Litigation
Cal. Litig. 2019, Volume 32, Number 3
Content
- A Journey to a Paramount Moment in International Dispute Resolution: the Singapore Convention
- An Honorarium to Stan Bachrack
- California-Federal Procedural Contrast: Conjecture About Selected Differences
- Choosing and Using Case Authority: Tips and Ethics for Litigators
- Climate Change Comes to the Ninth Circuit: Juliana v. U.S. Tests a Novel Due Process Claim with Far-Reaching Implications for Environmental Litigation
- Editor's Foreword Still Flying High
- From the Section Chair 2019 Was Great; Let's Make 2020 Better
- Letters To the Editor
- Masthead
- Out with the Old, in with the New - Try an Updated Approach to Jury Selection
- Roberts Rules: the Census and Gerrymandering Cases
- Table of Contents
- The Browns of California: the Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation
- The California Supreme Court, 2018-2019: the Rise of the Brown Court?
- Is It Time for a Major Shift in Thinking About Under-Publication of Court of Appeal Opinions in California?
Is It Time for a Major Shift in Thinking About Under-Publication of Court of Appeal Opinions in California?
By Justice Elizabeth A. Grimes and Sean M. SeLegue
Justice Grimes is an Associate Justice of the Second District Court of Appeal, Division Eight.
Sean M. SeLegue is an appellate partner at Arnold & Porter in San Francisco. Sean.SeLegue@ arnoldporter.com
Despite changes to the California Rules of Court in 2007 intended to increase the number of appellate opinions published, a strong anti-publication tendency persists among most California Courts of Appeal. Only about 9% of appellate decisions are published, leaving 91% of those decisions entirely off limits for citation in our state courts, with narrow exceptions generally of use only to the parties to the unpublished case. We think the time has come to consider the harm that "under-publication" causes. The old reasons for drastically limiting publication, which rested in part on the cost of publishing and distributing printed material before the internet existed, are no longer as persuasive as they once were.