Dongxiao Yue v. Wenbin Yang

In a civil trial where the trial judge precludes a self-represented plaintiff from offering material evidence, comments that the plaintiff is not a lawyer trained in the United States and is wasting the court’s time, brings a motion for judgment on behalf of the defendant, argues for and enters judgment in favor of the defendant without the defendant saying a word of substance, whether the trial court’s judicial conduct constitutes violation of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Whether, consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment, California may deem structural errors that taint a civil trial—such as a trial judge’s prejudgment, bias, and usurpation of the adversarial role—forfeited because such errors were not timely raised in the trial court, even though federal plain-error doctrine and sister-state’s “fundamental-error” rules require appellate review of such defects. Although the opinion below is not published in the official reports, it sets the baseline standard of permissible judicial conduct governing civil trials in the relevant jurisdiction. Sanctioning a judge’s prejudgment, advocacy on behalf of a party, sua sponte imposition of judgment without a motion or argument from a defendant, and disparaging commentary on a litigant’s immigrant status—raises urgent dueprocess concerns under the Fourteenth Amendment.