Haldane v. Haldane

California Court of Appeal Feb 18, 1965 No. Civ. 28279Published

Before: Kingsley

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Holding. The court held that allegations of bias or prejudice formed by a trial judge during the course of divorce proceedings do not constitute grounds for disqualification or for setting aside a judgment in equity.

Issues

Whether a trial judge's alleged bias or prejudice arising during the course of divorce proceedings constitutes grounds for disqualification.
Whether the plaintiff's complaint stated a valid cause of action to set aside a divorce decree based on judicial prejudice.

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“it appears that the gist of appellant’s present action is his contention that the trial court was prejudiced against him and, therefore, that he was denied a fair trial of the divorce action.”

“the prejudice which the trial judge is alleged to have formed against appellant was one which arose out of the proceedings in the divorce action itself. This is not such a bias or prejudice as disqualifies a judge”

“What Mr. Haldane is complaining about, as the detailed allegations of his complaint and his brief on appeal make clear, is that the trial judge developed a bias and prejudice against him during the course of the proceedings. For this, no judicial relief is possible.”

KINGSLEY, J.

Plaintiff was a defendant in a divorce proceeding. Judgment was entered against him. Thereafter an attempt to set aside the decree under section 473 of the Code of Civil Procedure, and sundry other attacks on the decree and its operation, were made, denied, and the denials

[394]

affirmed on appeal.

(Haldane

Haldane

(1962) 210 Cal.App.2d 587 [26 Cal.Rptr. 670].) Hearing in the Supreme Court was denied. Plaintiff then instituted the present action in equity, seeking to set aside the interlocutory decree. The action was against “the Superior Court of Los Angeles County and Rosamond B. Haldane.” Demurrers by both defendants were sustained without leave to amend, and plaintiff appealed to this court. We affirmed the dismissal as to the court, for reasons set forth in our opinion in

Haldane

Superior Court

(1963) 221 Cal.App.2d 483 [34 Cal.Rptr. 572], but dismissed a purported appeal involving Mrs. Haldane, for the reason that no final judgment of dismissal had then been entered as to her. Plaintiff thereafter procured the entry of a formal judgment and his appeal from that judgment is now before us.

The complaint is full of a series of allegations as to actions allegedly taken by the trial judge, after entry of the interlocutory decree, which are claimed to have resulted in the unlawful arrest and imprisonment of plaintiff. Whatever rights, if any, that may flow from this conduct, it is clear that they state no cause of action against Mrs. Haldane, who was not therein involved.

The allegations that have some possible bearing on plaintiff ’s attempt to set aside the decree of divorce are as follows:

“III

“That on July 6, 1960, the matter [the original divorce suit] came before the judge in Department 42 at Los Angeles on an order to show cause, whereupon the judge shuttled the parties back and forth between his chambers and the court room; unknown to then defendant Haldane, the judge developed a violent prejudice and bias against the then defendant Haldane which disqualified him from deciding the case at all, and which would have resulted in a motion to disqualify on the ground of prejudice and bias, had attorney Miller [Mr. Haldane’s then counsel of record] or his client known or suspected the prejudice and bias to exist.

Haldane v. Haldane

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KINGSLEY, J.

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