Some important news for litigants in writ proceedings who seek to appeal – on July 29, 2024, the California Supreme Court in Meinhardt v. City of Sunnyvale established the rule for when the time clock for an appeal begins to run in a petition for writ of administrative mandate case. It does not begin until after the trial court enters a document formally titled “judgment,” and not earlier, as some courts had held. Some courts had taken the position that the time began to run before a formal judgment was entered, when the trial court issued an order finally resolving all the issues in the case and leaving nothing further for the trial court to determine. This earlier start time could result in parties missing the deadline to appeal, and the California Supreme Court’s July 29 ruling in Meinhardt sought to establish a rule that more clearly signals for the parties what is the deadline for starting an appeal.
Background – Notices of Appeal and Time to File
Once a trial court case concludes, the parties have a limited time to appeal. A party files a document called a “notice of appeal” in the trial court to begin the appeal. Thereafter, the notice is communicated to the Court of Appeal and proceedings in that court begin.
This notice of appeal is due generally 60 days after service of notice of entry of the judgment or appealable order in the case (either the parties, their lawyer, or the court can send out the notice of entry of judgment). The time limit represents a serious concern – if a party misses the deadline to file this notice, then the Court of Appeal lacks jurisdiction to consider the appeal. This means that if the notice is late, the Court of Appeal cannot exercise discretion or apply principles of fairness to save the appeal. Even well-meaning litigants, who miss the deadline purely by accident, lose the ability to have the Court of Appeal hear their case.
Meinhardt involved a particular type of appeal, one from the trial court’s decision on a petition for writ of administrative mandate. These proceedings, governed by California Civil Procedure Code section 1094.5, serve as a means for parties to seek to overturn administrative hearing outcomes in many contexts, including environmental, licensing, and others. Local government agencies have to litigate these types of petitions in the employment context when one side seeks to challenge the results of an administrative hearing concerning discipline – either the employee or the agency can file a petition in the trial court for an order directing the hearing officer to change the outcome. Once the trial court decides whether to grant or deny the petition (or comes to a different conclusion), the losing party can file a notice of appeal to require the Court of Appeal to review the trial court’s decision.
The Meinhardt Trial Court and Court of Appeal Proceedings
In the Meinhardt case, a police officer challenged his 44-hour suspension in a proceeding before a personnel board and the board upheld the discipline. The officer sought review of this outcome by filing a petition for writ of administrative mandate in the trial court, but the trial court denied his petition. The officer appealed, but did so in a way that the Court of Appeal determined to be untimely. The Court of Appeal held that the time to file a notice of appeal ran from the trial court’s order finally determining the proceedings, in other words, finally determining who won the writ proceeding and leaving nothing further to be decided. The Court of Appeal observed that it was at this point that either party could appeal the decision. (They could not appeal sooner, under the well-established final judgment rule, allowing appeals only at the conclusion of the case.) The Court of Appeal held that even though the trial court later entered a document titled “judgment,” the true determining document, i.e., the real “judgment” for purposes of the action, was that earlier order. Since the notice of appeal was not timely as to that earlier order, the appeal had to be dismissed.
The California Supreme Court’s Decision in Meinhardt
The California Supreme Court decided to review the Court of Appeal’s decision, and determine whether to continue to support its rule concerning timeliness. The Supreme Court ultimately opted for a much more streamlined rule. It rejected the rule that an order that disposed of all the issues in the case should be considered the event that could start the appellate time clock running. Instead, the rule should be simpler – a document at the case’s conclusion that is actually denominated a “judgment” should be required to start the clock.
The Supreme Court, at the very beginning of its opinion, concisely set forth its reasoning, and the rule it decided to put into effect in California:
We granted review in this case to resolve uncertainty about when the time to appeal starts to run in writ of administrative mandate proceedings pursuant to section 1094.5 of the Code of Civil Procedure. Some Courts of Appeal, including that in this case which dismissed the appeal as untimely, hold that the time starts to run with the filing of an “order” that disposes of all issues in the case and contemplates no further action, not with subsequent entry of a “judgment.” Other Courts of Appeal hold that the time starts to run with the entry of a “judgment,” not with the filing of a prior “order.”
[California courts in the past have described:] “The time of appealability, having jurisdictional consequences, should above all be clear.” “[B]right lines are essential in this area, to avoid both inadvertent forfeiture of the right to appeal and excessive protective appeals by parties afraid they might suffer such a forfeiture.” “‘Neither parties nor appellate courts should be required to speculate about jurisdictional time limits.’”
Given these considerations, and for the reasons set forth below, we adopt a “bright line[]” rule that the time to appeal in administrative mandate proceedings starts to run with entry of “judgment” or service of notice of entry of “judgment,” rather than with the filing of, or service of notice of the filing of, an “order,” minute order, or other ruling.
(Footnotes and citations omitted.) The Court rested its decision not just on the policy considerations described above but its interpretations of applicable statutes and case precedent.
Liebert Cassidy Whitmore had the honor of representing the City of Sunnyvale in this matter throughout the appellate process, and this author argued this case before the California Supreme Court on behalf of the City. We presented legal and practical policy arguments to support the more strict rule applied by the Court of Appeal in its decision, but the Supreme Court chose a different course described above. The briefing materials of the parties are available here.
Conclusion
The Supreme Court put into place a rule that makes it more straightforward to identify the deadline to file a notice of appeal in petition for writ of mandate proceedings under section 1094.5. Nevertheless, application of the rules of appellate procedure remains a complex area of the law. Trusted legal counsel should be alerted to any issues in-house attorneys or agency representatives see that could affect the timing for commencing an appeal.