O'Donnell

Petitioner Helen O’Donnell seeks a writ of mandate ordering the Superior Court of Monterey County to issue a writ of mandate to the Monterey County Municipal Court compelling it to treat O’Donnell’s notice of appeal as timely filed and to proceed with assembling the record. For efficiency, we treat the petition as one for mandate directed to the municipal court. We will issue the writ, for reasons to be stated.

The issue is whether O’Donnell’s notice of appeal from a municipal court judgment was timely filed. More specifically, the question is whether the appellant’s withdrawal of her motions for new trial and to vacate the judgment is the equivalent of the trial court’s denial of those motions, for purposes of court rules which extend the time to notice the appeal until 15 days after the trial court denies such motions.

The facts are undisputed: the notice of entry of the judgment against O’Donnell in municipal court was mailed on July 27, 1988. She filed notice of motions to vacate the judgment, and for new trial, on July 28, 1988. (These motions were brought under Code Civ. Proc., §§ 659, 661, 663.) On September 2, 1988, a hearing was held on O’Donnell’s request for…