§ 911.Transfer of Case On Appeal to Court of Appeal

This section lets a court of appeal reach down and take over cases that would ordinarily be decided elsewhere in the appellate system, when a broader institutional need justifies it. Either the superior court certifies the case, or the court of appeal determines on its own, that transfer appears necessary to secure uniformity of decision or to settle important questions of law — concerns that go beyond any single case to how the law develops consistently across the state.

The transfer follows procedures set by rules of the Judicial Council, and one limit protects litigants with a right to a full new trial in the superior court: a case carrying that right to trial anew cannot be transferred under this section before a decision in the case becomes final there.

Once transferred, the receiving court's power tracks whatever the case would otherwise have gotten. Ordinarily, the transferee court has the same power to review the matter and make orders and judgments that the appellate division of the superior court would have had. But if the case was tried anew in the superior court, the court of appeal instead gets the same review power it has on an appeal taken under § 904.1 — the full ordinary-appeal standard, since a case tried anew stands closer to an ordinary civil judgment.