K.G. Mullen, Inc. v. Team Transit Mix, Inc. CA2/2

DISCUSSION

I. Second Judge’s Authority To Act

Trial judges generally have the power to change their minds when hearing a case. (In re Marriage of Nicolas (2010) 186 Cal.App.4th 1566, 1577 (Nicolas).) This power is less expansive when one judge revisits the earlier ruling of a different judge because, in that situation, there is a greater danger that litigants might “forum shop” for judges or that the second judge would “becom[e] a one-judge appellate court.” (Sorensen v. Superior Court (2013) 219 Cal.App.4th 409, 421, citation and internal quotation marks omitted; Alvarez v. Superior Court (2010) 183 Cal.App.4th 969, 982-983 (Alvarez).) These dangers are not implicated in this case, and the rule circumscribing the second judge’s authority to revisit an earlier ruling is inapplicable. Here, the transfer to a different judge was unilaterally effected by the court--not prompted by a litigant; forum shopping is therefore of little concern. More to the point, the rule giving precedential effect to a different judge’s earlier ruling does not apply when that ruling is interlocutory (rather than final), particularly when the second judge has “considered further evidence and law.”…