In Meinhardt v. City of Sunnyvale, published July 29, 2024, the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of a lower court of appeal dismissing an appeal as untimely. The petitioner police officer challenged his suspension by petitioning the trial court for a writ of administrative mandamus. After briefing and a hearing, the trial court entered an order denying the petition. The order was served on the parties the same day it was issued. Eight days later, the respondent served the petitioner with a Judicia Council form "Notice of Entry of Judgment or Order" along with a file-stamped copy of the order denying the writ. Weeks later, the parties signed and submitted to the trial court a document entitled "judgment." The court signed the document, and the respondent served a Notice of Entry of Judgment or Order concerning the judgment. The petitioner filed a notice of appeal within 60 days of the second Notice of Entry of Judgment or Order, but more than 60 days after the first Notice of Entry. The appellate court dismissed the appeal as untimely. Following one line of a split of authority, the appellate court ruled that the time to appeal a ruling in an administrative mandate proceeding ran from the date the court entered an order sufficiently final to constitute a judgment, even if the court later entered a judgment.
The Supreme Court held this was error. The right to appeal in California Courts is entirely statutory and controlled by the legislature. Both general statutes governing appealability and the statutes governing writs of administrative mandate construe the judgment as the appealable ruling, rather than an earlier order. While some court decisions have saved pre-judgment appeals by construing an order as sufficiently final to appeal, that power does not extend to dismissing appeals that were timely taken from the judgment. Further, the time to appeal should be governed by bright-line rules, since the timeliness of an appeal is jurisdictional. The court therefore adopted a bright-line rule that the time to appeal in administrative mandate proceedings starts to run with entry of “judgment” or service of notice of entry of “judgment,” rather than with the filing of, or service of notice of the filing of, an “order,” minute order, or other ruling.
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