Ducoing Management v. Super. Ct.

INTRODUCTION

This writ petition demonstrates the importance of the disposition in an appellate opinion in determining the form of judicial relief, particularly when the disposition reverses a judgment and remands for retrial. The disposition articulates what the trial court should do, with clear and understandable instructions, and whether and how the trial court should exercise its discretion upon remand. Here, this court issued an opinion on an appeal from two plaintiffs who were both nonsuited at trial. (The two plaintiffs were represented by the same counsel and presented a unified theory of recovery.) We affirmed the judgment of nonsuit as to the second plaintiff but reversed the judgment “in all other respects,” remanding the matter for a retrial by the first plaintiff. Essentially, we left plaintiffs’ claims intact, holding they properly were pursued in their entirety by the first plaintiff, the second plaintiff being superfluous for purposes of recovery. We awarded no costs on appeal. No party filed a petition for rehearing. Are real parties (defendants below) automatically entitled to recover all their trial costs as prevailing parties from petitioner (the second…