Dismiss a case twice in federal court—no problem, you can still file in California.

But dismiss a case in state court, and it’s gone forever.

Tim & Jeff cover these two holdings of the California Supreme Court, issued two weeks apart. The first in Doe v. Marysville Joint Unified School District, held that the two-dismissal rule in federal court does not apply in state court. Then in Maniago v. Desert Cardiology Consultants' Medical Group, the Court held that a voluntary dismissal with prejudice ended an action entirely despite the plaintiff's stated intent to preserve appellate rights.

Together, the cases stand for the proposition that a plaintiff's own choice of dismissal language controls, regardless of strategic declarations filed alongside it.

The episode also covers Wilson v. Johnson, clarifying that the five-year rule is satisfied when prospective jurors take the section 232(a) oath—even while hardship screening continues—and Chin v. DoorDash, where a majority found waiver of EFAA rights after a plaintiff strategically withheld a harassment claim through arbitration proceedings.

Tim agrees with Justice Wiley's dissent—this is forfeiture, not a waiver. Putting a steak on your plate at the buffet doesn’t “waive” a right to help yourself to the chicken, too. In the same way, litigating in real court doesn’t “waive” your right to arbitration. Does it violate public policy? Sure—which is where juridical doctrines like forfeiture come in. But there’s no intent to forgo anything, so it’s not a waiver.

Covered in the episode:

• The scope of FRCP 41's two-dismissal rule in California state court proceedings
• How voluntary dismissals interact with res judicata and claim preclusion
• When a jury-tried action is "brought to trial" for purposes of the five-year rule
• Waiver of EFAA rights when a harassment claim is withheld during arbitration proceedings
• The doctrinal distinction between waiver and forfeiture in the arbitration context

Listen to the full episode for a detailed breakdown of each decision and its practical implications for trial and appellate practice.

If someone is going to make #AppellateTikTok a thing, it’s John Stobart. John is a certified appellate specialist who shares practical guidance on responsible AI use for lawyers through short videos on TikTok and at stobart.ai. John walks Tim and Jeff through how he actually uses Claude in an appellate practice, and where he draws the line between using AI and delegating to it.

We cover concrete workflows: how John built a verified case law corpus and a five-year brief bank to control what sources the AI can draw from, how he uses the Claude Word plugin's /check doc command as a final proofreading pass before filing, and why he still writes every argument section himself. (Well, the fact section is pretty dry stuff, so you could be forgiven for letting AI pick up the pen there.)

We also talk about California's newly signed SB 574, the first state statute regulating lawyers' use of generative AI, and what its verification and disclosure requirements mean in practice for litigators who do and do not use AI.

We cover:

• How to get started with AI without compromising the quality of your work product
• Building a brief bank and deposition corpus as verified sources for AI-assisted drafting
• Practical safeguards against hallucinated citations, including a Westlaw-to-Claude feedback loop
• What SB 574 requires of California litigators starting January 1
• Whether AI arbitration could ever be appropriate for wage-and-hour disputes

If you found this episode useful, please recommend the California Appellate Law Podcast to a colleague.

Law students won a Ninth Circuit appeal on a broader theory than they argued. Now it’s en banc, and they have to defend the result, not the reasoning, in front of the judge who wrote the opinion.

The case is King v. Villegas, and the students are from the Pepperdine Ninth Circuit Advocacy Clinic, co-directed by Rebecca Powell and Curt Cutting of Horvitz & Levy. Becca and Curt joined us on the California Appellate Law Podcast to talk about it.

Clinic students aren’t mere research assistants—they’re lead counsel on real appeals, from the first page of the record to the lectern. The clinic gets 24 hours to pick a case and two semesters to finish it—no extensions.

And the students deliver. One answered an unbriefed question from the bench by citing an out-of-circuit case from memory. Another wrote an opening brief so strong that the Attorney General conceded.

In the episode:

• How the Ninth Circuit’s pro bono program fits an appeal into the academic calendar
• What makes a good clinic case, and how to decide to take it in 24 hours
• Why let students serve as lead counsel?
• Defending a win at en banc without defending the panel’s reasoning
• What training students to argue teaches about developing junior lawyers at any firm

Most firms make associates wait years for their first argument. This clinic gives students the lectern before they graduate. Do you supervise junior lawyers? Which approach do you think produces better advocates?