This decision rejects Christine Chui's argument that she should not be bound by a settlement of a suit brought against her by other children of the same deceased parents, claiming that she had committed elder abuse against the parents and had, as trustee of their inter vivos trust, misappropriated the trust's funds. The settlement agreement was not procedurally unconscionable. The… Read More
Corso obtained a default judgment against Rejuvi in a district court in South Australia. Corso filed a proof of claim in Rejuvi's bankruptcy proceeding. Rejuvi appealed from a bankruptcy court order allowing Corso's claim based on the South Australia default judgment. Held, the claim was properly allowed. Under California's Uniform Foreign-Country Money Judgment Recognition Act (CCP 1713 et seq.), Rejuvi… Read More
Lab Code 925 prohibits employment contracts from containing provisions requiring an employee to litigate or arbitrate a claim in another state if the claim arises in California or depriving the employee of the substantive protection of California law in a suit arising in California. A provision that violates the section is voidable by the employee, after which the matter shall… Read More
As the party invoking federal judicial power, the removing defendant bears the burden of establishing the facts necessary to support Article III standing (with the manner and degree of evidence appropriate to the stage of litigation--which on a motion for remand means taking alleged facts to be true). Here, Experian established plaintiffs' standing. They alleged that Experian had violated 15… Read More
Sanctions may not be awarded under CCP 128.7 unless the party to be sanctioned has been given a full 21 days in which to withdraw the offending pleading. The 21 days are calculated by omitting the day on which notice of the proposed sanctions motion is served and including the last day. So the earliest the sanctions motion can be… Read More
Under Civ. Code 3333.2(c)(2), noneconomic damages in a medical malpractice case are limited to $250,000 unless the defendant provided services that exceeded "the scope of services for which the provider is licensed and which are not within any restriction imposed by the licensing agency or licensed hospital." This decision holds that section 3333.2 applies to a physician's assistant who has… Read More
CCP 902 allows an appeal only by a party "aggrieved" by the appealed order or judgment. Here, the watermaster appointed by the court to administer its judgment allocating water rights among claimants to the same river was not aggrieved and therefore lacked standing to appeal from a trial court order which interpreted the 60-year-old judgment allocating water rights among the… Read More
The district court abused its discretion in excluding the testimony of plaintiff's fire investigator expert witness. Defendant conceded that the expert was qualified and used generally accepted methodology. The district court improperly found there was too big a gap between the facts on which the expert based his opinion and the conclusions he drew from those facts. The district court… Read More
For a federal Court of Appeals to have jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal under 28 USC 1292(b), the district court must first find that (a) there is a controlling question of law, (b) there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion on that question, and (c) immediate resolution of the question would materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation. … Read More
Lab. Code 970 prohibits an employer from inducing an employee to relocate and accept employment by means of knowingly false representations about the kind, character, or existence of work or how long it will last. Here, the trial court erred in granting the defendant employer summary judgment on plaintiff's claim under section 970. The at-will employment contract that the plaintiff… Read More
There is no right to a jury trial in a PAGA suit. In such a suit a private plaintiff brings on the state's behalf a claim that otherwise would be handled by an administrative agency subject to trial court review, both without jury. It would be anomalous to grant the private plaintiff greater rights than the administrative agency in whose… Read More
The district court denied defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the first amended complaint's defamation claims but granted defendant's motion to dismiss the other claims with leave to amend. Plaintiff filed a second amended complaint before defendant appealed from the order denying the Anti-SLAPP motion. This decision holds that the filing of the second amended complaint mooted the appeal from the… Read More
Following Judge v. Nijjar Realty, Inc. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 619 and disagreeing with Maplebear, Inc. v. Busick (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 394, this decision holds that an arbitrator's preliminary injunction order is not an "award" and is not reviewable by a California trial court under CCP 1294, and the trial court's order dismissing a petition to vacate the arbitrator's preliminary injunction… Read More
This decision holds that under Evid. Code 721(b)(3), an expert may be cross-examined by a scientific or professional publication if the publication is established as a reliable authority by the cross-examined expert, another expert or judicial notice. Such a publication may be used even if the testifying expert did not consult it in preparing his opinion. Here, the testifying expert… Read More
On remand after a prior appeal decided in plaintiff's favor, the district court granted defendant summary judgment finding that defendant was not negligent or willful in including in its credit report mention of plaintiff's criminal charge that was filed more than 7 years before the credit report but was dismissed less than 7 years before the report. This decision affirms… Read More
A jury found Ford liable to a purchaser for fraud and a CLRA violation as well as a violation of the Song-Beverly Act for selling plaintiff a Ford pickup with a Navistar engine when Ford knew the Navistar engine created unsolvable problems when put in a Ford truck. This decision holds that substantial evidence supported the jury's compensatory damage award… Read More
This decision holds that a second plaintiff who had standing to sue when a different plaintiff filed this PAGA claim may be amended in to replace the original plaintiff and relate back to the original plaintiff's PAGA notice to the Division of Labor and Workforce Development--and so include a longer period of alleged Labor Code violations than would be possible… Read More
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding plaintiff's principal officer from the courtroom during the portions of the trial in which the technical details were discussed regarding Yelp's software for filtering out unreliable reviews. The officer was an experienced programmer who had previously managed to circumvent Yelp's software and might do so again. Though a party, he… Read More
The Judicial Council's COVID-19 Emergency Rule 10a extended the time for bringing a case to trial by six months (i.e., a total of 5 years and 6 months) for actions filed before April 6, 2020. This was such an action. However, plaintiff didn't get it to trial until 5 years and 7 months after the action was filed. Held, the… Read More
On an earlier appeal, the court held that the indemnity provision that the plaintiff required the defendant to sign in order to apply for approval of its development project was not supported by consideration and that plaintiff had no statutory authority to impose an indemnity agreement as a condition of plaintiff's statutory duty to consider defendant's application. On this appeal,… Read More
