Supreme Court of California

The Supreme Court of California is the state supreme court in California. It is headquartered in San Francisco, and regularly holds sessions at its branch offices in Los Angeles, and Sacramento. Its decisions are binding on all other California state courts.

Idiosyncrasies

Also like the state it serves, the Court has a reputation for being unique in various odd ways. Both the California Supreme Court and all lower courts use a different writing style and citation system from the federal courts and many other state courts. The most obvious difference is that California citations always have the year between the names of the parties and the reference to the case reporter, as opposed to the national standard of putting the year at the end.

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While the U.S. Supreme Court justices indicate the author of an opinion and who has "joined" the opinion at the start of the opinion, California justices always sign a majority opinion at the end, followed by "WE CONCUR," and then the names of the joining justices. California judges are traditionally not supposed to use certain ungrammatical terms in their opinions, which has led to embarrassing fights between judges and the editor of the state's official reporters. California has abolished the use of certain French and Latin phrases like en banc and mandamus, so California judges and attorneys write "in bank" and "mandate" instead.

Related Topics:
U.S. Supreme Court - French - Latin - En banc - Mandamus

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Finally, the California Supreme Court has the power to "depublish" opinions by the California Courts of Appeal (as opposed to the federal practice of not publishing certain "unpublished" opinions at all in the federal case reporters). This means that even though the opinion has already been published in the official state reporters, it will be binding only upon the parties. Stare decisis does not apply, and any new rules articulated will not be applied in future cases. Similarly, the California Supreme Court has the power to "publish" opinions by the California Courts of Appeal which were initially not published.

Related Topics:
Courts of Appeal - Stare decisis

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