# Kowis v. Howard

> California Supreme Court · November 5, 1992 · 3 Cal. 4th 888

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9539567

## Case

- **Full name:** KEENAN KOWIS, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. THORNTON M. HOWARD Et Al., Defendants and Appellants; MARYLAND CASUALTY COMPANY, Intervener and Respondent
- **Court:** California Supreme Court
- **Decided:** November 5, 1992
- **Citations:** 3 Cal. 4th 888; 12 Cal. Rptr. 2d 728; 92 Daily Journal DAR 15009; 838 P.2d 250; 92 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 9084; 1992 Cal. LEXIS 5378
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurring in part by Mosk
- **Judges:** Arabian, Mosk
- **Cited by:** 277 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9539567

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- acknowledging that Consumers Lobby is an exception to the general rule

## Opinion text

MOSK, J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I concur in the judgment and in most of the analysis. But I cannot join the majority in unnecessarily reaching out to overrule a decision of this court that has been the prevailing law for almost 30 years.
Pigeon Point Ranch, Inc. v. Perot (1963) 59 Cal.2d 227 [ 28 Cal.Rptr. 865 , 379 P.2d 321 ], was authored by Chief Justice Gibson and concurred in by Justices Traynor, McComb, Peters, Tobriner, Peek, and White. I doubt that we are more competent to determine the rather simple rule of law involved than was one of the most distinguished courts in California history. Its opinion was sound when written, and three decades later it is not an obstacle to the result in the instant case.
According to Pigeon Point, law of the case is subject to “the requirements that the point of law involved must have been necessary to the prior decision, that the matter must have been actually presented and determined by the court, and that application of the doctrine will not result in an unjust decision.” ( 59 Cal.2d at p. 231 .)
The foregoing was a practical rule then, and it is equally practical now. As Pigeon Point expressly declared, the fact that “law of the case will not be *902 applied so as to do an injustice will be ample protection to the parties if any unfairness would result.” ( 59 Cal.2d at p. 232 .)
Pigeon Point would in no way prevent the result properly reached in the matter before us. Unnecessarily overruling that venerable authority is counterproductive to stability in the law.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9539567. Public record. Not legal advice.