High court ruling raises standard for affirming decisions in punitive damage and conservatorship cases

A state Supreme Court ruling resolving a longstanding dispute over the proper standard for appellate court review in civil, family, and conservatorship lawsuits casts doubt on a number of appeals, including punitive damage awards, attorneys said Tuesday.

The ruling decided appellate courts, in cases that require clear and convincing evidence at the trial court level, have to meet a higher standard when reviewing the case on appeal. Courts have been divided on the question.

California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, writing for a unanimous high court, concluded appellate courts must review findings using the same clear and convincing standard.

The Monday ruling affects a decision in a conservatorship case, but the court also disapproved more than 20 published Court of Appeal decisions applying the lower standard of review. Conservatorship of the Person of O.B., 2020 DJDAR 7797 (S. Ct., filed March 29, 2019).

Curt C. Cutting, a partner with Horvitz & Levy LLP who filed an amicus brief in the case for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said the ruling could affect many other unpublished decisions, especially in lawsuits awarding punitive damages and in conservatorships.

"It won't necessarily change the outcome, but it might," Cutting said Tuesday in a telephone interview. "If courts review under a more exacting standard, there will be more reversals."

The ruling reverses a decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, which found against an autistic woman who challenged a Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge's order creating a conservatorship for her. She argued, "The proof before the probate court did not clearly and convincingly establish that a limited conservatorship was warranted," Cantil-Sakauye wrote.

The 2nd District panel affirmed the lower court decision, concluding the clear and convincing standard of proof "disappears" on appeal.

The high court reversed that judgment and remanded the case to the 2nd District.

Gerald J. Miller, a Texas sole practitioner who represented the woman challenging the conservatorship on appeal, said in a Tuesday phone interview the high court saw the case "as a way to clarify the law."

Shaun P. Martin, a University of San Diego law professor who argued for the respondents, the woman's mother and older sister, said appellate courts had a simpler task if they applied a lower standard. "All the Court of Appeal had to do was to decide whether the evidence in support of the judgment below was substantial, and if it was, then the decision would be affirmed," he wrote in an email.

"Now the Court of Appeal has to decide not only whether the evidence in support of the judgment below was substantial, but also whether it was so substantial that a reasonable fact finder could find this evidence clear and convincing," Martin added. "That's difficult for a tribunal that didn't hear the evidence, can't make credibility determinations, and isn't supposed to weigh the evidence."

Martin also said he believes many cases will turn out the same way under the clear and convincing standard, but some will not.

Cantil-Sakauye wrote the high court has sent "mixed signals" about the proper standard of review, though she added there has been a clear trend for appellate courts to follow the tougher standard.