4DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/12/17 - Dec 17, 2025

argument

4DCA Division 3 Oral Argument - 2025/12/17

California Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three 3h 13m 2 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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What does the court’s opening and initial introductions cover?

Jesse Cox 5:46

No, he's just uh

Unknown 5:48

Okay.

Unknown 5:56

are adding somebody. Okay.

Jesse Cox 5:57

Okay, well

Unknown 5:57

wasn't just a minute. Okay, your name, sir? Uh tanner metal. No, no. Oh, just be covered. Yeah. Do you know that?

Unknown 6:19

Yes. Okay, thank you. And that's fine. As long as he doesn't speak well he's at the table.

Marianne Kazell 8:14

Everything will be recycled.

Unknown 15:38

All rise. Court of appeal, fourth appel district, division three. Good morning everyone. Good morning.

Unknown 15:52

I am Justice Moore. To my right is Justice Sanchez, and to my left is Justice Scott. We have two matters on calendar this morning and two different panels. The first matter is Rendon versus County of Orange.

Dick Herman 16:18

Morning, Your Honors. Dick Herman for Mr. Rendon.

Unknown 16:21

Good morning. You may proceed, sir.

Dick Herman 16:27

So this is uh There's only one issue. uh this was dismissed based on race judicata but it was not a federal court ruling on the merits and only a federal court ruling on the merits would be race judicata. Um This was a um

Dick Herman 17:00

case where the attorney at the time who was Jerry Steering had a son who was a professional baseball player and he was playing in Chicago and Jerry wanted to go to Chicago and see his son play in his professional baseball game and ask for a continuance. to file an opposition. And the judge did not grant the continuance. So the opposition was filed late and the opposition was struck. So effectively what happened in the federal court was a default judgment. Uh A judgment on the merits might be race judicata, but there's no judgment on the merits. Judgment based on the evidence rather than on technical or procedural grounds is a judgment on the merits. And that that's right out of Bloch's law dictionary. And interestingly, in uh another Rule forty one case, District Judge Holcomb did a very long uh opinion ruling where he goes through all of the various aspects and and in this case what happened to district court is the district court said

Dick Herman 18:32

You have to file your opposition twenty one days ahead of time and you didn't do it. So the judgment is based on the violation of a local rule of the Federal District Court. That is not a judgment on the merits. It's not based on evidence, not based on any analysis of the facts of the case. So it seems to me that uh uh a reversal is required. There is no race judicata. Uh and it is of course the problem with all the civil rights cases that we see all the time.

Unknown 19:14

So this court should not consider the facts that the action i it's the same causes of action as the twenty twenty case between the same parties.

Dick Herman 19:26

It's the court c certainly does consider that. But it's not a a judgment that gives uh basis and race judicata. They didn't it's the same parties, but there was never any ruling on the evidence. There's no ruling that says, gee, I've considered all the evidence. If I can reserve five minutes for rebuttal,

Nicholas Bronni 19:50

Your Honors. That's hard. Thank you. One quick question first, uh Mr Hermann. A moment ago you cited Black's Law Dictionary. Would you say that that is your best authority? For the point that you are making about uh a decision on the merits?

Dick Herman 20:05

Well, it's good authority. Th there's There's a whole plethora of issues that come up. And what happens and this is actually uh as good an example as any, you file in state court, it's removed to federal court under the theory that federal pleading is more difficult. And in fact, the federal court looks at something entirely different. Uh the federal court's analysis is not the same as the state court analysis. So you're not you're not on a an even playing field. Uh the the case that The case that does that is is Hayes, which is a uh wrongful death case where the our Supreme Court says The Fourth Amendment analysis in the federal court is not the same as the Fourth Amendment analysis in the State Court.

Dick Herman 21:08

And that's actually changing. The US Supreme Court recently adopted a uh a different analysis that said they'll look at overall things starting now. And there is a state court case, A B versus the County of San Diego, one hundred twelve Calop fifth four hundred four, which was decided june twenty sixth, twenty twenty five, after the briefing in this case.