Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Falling Off Face of the Earth (Cal. Ct. App. - Sept. 10-16, 2009)

I'm sure there's a rational explanation for it. Huge conference. Administrative backlog. Budget woes. Something else. All of the above? Swine flu?

But what's going on with the California Court of Appeal? Usually it cranks out around six to twelve published opinions a day. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It generally evens out.

But in the seven days since September 9th, the California Court of Appeal has published three opinions. Total. None on the 10th, none on the 11th, one on the 14th, two yesterday, and none (thus far) today.

Not that I'm complaining, I guess. Personally, I've been busy, so it's actually lessened my workload (but also my joy) not to have to read so many cases lately. Plus, it's not that the Court of Appeal has been doing zip. It's issued over a hundred unpublished dispositions during this same seven-day period, after all.

But the death of the published opinion seems weird. So much so that, for a while, I thought the court's web site might have been broken. But the form looks fine. It just seems like there's no content.

So if you're wondering why I've focused almost exclusively on the 9th Circuit lately, don't kill the messenger. Hopefully we'll get some juicy California Court of Appeal cases soon enough.