body: Awhile back I had to hire an attorney when the state of California was erroneously notified from another state that I had been convicted of a DUI...resulting in a suspension of my California Driver's License. In California, one is only entitled to a DMV hearing for an administrative suspension. To contest a suspension resulting from a criminal conviction, one has to file a petition for a writ of mandate against the department ordering the suspension be set aside. My attorney notified me in this instance that he had heard that, on occasion, the department will effectively assert its equality with the court and refuse to remove the suspension...in which case one then has to move to the federal arena and get it ordered by a district court. 
  
  
  I'm curious as to whether this is actually true. **That is, can a state agency simply assert that it is equal to a state court and ignore a *bona fide* order from that court?** In case this is "too broad", answers restricted to the laws of the State of California would suffice.
  
  
  
title: Can a state agency, asserting "equal footing", ignore an order from a state court