In an opinion later depublished by the Supreme Court of California and not to be cited, the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal reversed an Orange County Superior Court trial judge’s denial of Plaintiff Donn Martinez’s request for a retrial for prejudicial attorney misconduct.  Martinez et al., v. State of Calif., Dept. of Transportation (2015) is a relatively fun read, although Mr. Martinez’s attorney may have pulled out all of his hair over the trial judge’s inaction when Defendant CalTrans’ trial counsel violated multiple in limine orders multiple times and in doing so could very well have tainted the outcome by such trial tactics.

My favorite paragraph of the opinion included only two sentences:  “We have recounted the truly egregious, indisputable instances of misconduct. Martinez, in this appeal, asserts there is yet more. But we see no reason to go further. Suffice to say we found enough to establish attorney misconduct at least five pages ago.” 

Interestingly enough, the Court of Appeal referred this opinion to the State Bar of California for presumed disciplinary proceedings against Defendant’s trial counsel, but I find no record of any discipline on the attorney’s State Bar profile page a year later.