The California Constitution and a statute require all state judges, including Supreme Court justices, to decide each case pending before them within 90 days of the case’s submission for decision.  (The consequence of violating the 90-day rule is not getting paid.)

Supreme Court cases are typically submitted as soon as oral argument concludes.  So, it looked like there was a problem when the Supreme Court announced it would not file any opinions tomorrow — the 90th day after the court’s November calendar — even though there are still two undecided cases that were argued on that calendar.  No worries.

As provided by court rule, submission was delayed in both undecided cases for post-argument supplemental briefing, which is uncommon but not exceedingly rare.  (See, e.g., here and here.)  In Solus Industrial Innovations, LLC v. Superior Court, the case was submitted one week after argument when a response to a supplemental brief was filed.  (Expect an opinion in that case on Thursday, the last regular filing day within the 90-day period.)  Supplemental briefing put off submission for 24 days in People v. Perez.  (The opinion there should be filed by March 1.)

Besides delaying submission for supplemental briefing, the same court rule allows the Supreme Court to “vacate submission,” but “only by an order stating the court’s reasons and setting a timetable for resubmission.”  We’re unaware of the court ever vacating submission in a case for any reason other than ordering supplemental briefing, although the briefing order sometimes comes just before the 90-day time period is set to expire.