It's a fact of life that, sometimes, particular trial court judges simply don't personally like particular high-profile attorneys who appear before them. The flip side is also true, of course; sometimes, judges really respect and enjoy having particular attorneys before them. Usually, you hope those sorts of things don't affect the results achieved in the litigation -- with some notable exceptions, of course. But, on the whole, at the trial court level, there are some repeat players, and sometimes, the fact that a particular judge doesn't feel much fondness for the particular attorney at issue might potentially affect, at least slightly, the way the case resolves.
By contrast, you don't see that as much on the appellate side. There are good and bad lawyers in the Court of Appeal, of course. As well as particular judges who like or dislike particular practitioners. But I don't get the sense that the level of interaction -- or strength of feeling -- is particularly high in the Court of Appeal, or at least is less than what you often see in trial courts. If only because justices on the Court of Appeal simply don't spend as much time with even repeat player advocates as trial court judges do with lawyers at lower levels; e.g., during the course of even a single trial.
I say all this as backdrop to this opinion, in which -- reading between the lines -- I sense a nontrivial amount of hostility. From the trial judge against the plaintiff's lawyer, who's a definite repeat player down here in San Diego. And, similarly, from the judges on the Court of Appeal against that same lawyer and the public interest organization with which he's closely involved and represents on appeal.
I'm not expressing any judgment as to who's right or wrong in the case. It's about whether a particular organization has standing to file a citizen suit -- an organization that files a fairly substantial number of public interest lawsuits. The Court of Appeal describes the testimony of the organization's Board member and PMK deponent in fairly stark and negative terms (though accurately). The panel also employs relatively harsh terminology that you sometimes -- but don't generally -- see in appellate decisions; for example, saying not only once, but twice, that certain evidence was "woefully insufficient" to establish a particular claim.
Read the opinion to see if you agree, but reading between the lines, I just got the keen sense that the justices on the panel thought that the underlying organization and its lawyers were at least a little bit sleazy and were trying to manufacture organizational standing that in reality didn't at all exist. Hence the language and temperament of the opinion.
Perhaps in an even more deeply felt fashion than even the trial court.
