Sacramento County Department of Health & Human Services v. Kelly E.
Opinion
lead Opinion
Scotland, J.
*400 Opinion
This is an appeal run amok. Not only does the appeal lack merit, the opening brief is a textbook example of what an appellate brief should not be.
In 76,235 words, rambling and ranting over the opening brief’s 202 pages, appellant’s counsel has managed to violate rules of court; ignore standards of review; misrepresent the record; base arguments on matters not in the record on appeal; fail to support arguments with any meaningful analysis and citation to authority; raise an issue that is not cognizable in an appeal by her client; unjustly challenge the integrity of the opposing party; make a contemptuous attack on the trial judge; and present claims of error in other ways that are contrary to commonsense notions of effective appellate advocacy— for example, gratuitously and wrongly insulting her client’s daughter (the minor in this case) by, among other things, stating the girl’s developmental disabilities make her “more akin to broccoli” and belittling her complaints of sexual molestation by characterizing them as various “versions of her story, worthy of the Goosebumps series for children, with which to titillate her audience.”