1DCA Division 2 Oral Argument - 2025/11/20 - Nov 20, 2025

argument

1DCA Division 2 Oral Argument - 2025/11/20

California First District Court of Appeal 3h 39m 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What does the court announce at the beginning of the oral argument session?

Unknown 0:14

Good morning everyone, you may be seated. And good morning everyone on remote. We have a lengthy calendar this morning, so I will probably be a little strenuous about enforcing time limits. I'm. Excuse me, Jose. I believe the court is muted. We cannot hear them. It's freezing. Am I mute? I can hear you now. Okay, maybe I wasn't sitting close enough to the mic. That's usually council's problem, but hey. Okay, let me get it closer. So we have seven cases on the calendar this morning, and so I'm gonna enforce time limits pretty strictly so that we can get through all of them before lunch. Oh, wait a minute, I'm wrong. You know what? We have two of them are on at 1.30. We only have five. Okay. It might not be quite as bad.

Unknown 1:20

Okay. So I will call the cases in the order in which they'll be heard. And if you would stand and state your appearances, that would be great. So the first case is Reiser versus Reiser.

Hans Reiser 1:39

Hans Reiser.

Unknown 1:41

Thank you. The second case is Cardinale versus Barber.

Elliot Bray 1:49

Good morning, Your Honor. Elliot Bray for the appellate, Ralph Cardinale.

Constantine Demers 1:54

Good morning, Your Honor. Constantine Demers for respondent, Anthony Barber.

Carolyn Kane 1:59

Thank you. Good morning, Your Honor. Carolyn Kane for the other respondents, Jess Chavez et al.

Unknown 2:08

Thank you. And then the third case is Nehmer versus City of Mill Valley and Geisler.

Gary Nehmer 2:17

Gary Nehmer, Your Honor, for

Unknown 2:19

saying. Wait, say that again.

Gary Nehmer 2:30

Gary Nehmer, Your Honor, for saying.

Unknown 2:33

Yeah, but your opposing counsel. Go ahead, sir.

Unknown 2:43

And is there someone here for the Geysers?

John Fitzgerald 2:46

Yes, you're on, John Fitzgerald on behalf of the Geysers.

Unknown 2:50

Okay. And, okay, third, fourth case is Environmental Democracy Project versus rail.

Unknown 3:17

Thank you. OK, the last case on the morning calendar is people versus Easter.

Peter Goldscheider 3:25

Good morning, Peter Goldscheider for appellant Kevin Easter.

Hans Reiser 3:30

Good morning, Your Honor. David Baskin for the people.

Unknown 3:33

Thank you. Now, there will be this morning a panel change after the first two cases will be heard by the panel you see before you on the bench, which is myself, Justice Miller, and Justice DeSotels. The third, fourth, and fifth cases will have a panel change, and Justice Richmond will join us remotely. And the rest of the panel will be myself and Justice Miller. So we won't have a big shuffle, but a little shuffle after the second and before the third case. Okay. Let's hear from you, Mr. Reiser.

Hans Reiser 4:14

Yes. I was asked to address the issue of our appellant's property interest at stake in the meeting of Payne v. Superior Court. The The more than $200 million judgment against me and when I say that I'm including interest is a property interest. And so I have a property interest in this case because I have a judgment against me.

Unknown 4:52

Well, Mr. Reiser, some of the case law indicates and Payne is one case and then there's... another case, the name of which I'm forgetting at the moment, but they indicate that if there's a judgment that has no possible way of being enforced or collected, if you will, because the indigent person has no assets, that there isn't a property interest. I know you filed a brief on this, but if you'd like to talk about that piece, that would be helpful.

Hans Reiser 5:35

Sure. There's a difference in the proper legal standard for things like punitive damages and whether you should bring a case against somebody versus whether having won a case and gotten the judgment, and perhaps you shouldn't have been able to go to trial on that case, the appellant then has the right to appeal the judgment. If I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that anyone who currently has no assets has no right to defend any future assets that he might have, any future assets that he might acquire. And that would lead to the curious situation where people can sue the indigent, collect a judgment, and they will have No right to defend themselves against that judgment.

Unknown 6:51

I think you're perhaps confusing something that I was saying. It's not that... you were saying that or that the cases say that a judgment, if there's no assets currently, can't be enforced. The question under Payne and the other cases is one about access to the courts.