Court Opinion

ID: 9730209
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:05:10.70458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:04.929546
License: Public Domain

BENKE, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I cannot agree with the majority’s conclusion that the trial court had no jurisdiction to reconsider its order granting a new trial.
The jurisdictional limitations which govern the bringing of subsequent motions for new trial or reconsideration of such motions are neither statutorily nor constitutionally created. They are in my opinion procedural rules “originally devised for convenience and efficiency, and by precedent made mandatory and jurisdictional.” (Abelleira v. District Court of Appeal (1941) 17 Cal.2d 280, 291 [109 P.2d 942, 132 A.L.R. 715].) For this reason, and remembering the rationale for the rule’s existence, it is not surprising that, while substantial authority exists prohibiting the bringing of a second motion for new trial or reconsideration of such a motion, the rule itself is general and subject to exceptions where the interests of justice compel such exceptions. (People v. Hernandez (1988) 199 Cal.App.3d 768, 771-772 [245 Cal.Rptr. 156]; compare People v. Stewart (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 759 [248 *501Cal.Rptr. 907].) One such exception, where a new trial order was inadvertently or prematurely made, is noted in both People v. Martin (1926) 199 Cal. 240, 242 [248 P. 908], and People v. Paysen (1932) 123 Cal.App. 396, 399-400 [11 P.2d 431]. An analogous situation exists in this case.
The trial court here erroneously believed that because a party failed to file a written response, it must be deemed to have conceded and, further, was precluded from any substantive oral response. When the error was brought to the court’s attention, it quickly corrected the matter and restored to itself a fundamental responsibility going to the validity of the decisionmaking process.
The majority concludes that despite the clear error, the parties must endure the considerable time and expense of an appeal, at the conclusion of which our already overburdened courts must remand the case to the trial court to do what, perhaps years earlier, it recognized it should have done.
The imperative of correction at trial of such fundamental mistakes far surpasses the concern that by correcting this injustice we might bridle the lower courts with more motions to reconsider than they can handle. Where we preclude such correction, we do not enhance the goals of efficiency and convenience which underlie the rule prohibiting multiple motions for new trial. We diminish them. If we cannot bring ourselves to acknowledge the need for an exception permitting timely correction of fundamental errors such as this, the rule from which such exceptions spring should be reconsidered. (See People v. Stewart, supra, 202 Cal.App.3d 759.)
 However, for the reasons stated in Justice Froehlich’s lead opinion, I agree that in this case the People’s right to appeal must be restored. I would only emphasize that were we to allow trial courts to timely correct fundamental errors of the type seen in this case, we would not be mired in the frustrating determination of whether our traditional principles of due process and equity ought permit an appeal by the People.