Appeal deadline: a signed dismissal order likely started the clock, and a later judgment did not seem to reset it
The notice of appeal deadline can start with a signed dismissal order, not the formal judgment that follows it. In Assn. for L.A. Deputy Sheriffs v. Superior Court, the Second District raised that problem on its own, even though the county had not contested timeliness. It then exercised its discretion to treat the appeal as a writ petition, and denied the petition on the merits.
What happened
Three Los Angeles County deputies were served with letters of intent to discharge around 2017, were discharged, and appealed to the Civil Service Commission. In 2019, while those appeals were pending, each signed a settlement with a sheriff's department chief that purported to reduce the discipline and reinstate the deputy. The county refused to comply. The deputies and their union, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, sued in December 2019.
An earlier appeal reversed a dismissal and directed leave to amend. (ALADS I (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 764.) Several amended pleadings later, the county demurred to the fourth amended petition.
When does the notice of appeal deadline start after a dismissal order?
The sequence is the lesson. On July 7, 2025, the trial court sustained the demurrer without leave to amend and also signed and filed a separate order dismissing the action with prejudice. A certificate of mailing shows the clerk served the file-stamped, signed dismissal order on counsel that day. But the demurrer ruling also directed the parties to "meet-and-confer and lodge a proposed judgment forthwith." On August 11, a different judicial officer signed a judgment of dismissal. The notice of appeal, filed October 2, named both the judgment and the order of dismissal.
The county did not contest timeliness. That did not end the question: "because the timeliness of an appeal poses a jurisdictional issue, we must raise the point sua sponte and must consider that question first." Under California Rules of Court, rule 8.104(a)(1), the deadline is the earliest of three dates, including 60 days after the clerk serves notice of entry or a file-stamped copy of the judgment. The court reasoned that the dismissal order "appears to constitute an appealable judgment," which put the deadline at September 5, 2025. The August judgment "does not seem to have extended petitioners' deadline to appeal from the dismissal order."
Measured from the August judgment, an October 2 notice looks comfortably timely. Measured from the July dismissal order, it was 27 days late. (For more on counting from the right trigger, see our note on appeal deadlines.)
Can a late appeal be treated as a writ petition?
Sometimes, and only at the court's discretion. Relying on Drum v. Superior Court (2006) 139 Cal.App.4th 845, the court said an untimely appeal may be treated as a writ "in unusual circumstances," where doing otherwise would be unfair. It found such circumstances here. Filing the dismissal order alongside a meet-and-confer directive, and then entering a later judgment, meant "the trial court appears to have led petitioners to believe the dismissal order was issued in error or was otherwise not a final appealable judgment." The county seems to have read the orders the same way:
"It seems the county had the same belief given that the trial court signed the proposed judgment submitted by the county."
So, "assuming for argument's sake petitioners' appeal is untimely," the court reached the merits. It did so on a writ, not an appeal, and on facts it tied to the trial court's own orders.
Could the sheriff's chiefs bind the county to the settlements?
No. Under Government Code section 23005, "A county may exercise its powers only through the board of supervisors or through agents and officers" acting under authority conferred by the board or by law. The court concluded "petitioners have not demonstrated that the sheriff and his subordinates were authorized to bind the county to the settlements that are before us."
The petitioners offered several sources of authority, and each failed:
- The sheriff's power to appoint, suspend, and discharge did not imply a power to rescind or modify discipline during a commission appeal.
- A department manual provision was neither a board delegation nor a law conferring the authority.
- The petitioners did not show that abandoning an alleged past practice of chief-level settlements triggered a meet-and-confer duty.
- An earlier unpublished decision did not collaterally estop the county, because it involved a different settlement and did not decide whether chiefs may settle commission appeals.
The remaining claims followed. "Petitioners' promissory estoppel claims fail because the chiefs lacked authority to execute the settlements." Any error on declaratory relief was harmless. And the opinion notes that "petitioners do not claim in this review proceeding that the trial court abused its discretion in denying leave to amend," which the court treated as forfeited.
The disposition reads: "We exercise our discretion to construe this appeal as a petition for writ of mandate. That writ petition is denied." Real parties in interest were awarded their costs.
What this means in practice
Read the register as well as the judgment. A signed dismissal order on the docket deserves its own calendar entry, even when another document in the file says a judgment is coming. The court did not need to decide finally that this appeal was late, but its reasoning shows why the earliest possible trigger is the one to calendar. Writ treatment is no substitute: the court said it is available "in unusual circumstances" where doing otherwise would be unfair, and it rested on how these particular orders were issued. The distinction between appealable orders and writ-only review runs through much of appellate practice. Our note on appealable versus writ-only orders covers other examples.
Key takeaways
- A signed, filed dismissal order may itself be the appealable judgment, so the deadline can run from it rather than from a later formal judgment.
- A later judgment did not seem to extend the deadline to appeal from the earlier dismissal order.
- Timeliness is jurisdictional, so the court raised it on its own even though the county did not contest it.
- An untimely appeal may be treated as a writ petition in unusual circumstances, at the court's discretion.
- Under Government Code section 23005, the petitioners did not show the sheriff and his chiefs had authority to bind the county to the settlements.
Why appeals like this one need an appellate lawyer
Nothing about the August judgment looked like a trap. The trial court had told the parties to lodge a proposed judgment, the county submitted one, and a judge signed it. Yet the Court of Appeal looked back to a document signed five weeks earlier and calculated a deadline that had passed before the notice was filed. The case reached the merits only because the court chose, on these facts, to treat the appeal as a writ.
That is the difficulty of the appellate process: the rule that matters is often not the one the file seems to be applying. An appellate lawyer calendars from the earliest order that could count as the judgment, checks the register and the certificate of mailing rather than the caption on the last document filed, and files a protective notice when the trigger is unclear. Every ruling to be reviewed also needs to be briefed, including the denial of leave to amend.
If a judgment or dismissal has been entered in your case, talk to an appellate lawyer early, before a deadline runs.
What this post is not. This post is attorney advertising and general information about a court decision. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts and record, and appellate deadlines are short and often jurisdictional — talk to appellate counsel about your case promptly.
Facing a ruling you may need to appeal or challenge by writ? Yisrael Gelb · yisrael@gelblawapc.com · (323) 632-6864