Gassner v. Stasa
A cost award entered after entry of voluntary dismissal without prejudice is appealable as a final judgment in its own right. Read More
A cost award entered after entry of voluntary dismissal without prejudice is appealable as a final judgment in its own right. Read More
Trial court prejudicially erred in giving a special jury instruction that in determining whether the city's failure to repaint a faded cross-walk and maintain bushes was negligent, the jury could not consider the condition of the adjacent property or the design of the intersection. Read More
Insurance company successfully invoked the doctrine of extrinsic mistake in getting the trial court to vacate default judgments vacated against its insured. Read More
A sanctions motion under either CCP 128.5 & 128.7 must be served on the party from whom sanctions are sought at least 21 days before the motion is filed in court in order to give that party time to rectify the allegedly sanctionable conduct. Read More
Plaintiff obtained a court order permitting service of process by publication and specifying that the complaint and summons be published in the Orange County Register, but instead of complying, plaintiff published them in a smaller newspaper of general circulation owned by one of the OCR’s subsidiaries, which resulted in ineffective service. Read More
Though the federal Copyright Act preempted the California Resale Royalty Act insofar as it granted artists a right to royalties on the resale of their work, it did not preempt the CRRA's attorney fee provision, which was not inconsistent with the Copyright Act. Read More
Putative class representatives were not entitled to intervene in a parallel class action to object to settlement as they could preserve their rights by opting out or by objecting to the settlement and moving to vacate judgment approving the settlement. Read More
Defendant’s repeated kicks and punches of the plaintiff was sufficient evidence of malice and/or intent to injure, thus providing sufficient justification for a punitive damages award. Read More
Connecticut-resident defendant was not subject to personal jurisdiction in California in this paternity action, because although defendant knew that plaintiff resided in California and would likely have the child here, those contacts of the plaintiff cannot be attributed to the defendant. Read More
When plaintiff’s attorney improperly used a mini-opening to try to precondition potential jurors to vote in plaintiff's favor, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in not allowing mini-opening statements to the second and third venires of prospective jurors. Read More
Civil Code 1668 bars enforcement of a release as to fraud and statute-based claims if any element of the complete tort (such as reliance or damages) still remains unsatisfied at the time the release is signed. Read More
For limitations purposes, the client discovered malpractice claim against a lawyer who structured a transaction when the other party to the transaction threatened to sue client based on the transaction’s structure. Read More
The extra costs allowed when a 998 offer is rejected may not be collected by a defendant in an action under California’s Fair Employment & Housing Act unless the defendant shows that the action was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless when brought, or the plaintiff continued to litigate after it clearly became so. Read More
Attorney fee award in connection with damages for breach of a settlement agreement is reversed for lack of admissible evidence of the attorney fees reasonably incurred since the only witness at trial lacked meaningful knowledge of these matters. Read More
When the question is one of public right and the object of a petition for writ of mandate is to enforce a public duty, the petitioner need not demonstrate some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large. Read More
The prior federal judgment did not bar plaintiff's refiled state law claims because they had been dismissed only because the Eleventh Amendment barred a federal court from awarding damages against a state entity—not because of the actual merits of those claims. Read More
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees to a prevailing plaintiff in an individual FLSA retaliation claim, properly apportioning total fees among several plaintiffs, and attributing to this prevailing plaintiff only those fees reasonably incurred in prosecuting her individual claims. Read More
Unless a personal injury plaintiff’s (future) heirs join in the settlement agreement individually, they are not bound by it or by its releases, so money paid to the plaintiff to settle future wrongful death suits is worth only as much as the hold harmless agreement by the now-deceased plaintiff is; moreover, non-settling defendants cannot take advantage of any setoff as… Read More
The 30-day deadline for an employer to petition for administrative mandamus runs from entry of the OSHA Appeals Board’s order denying reconsideration, not from the employer’s receipt of the order. Read More
Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged, for purposes of the Alien Tort Statute, that (1) cocoa purchasers’ conduct in paying personal spending money to Ivory Coast growers—despite knowledge of their use of child slave labor—was not ordinary business conduct and (2) the payments were made from the United States, even though the slave labor itself occurred overseas. Read More