opinion, petitioner’s rights under section 170.6 expired on September 9, 1972 (five days before Judge Jefferson heard the demurrer) and cannot be revived. I would deny the peremptory writ.