Court Opinion

ID: 9533474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:32:01.705677+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:29:03.794392
License: Public Domain

MOSK, J.
I concur in the judgment. 1
I am at one with the majority in their conclusion that the judgment of the Court of Appeal must be affirmed. In this cause, we are required to undertake an independent determination whether Insurance Code section 1861.135 *1269is valid under the California Constitution. Beneath the somewhat orotund language of the opinions they quote, the majority seem to be in accord. Rightly so. It is true that, as a court, we should carefully consider whatever views the Legislature may express on the issue. But we simply are not bound to give them deference. “The Constitution is itself a law, and must be construed” and applied “by some one. Each department” of government— the legislative, executive, and judicial—“must be kept within its appropriate sphere. There must, then, from the very nature of the case, be a power lodged somewhere in the government to construe” and apply “the Constitution in the last resort. The different departments cannot be each left the sole and conclusive judge of its own powers. If such was the case, these departments must always contest and always be in conflict; and this cannot be the case in a constitutional government, practically administered. [^Q The judiciary, from the very nature of its powers and the means given it by the Constitution, must possess the right to construe” and apply “the Constitution in the last resort .... It would be idle to make the Constitution the supreme law, and then require the judges to take the oath to support it, and after all that, require the Courts to take” another branch’s “construction” or application “as correct.” (Nougues v. Douglass (1857) 7 Cal. 65, 70; accord, Raven v. Deubnejian (1990) 52 Cal.3d 336, 354 [276 Cal.Rptr. 326, 801 P.2d 1077].) Thus, in giving the final word on the validity of the provision in question, we cannot be compelled merely to repeat the first, which was the Legislature’s assertion to the affirmative. Rather, the final word must be fully our own. And, as my colleagues explain, it must be negative.
I part company with the majority, however, in their conclusion that the decision of the Court of Appeal does not satisfy section 14 of article VI of the California Constitution, which declares that a determination of this sort “shall be in writing with reasons stated.” This mandate is essentially a prohibition against summary disposition. The decision here is not in violation.

Pace Witkin, the declaration, “I concur in the judgment,” is not at all “cryptic.” (Witkin, Manual on Appellate Court Opinions (1977) § 115, p. 223.) Neither is the statement, “I concur in the result.” Generally speaking, the former indicates agreement with both the court’s disposition and the issues it reaches or the rationale it employs (see, e.g., United States v. Place (1983) 462 U.S. 696, 710-711 [77 L.Ed.2d 110, 122-124, 103 S.Ct. 2637] (Brennan, J., cone, in result); Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts (1967) 388 U.S. 130, 162 [18 L.Ed.2d 1094, 1115, 87 S.Ct. 1975] (Warren, C. J., cone, in result))—albeit not necessarily with the precise resolution of those issues or the specific use of that rationale. The latter, by contrast, signifies agreement with the disposition alone. (E.g., United States v. Place, supra, 462 U.S. at pp. 710-711 [77 L.Ed.2d at pp. 122-124] (Brennan, J., cone, in result) [expressing disagreement as to issues reached and their resolution]; Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, supra, 388 U.S. at p. 162 [18 L.Ed.2d at p. 1115] (Warren, C. J., cone, in result) [expressing disagreement as to rationale employed].)