Unlike some people, I don't mind Justice Wiley's short, staccato style. Sometimes -- many times, even -- I affirmatively like it.
But the danger is that, sometimes, brevity is both under- and/or overemployed. The last paragraph of this opinion is one of those times.
The Court of Appeal holds that the City of Manhattan Beach can't prohibit short-term rentals because it didn't get approval of the Coastal Commission. Fair enough. Justice Wiley explains why in a concise 10-page opinion.
But here's the last paragraph, in its entirety:
"The City argues Keen’s reliance on Kracke v. City of Santa Barbara (2021) 63 Cal.App.5th 1089 is misplaced. Our analysis does not involve Kracke."
That's ending on a low note, IMHO.
On the one hand, if a party cites a case and you think it's distinguishable, you've got to explain -- or, in my view, should at least explain -- why. You owe that to the parties and/or the lower courts. Saying, iessence, essentially, "Our case is different" doesn't cut it. Especially if you don't even explain the facts or holding of that other case. So, in one way, this paragraph underexplains.
Alternately, the paragraph's entirely unnecessary. Justice Wiley's right -- though I had to read the sentence three times (and think about it a bit ) to figure out why. (And also figured it out, truthfully, only after going back and reading Kracke.) That earlier case -- which basically held something similar to what the Court of Appeal holds today -- is an argument (if anything) for today's holding. But Justice Wiley doesn't feel like using it; which, after reading the case, I understand, because technically, although the cases reach the same result (i.e., both cities ultimately couldn't ban short term rentals), they reached that result for different reasons and based on different legal arguments.
Fair enough. So if you're not relying on a case, no reason to mention it. At all. You're under no duty to explain away every case that goes the way you end up and explain why you're not using it. And doing so would end the opinion on a whimper (rather than a bang) anyway. Especially when you're not even doing an explanation of the case and are simply saying "Yeah, we're not citing that case".
After all, the opinion doesn't rely on a ton of cases: Miranda, Marbury, Dred Scott, etc. No need to mention them either. Ditto for Kracke. Just leave it out, particularly if you're not going to explain it.
