Appellate Law

To the Court of Appeal, there is no such thing as a ?wrongly decided? Supreme Court case

By Greg May

Last week, I wrote about Miranda v. Anderson Enterprises, Inc., case no. A140328 (1st Dist., Oct. 15, 2015), describing how the appellant there benefited from a Supreme Court decision (Iskanian) that came out after the judgment from which the appellant appealed, and which so squarely addressed the issue on appeal that the Court of Appeal spent only a paragraph on its substantive discussion of the case.

Given that controlling authority and the rules of stare decisis, under which a California Supreme Court opinion binds all lower courts in the state, what could the respondent ? or any similarly situated respondent ? do?

First, a respondent can look for ways to challenge the appealability of the judgment, as the Miranda respondent did (unsuccessfully). Second, a respondent can do its best to distinguish the case from the case on appeal; perhaps it is not as controlling as it appears to be at first blush. But given how concisely the Court of Appeal dealt with the merits, distinguishing Iskanian probably was not an option for the Miranda respondent.

I can tell you one thing that will never work, at least not until the Supreme Court decision has been disapproved by a later Supreme Court decision: arguing to the Court of Appeal that the Supreme Court decision was wrongly decided. Yet, respondent argued that in Miranda, apparently relying on rationale set forth in some federal decisions:

Respondents? sole argument is that Iskanian was wrongly decided. However, Iskanian is binding on this court, regardless of any contrary holdings by lower federal courts. (Auto Equity Sales, Inc. v. Superior Court (1962) 57 Cal.2d 450, 455; Montano v. The Wet Seal Retail, Inc. (2015) 232 Cal.App.4th 1214, 1224, fn. 5 [?We recognize that several federal district courts in this state have found PAGA waivers to be enforceable . . . . However, ? ?[d]ecisions of the lower federal courts interpreting federal law, although persuasive, are not binding on state courts.? ? ?].)

It can be awfully difficult for a respondent to concede anything on the appeal. But, if the Court of Appeal is correctly characterizing the respondent’s argument, this “wrongly decided” argument never really stood a chance.

Full post as published by The California Blog of Appeal on October 26, 2015 (boomark / email).