Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Daniel Leon Roberts sued the Merced County District Attorney, alleging misconduct connected with his criminal prosecution. The defendant demurred to Roberts's sixth amended complaint, and the Merced County Superior Court sustained the demurrer as to every cause of action without leave to amend, concluding that all claims were subject to prosecutorial and discretionary immunity under Government Code sections 820.2 and 821.6. Donald J. Proietti was the superior court judge identified in the appeal caption.
Roberts, representing himself, appealed from the order sustaining the demurrer without leave to amend. Forrest W. Hansen, County Counsel, along with Deputy County Counsel Jenna M. Anderson and Dusty B. Nunes, represented the respondent. The Fifth District Court of Appeal, sitting as a panel of Franson, Acting P. J., Snauffer, J., and Harrell, J., identified two threshold matters: whether it could reach the merits despite the absence of a separate judgment of dismissal, and whether Roberts's opening brief adequately presented grounds for reversal.
The Court’s Holding
The court explained that an order sustaining a demurrer without leave to amend ordinarily is not appealable under Code of Civil Procedure section 904.1, subdivision (a); an appeal is proper only after entry of a dismissal on such an order. It nevertheless exercised its discretion to treat the order as incorporating a judgment of dismissal and to treat Roberts's notice of appeal as directed to that fictional judgment. All causes of action against the defendant had been fully adjudicated, the respondent had not raised appealability, and no party had been misled or prejudiced by the missing judgment. Dismissing the appeal merely to obtain a dismissal entry would serve no purpose and would cause delay.
The court then found major deficiencies in Roberts's 57-page opening brief. It described the document as largely unintelligible, with sentences that collectively lacked any logical thread, making it impossible to determine from reading the brief what the case concerned or what claims Roberts advanced. The brief also failed to state the nature of the action, explain why the challenged order was appealable, or summarize the significant facts, as required by California Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(2)(A)–(C).
Those deficiencies meant Roberts did not carry his appellant's burden to demonstrate reversible error through cogent argument. The court affirmed on that basis rather than issuing an independent merits analysis of the immunity grounds underlying the demurrer. Its disposition treated the demurrer order as a judgment of dismissal, affirmed that judgment, and ordered the parties to bear their own costs on appeal.
Key Takeaways
- A demurrer order without leave to amend is not ordinarily appealable, but an appellate court may treat it as including a dismissal judgment when doing so prevents pointless delay.
- The court reached Roberts's appeal because all claims against the respondent had been adjudicated and the respondent neither objected to appealability nor suffered prejudice.
- An appellant must present cogent argument demonstrating reversible error; a lengthy brief does not satisfy that burden if its claims and reasoning cannot be understood.
- The affirmance rested on the opening brief's inadequacies, not on a newly developed appellate analysis of prosecutorial or discretionary immunity.
- The parties were ordered to bear their own costs on appeal.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the distinction between rescuing an appeal from a technical appealability defect and excusing inadequate appellate advocacy. The court used a fictional judgment of dismissal to avoid returning the case to the trial court solely for a formal dismissal entry, but it would not construct or decipher Roberts's arguments for him.
The practical result left the trial court's immunity-based demurrer ruling and dismissal in place. The opinion did not resolve additional immunity questions or identify any claim that could proceed; it affirmed because Roberts failed to demonstrate reversible error in his opening brief, and it ordered each party to bear its own costs on appeal.