What is the effect of a failure to articulate any pertinent or intelligible legal argument in an opening brief?

It is a rarely invoked principle of appellate procedure that, as this court noted, "the failure of an appellant in a civil action to articulate any pertinent or intelligible legal argument in an opening brief may, in the discretion of the court, be deemed an abandonment of the appeal justifying dismissal." (Berger v. Godden (1985) 163 Cal.App.3d 1113, 1119.) The only appealable judgment or order properly before us is the order denying RAID's application for a preliminary injunction, yet RAID makes no argument as to why that order is infected with reversible error. In these circumstances, summary dismissal would seem to be warranted. Yet we are reluctant to take such precipitate action, despite RAID's woeful record here.

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