Denial rulings always predominate at the Supreme Court’s Wednesday conferences, but today’s conference had little else. Once again, with the court’s nearly six-month-long vacancy, it was another conference with just six justices participating.
Although this was a light conference, it won’t be until next week that I’ll write about two dissents from review denials.
Grant-and-transfer: firefighting immunity
The court granted review in Pacific Gas and Electric Company v. Superior Court and remanded the case to the First District, Division Two, Court of Appeal, which had summarily denied a writ petition. Division Two is directed to decide the writ petition on its merits.
According to the reply in support of review (the only case document I could find on Westlaw), CAL FIRE in the underlying case is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from PG&E and the issue is “whether the firefighting immunities confer fault immunity or suit immunity” (see Gov. Code sections 850, 850.2, and 850.4).
Grant-and-transfer: dependency mootness
The court granted review in In re N.D. and sent the case back to Second District, Division Three, with directions to reconsider its unpublished opinion in light of the dependency-mootness decision in In re S.R. (2025) 18 Cal.5th 1042 (see here).
Division Three dismissed as moot an appeal challenging dependency court findings that could be reportable in the Child Abuse Centralized Index, holding that reliance on the possibility of a report was a “speculative argument” that was “insufficient to overcome the conclusion that the appeal is nonjusticiable.” In S.R., the Supreme Court found a mother had “shown an ongoing harm . . . by demonstrating that the sustained allegation of child abuse has been or will be included in the CACI.”
Gang enhancements OSC
The court issued an order to show cause, returnable in the superior court, on a pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re Fuller. Cause is to be shown “why relief should not be granted, as conceded by the Attorney General in his informal response filed with this court on January 16, 2026, on the ground that the criminal street gang enhancements should be stricken pursuant to Assembly Bill No. 333 (Stats. 2021, ch. 699).”
Criminal case grant-and-hold
There was just one criminal case grant-and-hold, another one waiting for a decision in People v. Eaton (see here).
Grant-and-hold dispositions (see here)
Similar to the grant-and-transfer in In re N.D. (above), the court sent grant-and-holds In re A.D. (see here) and In re B.M. (see here) back to the Court of Appeal for reconsideration in light of the dependency-mootness decision in In re S.R. (2025) 18 Cal.5th 1042 (see here).
Also, the court dismissed review in one case that was a grant-and-hold for the February unloaded-gun/resisting-an-officer decision in People v. Morgan (2026) 19 Cal.5th 132 (see here).
