At its conference this week, the Supreme Court’s notable actions included:
- The court granted review in McHugh v. Protective Life Insurance, where a published opinion of the Fourth District, Division One, Court of Appeal held that a 2013 change in California statutory law — requiring life insurance policies to give a 60-day grace period before they can lapse for nonpayment of premiums — didn’t apply retroactively to a policy issued in 2005 and that lapsed within months after the new law took effect.
- The court denied a death row inmate’s 2012 habeas corpus petition (In re Hajek), but Justice Goodwin Liu recorded a vote to issue an order to show cause on a claim alleging juror misconduct. The majority denied that claim on the merits and also on procedural grounds.
- The court denied review in O’Grady v. Merchant Exchange Productions, Inc., but Justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan recorded votes to grant. The published opinion of the First District, Division Two, held a banquet facility’s service charge might be a gratuity that by statute must be distributed only to those employees who serve food and drinks. Reaching the opposite conclusion, the superior court had found controlling two earlier Court of Appeal opinions, but the O’Grady appellate court distinguished them, saying about the two cases, “what a court does is sometimes more significant than what it says.”
- The court denied a pro per’s petition for review in In re S.V., but Justice Liu recorded a vote to grant. From the Third District’s docket, it is apparently a termination-of-parental-rights appeal that was dismissed as untimely. In denying rehearing, the appellate court cited a 2-1 opinion that rejected application of a rule in criminal cases allowing for the constructive filing of a notice of appeal when an attorney provides ineffective assistance of counsel (In re Issac J. (1992) 4 Cal.App.4th 525), a decision that was disagreed with by a depublished opinion (In re Jacqueline P. (Cal. Ct. App. 2003) 4 Cal.Rptr.3d 850).
- The court denied review in State Farm General Insurance Company v. Lara, but Justices Chin and Joshua Groban recorded votes to grant. [Disclosure: Horvitz & Levy submitted an amicus curiae letter in support of the petition for review.] The Fourth District, Division One, dismissed as untimely an appeal from a judgment denying a petition for a writ of mandate, a petition that was combined with a complaint for declaratory relief. The appellate court ruled an earlier order denying only the writ petition was the appealable final judgment because the order “effectively disposed” of all causes of action, including the declaratory relief cause of action.
- There were seven criminal case grant-and-holds, four are yet more cases waiting for the court’s decision in People v. Frahs (see here) and another three are Proposition 47 cases on hold for People v. Jimenez (see here), which was argued in December.