Western States Construction Co. v. Municipal Court

California Supreme Court Dec 14, 1951 No. S. F. 18482Published

Before: Edmonds

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Holding. A trial judge cannot arbitrarily refuse to settle a statement on appeal simply because opposing counsel failed to propose amendments or because the judge cannot recall the proceedings. The judge has a duty to settle the statement using available resources, such as reporter notes or witness testimony, to ensure a litigant's right to appeal.

Issues

Whether a trial judge may refuse to settle a statement on appeal due to the death of opposing counsel and the judge's inability to recall trial proceedings.
Whether a trial judge has a duty to settle a statement on appeal even in the absence of proposed amendments from the opposing party.

Disposition. reversed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“The absence of proposed amendments, from whatever cause, did not relieve the trial judge of his duty to settle the proposed statement with such corrections and additions as might be necessary.”

EDMONDS, J.

In an action brought by Anna Perez in the municipal court, she obtained a judgment against Western States Construction Company. When a proposed statement upon appeal was filed by Western States, the trial judge refused to settle it. There is now before this court an appeal from a judgment of the superior court denying a petition for a writ of mandate to compel him to do so.

The proposed statement, Western States alleges in its petition, “was prepared in accordance with the . . . Rules on Appeal from Municipal Courts in Civil Cases . . . , and filed within the time required by law and said Rules.” It “contains all the material evidence, and is fair, and is a condensed statement in narrative form of all portions of the oral proceedings as appellants deem material to the determination of the points on appeal.”

Other facts relied upon by Western States concern the proceeding at the time the proposed statement was presented to Judge Golden for settlement. According to the appellant, Scholars, an attorney of record for Perez, then stated that Crawford, one of his associates, who had taken the principal

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part in the trial of the action, died shortly thereafter. Because of that situation, said Scholars, he could not propose any amendments to the statement. Upon that representation, the appellant asserts, Judge Golden made an order refusing to settle the statement. He advised the appellant, it declares, that the record on appeal would have to be a complete reporter’s transcript of the proceedings at the time of the trial. The basis of his order, said the judge, was that Mr. Crawford is dead, and there were no proposed amendments to the statement, and “nothing to settle,” and he could not remember all of the proceedings.

When the mandate proceeding was tried, the answer of the respondent municipal court was withdrawn “to expedite argument on the legal issues.” Thereafter, the petition for the writ of mandate was denied.

Western States now contends that the trial judge abused his discretion in refusing to settle the statement, there being no amendments proposed and no objections made to the statement by opposing counsel or the judge. The cost of a reporter’s transcript, it says, is out of all proportion to the amount of the judgment, $725, and Perez is insolvent.

Western States Construction Co. v. Municipal Court

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EDMONDS, J.

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