Also, Appellate Court Warns Litigants/Counsel To Comply With California Rules Of Court Relating To Appellate Procedure.
Indulkar v. East Desert Valley Investments, Inc., Case No. G050400 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 10, 2015) (unpublished) has a few lessons, where the appellate court refused to review a fee order because it lacked jurisdiction to do so and also did not even have a copy of the fee order to review.
First, appellant’s failure to separately appeal the fee award was fatal, a lesson we have stressed many times before. Unless different circumstances present themselves, the appeal from the merits judgment may not encompass a subsequent fee award as far as preserving appellate jurisdiction. (Golightly v. Molina, 229 Cal.App.4th 1501, 1519-1521 (2014).)
Second, you must include a copy of an order you are challenging on appeal. Appellant did not include a copy of the fee order, another huge flaw.
Third, appellate courts are increasingly deeming arguments forfeited or otherwise rejecting them for failure to comply with appellate procedures contained in the California Rules of Court relating to brief argumentation and record citation. Below, we quote the closing observation by the 3-0 panel, with the author being Justice Moore:
“In concluding our opinion, we must admonish counsel for both parties for their failure to adhere to appellate procedure and the California Rules of Court. In addition to the points mentioned in our discussion of attorney fees, we observe that each party to this appeal provides vast expanses of briefing unsupported by record references. Moreover, those record references that are provided often span great numbers of pages without pinpoint page references. This is sanctionable conduct. (Evans v. Centerstone Development Co. (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 151, 165-167.) Moreover, we may treat any point unsupported by pinpoint page references as forfeited. (In re S.C. (2006) 138 Cal.App.4th 396, 406-407.) Ironically, in his reply brief, appellant both recognizes the inadequacy of respondents’ record references and calls attention to the same, but fails to recognize that he has provided equally deficient record references. Counsel should familiarize themselves with the California Rules of Court and comply with the rules of appellate procedure in the future.”