In Torres Campos v. Munoz, decided Thursday by the California Court of Appeal (Justice Martin Buchanan, joined by Justices Joan Irion and Truc Do), an ex-husband (Torres) had asked for shared custody and visitation rights to the family dog (Kyra, for the curious). The ex-wife (Munoz) was represented for free by her cousin (Bonar).
Bonar began by writing a letter declining Torres's request, citing two cases that ultimately proved to be nonexistent. When Torres went to court, Bonar filed an opposition with an attached declaration by Munoz, which cited one of the fictional cases. Torres's lawyer filed a reply declaration saying nothing about the case being fictional.
"The parties stipulated to have a court commissioner act as a temporary judge to hear the matter." That commissioner "made no visitation orders and directed Torres's counsel to submit a formal order after hearing"; that formal order was apparently supposed to be based on what went on at the hearing. (Requiring parties to submit such proposed orders summarizing the court's decision is pretty common in some trial court proceedings.) Then,
