Appellate Law

Don?t treat one superior court judge as the reviewing court for another

By Greg May

Writs and appeals are sometimes not the only routes (or even the preferred routes) to relief from an adverse order or judgment. Motions for reconsideration, post-trial motions for new trial or to vacate the judgment, and motions to set aside a judgment all have the possibility of getting you a “reversal” of sorts without ever leaving the superior court.

I’ve written before about how a superior court judge may change a prior interim ruling on his own motion, even when the decision to do so is triggered by a faulty motion for reconsideration. The chief limitation on this practice is that, in most cases, one judge on a superior court cannot reverse the ruling of another judge on the same superior court, at least so long as the original judge is still available, i.e., still on that court. In Marriage of Oliverez, case no. H040955 (6th Dist., July 27, 2015), the court confirms that this rule applies even when the case has been transferred to a new judge for trial.

The original judge in Oliverez had denied husband’s motion pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6 to enforce a settlement. The case was then transferred (for reasons the court was unable to discern from the record) to another judge, before whom it was tried. In his tentative ruling, the second judge stated his intent to reconsider the first judge’s ruling on the settlement enforcement motion and later gave formal notice of its intent and afforded the parties an opportunity to brief the issue. The second judge then issued a statement of decision and final judgment, in which he vacated the prior order denying the motion and entered a judgment of dissolution that incorporated the terms of the settlement. Wife appealed.

The Court of Appeal covers the “narrow” exceptions to the general rule that one trial court judge may not reconsider and overrule an interim ruling of another trial judge:

?[W]here the judge who made the initial ruling is unavailable to reconsider the motion, a different judge may entertain the reconsideration motion.? Another exception is when the facts have changed or when the judge has considered further evidence and law. Additionally, a second judge may reverse a prior ruling of another judge if the record shows that it was based on inadvertence, mistake, or fraud. Mere disagreement, as here, with the prior trial judge?s ruling, however, is not enough to overturn that ruling.

Since the first trial judge in Oliveras was still on the bench, and it was apparent from the second judge’s ruling that he merely disagreed with the first judge on the original evidence and law, the judgment vacating the prior ruling did not fall within the exceptions.

Perhaps the husband saw the writing on the wall. He did not file a respondent’s brief in the Court of Appeal.

So, do you want your superior court judge to reconsider an earlier ruling based on the same facts and law? Knock yourself out with the same judge, but don’t try to turn another superior court judge into a one-judge appellate court.

Full post as published by The California Blog of Appeal on July 28, 2015 (boomark / email).