In Appeals, You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
Posted on November 17, 2008
Filed Under Appeals, Criminal Law, Law |
Once again, the appellate court has ruled, “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.” In Satchmed Plaza Owners v. UWMC Hospital Corp. (2008 DJDAR 16123), the 4th District, Division 3 Court of Appeal reaffirmed that accepting the benefits of a judgment invalidates your right to appeal that judgment.
The appeals process gives those convicted of a crime the right to appeal both their conviction and the terms of their sentence where a trial error has inadvertently been made by attorneys, jurors and/or judges. A criminal appeals attorney can initiate an appeal for any number of reasons, including errors in evidence, application of the wrong law, inappropriate arguments made by attorneys, confusing jury instructions, and inappropriate sentences.
However, as Paul Fogel and Zareh Jaltorossian point out in an article posted in the Daily Journal, a convicted individual can lose his right to appeal by affirmatively or expressly waiving that right by:
- satisfying the judgment which makes an appeal moot, or
- engaging in improper conduct such as disobeying court orders or antagonizing the court.
The right to appeal can also be lost by implied waiver if the individual accepts the benefits of the judgment, Fogel and Jaltorossian point out. “The right to accept the fruits of the judgment and the right to appeal therefore are wholly inconsistent, and an election to take one is a renunciation of the other,” the court said in Trollope v. Jeffries [55 Cal. App. 3rd 816, 822 (1976)].
While express waivers are pretty cut and dried, implied waivers are open to considerable interpretation by the court. The main difficulty lies in the court’s interpretation of “acceptance,” which may vary. As Fogel and Jaltorossian point out, “This has caused appellate courts over the years to struggle with what kind of ‘acceptance’ of judgment benefits qualify.”
Due to the importance of the right to appeal, exceptions to the implied waiver rule are sometimes made by the courts. If an individual’s acceptance of judgment benefits is involuntary or conditional, or if his acceptance is compelled by the risk or forfeiture of property interest, most courts will uphold the individual’s right to appeal. Fogel and Jaltorossian cite the example of H.D. Amaiz, Ltd. v. County of San Joaquin [96 Cal. App. 4th 1357 (2002)] in which the court ruled that even though the defendant had accepted the plaintiff’s funds, he retained his right to appeal because he had placed those funds in a trust account pending resolution of the appeal and had not used the money.
The point of the appeals process is to ensure that justice is done. Time and again the court has ruled against those who “try to gain an unfair advantage by accepting the favorable portion of a judgment and appealing the unfavorable portion,” Fogel and Jaltorossian remind us. Because the appeals process is so complex and is laced with such complicated pitfalls like waivers and exceptions, appeals are handled by specialized appellate lawyers, not the trial attorney.
-LegalPro
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