Predicting the Supreme Court won’t review Prop. 22’s constitutionality

David Carrillo and Stephen Duvernay, in today’s Daily Journal column “Castellanos shows the futility of petitions for review,” say “those predicting that [Castellanos v. State of California] will be granted review [by the Supreme Court] are likely to be wrong.”

In Castellanos, a First District, Division Four, divided published opinion last month rejected most constitutional challenges to Proposition 22. The initiative, passed in 2020 and heavily financed by Uber and Lyft, classifies app-based drivers as independent contractors instead of employees.

Carrillo and Duvernay write that the case “is an opportunity to recall the California Supreme Court’s role as a court of review, not error correction.” They also say, “the fact that this case involves an initiative makes for even longer odds of review being granted.”

Castellanos first sought to invalidate Proposition 22 by filing a writ petition directly in the Supreme Court. The court denied the petition “without prejudice to refiling in an appropriate court,” but two justices — Goodwin Liu and since-retired Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar — recorded votes to issue an order to show cause and have the court hear the case on the merits.

The deadline for a petition for review in the most recent Castellanos case is April 24.

Related:

Supreme Court will not hear Prop. 22 challenge . . . at least not yet

The Supreme Court doesn’t decide all important issues