Concluding that “[a] different interpretation would impede . . . access to the appellate courts without advancing the underlying purpose of the vexatious litigant statutes,” the Supreme Court in John v. Superior Court today holds that defendants who have been declared vexatious litigants need not get the presiding justice or judge’s permission before appealing judgments against them. A vexatious-litigant plaintiff does need that permission.
The court’s unanimous opinion by Justice Ming Chin affirms the Second District, Division Seven, Court of Appeal. It disapproves a 2009 Fifth District opinion and a 1998 First District, Division Four, opinion. The Supreme Court likes a 2008 Fourth District, Division One, opinion, although the court does disapprove language in the opinion “to the extent it could be interpreted as precluding a Court of Appeal from declaring an in propria persona defendant on appeal to be a vexatious litigant.”
