The appeal involves a complicated issue about when you get equitable tolling of the statute of limitations for particular types of foreign proceedings. Justice Stratton begins the opinion by saying:
"In a case which seems destined for the pages of a civil procedure casebook, Metabyte, Inc., appeals from the trial court’s judgment of dismissal and order sustaining Technicolor’s demurrer without leave to amend. . . ."
It's a very detailed and coherent opinion. That said, I read (and assign) a lot of civil procedure casebooks, not only for my first-year Civil Procedure class, but also for the upper division classes I teach (California Civil Procedure, Pretrial Practice, etc.). So I feel somewhat qualified to make the following prediction:
This opinion will not, in fact, be included in any future civil procedure casebook. It's smart and detailed and maybe should be. But it's about a particular niche that doesn't arise that often. So while I'm certain it will be cited in an ALR or a law review article or something like that, as well as in future Court of Appeal opinions, I don't think many law students will be reading the thing anytime soon.
Still, a neat little opinion, and I learned something from it.
