The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.
A judge's ruling on an application by a plaintiff over 40 years old for permission to sue for childhood sexual abuse under CCP 340.1(e), (h), and (m) is not a determination of a contested issue of fact and so does not prevent the later served defendant from exercising a 170.6 challenge against the judge who ruled on the application. Read More
Michael Jackson's corporations owed a duty of care to protect minors from Jackson's sexual predation even though the corporations were wholly owned and controlled by Jackson. A corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator… Read More
A 2018 amendment to CCP 340.1 further relaxed the statute of limitations on childhood sexual assault claims, but it removed the words "on the merits" from the portion of the statute that used to state that it did not apply to any claim that had been litigated to finality on the merits before 2003. The deletion of that language was… Read More
