Yesterday, we talked about the Supreme Court’s grant of a party’s apparent request to revise the court staff’s summary of the question presented in a case, Nationwide Biweekly Administration, Inc. v. Superior Court. Today, we got to see the request itself and a notice of settlement, both of which put the revision into context and establish that the revision, although maybe not sui generis, shouldn’t be taken as encouraging parties to ask the court to edit its staff’s issue summaries, except under very unusual circumstances.
We said yesterday that the party’s revision request was based on seeming dissatisfaction with the issue summary drafted by court staff. That’s misleading. The request actually sought to scale back (for good reason) the question presented as stated at the beginning of the party’s petition for review (see rule 8.504(b)(1)), a question apparently used by court staff to draft the issue summary for public consumption. When the court allowed a change of the issue in the petition, the court staff’s summary of the issue presented was revised accordingly. (The only excuse we have is that the online docket doesn’t indicate that the court was revising the petition for review’s statement of the question presented.)
Here’s what prompted the request. Originally, the party — the People of California — wanted the court to decide whether there’s a right to a jury trial in actions brought by the People under three different statutory schemes. After the court granted review, a settlement eliminated the causes of action under one of the three laws. The People preferred not to brief the jury-trial question under the law that was no longer at issue in the case, briefing that — without a modification of the issue presented — could have been expected under rule 8.520(b)(3).
So, there is a practice tip to be gleaned from the Nationwide case; just not the one suggested by yesterday’s post.