Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in California

Re: Case Law Confused?

It sounds like you've already had your oral argument, so you're a bit late in asking these questions.

The main reason lawyers cite prior cases is to persuade the court that their arguments are correct. If I'm arguing that a certain piece of evidence should have been excluded, I want to cite a procedurally similar case involving the same question where the court ruled the way I want this court to rule. I also have to cite cases that went the opposite way and try to explain why those cases are different and/or why they were decided incorrectly.

More broadly, any time you make an assertion about what the law says or requires you're supposed to cite a case, statute, etc. which says you're right. I've had a number of appeals in which I cited 100 cases or more -- often citing some of the same cases dozens of times.

Federal decisions are not "better" (or worse) than state decisions. They're different, and the differences matter. The rules in federal courts are different from those in state courts. Also, most legal issues argued in state court relate to state law. Citing a federal court case which discusses a different federal law usually won't do you any good. You want to discuss cases involving the same law at issue in your case.

Federal cases often do discuss matters of state law. Sometimes federal courts interpret those laws one way, but the California Supreme Court (CSC) interprets them differently. When this happens the lower California state courts have to apply the CSC's decision even if a contrary federal case seems more persuasive.

Your question reminds me of an old story. A woman comes home and finds her husband crawling around on the living room floor, picking through the carpet. She asks what he's doing, and he says "I'm trying to find a contact lens I lost this morning." The wife asks "Where were you when it fell out?" "In the bedroom," he answers. Naturally, she asks, "Then why are you looking for it in the living room?" His answer: "There's better light in here."

If your cases hinged on an issue of state law, citing federal cases was like being in the wrong room. The wife in the story was surely irritated that her husband would search that way, and your appellate justice likely had a similar reaction.

Re: Case Law Confused?

Prior to the American Civil War, many would have been horrified to read your post. As David McCullough stated so eloquently in his docudrama on the Civil War, before the Civil War, poeple would say the United States are, and after the Civil War, people would say the United States is.

The difference in verbs comes from a difference in public opinion, and exposes the way that you think about our country. You, like many other Americans, think of the United States as one country, and that therefore federal law is supreme. But federal law is not supreme, at least not when it comes to state law matters.

In reality, the United States is composed of 50 states, that are joined together in a federal union. Some matters have been delegated directly to the federal government, which governs all 50 states, but most matters are reserved to the state governments.

The federal government controls matters such as interstate commerce, or bankruptcy law, or patent law, because these are expressly reserved for the federal government by the U.S. Constitution. But a lot of other matters, such as contract law, tort law, family law, and real estate are reserved to the states.

Federal law is rarely persuasive on a state law matter. As the previous post pointed out, the source to look for as an expert on California law is not the federal courts, but rather the California Supreme Court.

Don't think of the federal courts sitting on some sort of pedestal above the state courts. Think of the federal courts sitting side by side the state courts, handling issues of federal law.

Very truly yours,