Assemblyman-Lawyer Is No Scheduling Trump Card

Verio Healthcare v. Superior Court, No. G053068 (D4d3 Oct. 12, 2016).

When a party’s attorney is also a member of the California Legislature, §§ 595 and 1054.1 of the Code of Civil Procedure provide, respectively, for continuances of trials or other matters so long as the Legislature is in session. But fifty years ago, the California Supreme Court held that it would violate the separation of powers to treat these statutes as entitling a litigant’s legislator-attorney a mandatory right to a stay a judicial proceeding. See Thurmond v. Superior Court, 66 Cal. 2d 836 (1967).