Torts

Since plaintiff won jury verdicts for actual damages and emotional distress, but the jury awarded $0 on plaintiff's claim for defendant's profits from the use of plaintiff's likeness, neither party was a "prevailing party" for purposes of attorney fees. 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

A new trial may properly be ordered on the sole issue of the comparative fault of various defendants, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in doing so here when there was much evidence that independent contractor defendant was far more at fault than hirer defendant for failing to warn plaintiff that a circuit breaker was still engaged—yet… Read More

Plaintiff’s unfair competition claim was pre-empted by FDA regulations governing how the defendant should calculate the protein content of its product, but plaintiff’s similar false advertising claim was not preempted because it accused the defendant of misrepresenting the source of the protein in the product. Read More

In a criminal prosecution for theft from an elder, defendant stipulated to a restitution amount of $700,000, so she was estopped from denying that damage amount in a later action for double damages under the Probate Code. Read More

In a criminal prosecution for theft from an elder, defendant stipulated to a restitution amount of $700,000, so she was estopped from denying that damage amount in a later action for double damages under the Probate Code. Read More

Neither statutory nor common law imposed a duty of care on the YMCA to administer a heart defibrillator to a participant in a soccer league that rented one of the YMCA's fields when the participant suffered a heart attack while playing soccer.  Read More

Skier assumed the inherent risks of that sport and could not sue for ski patrol’s allegedly negligent rescue efforts from which she suffered further injuries. Read More

There is no private right of action for a violation of Bus. & Prof. Code 9884.9, which requires car repair facilities to provide the customer a written estimate and obtain written customer approval before beginning repairs on a car. Read More

Plaintiff's False Claims Act complaint alleged that all the defendant health insurers submitted false claims using false diagnoses of patients' medical condition from the same vendor, and no further differentiation among the health insurers was needed to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) since they all acted the same way. Read More

Plaintiff stated viable causes of action under the unfair competition and false advertising laws, and for breach of warranty, by stating that Bayer's One-A-Day vitamins are mislabeled—two a day is required to meet recommended daily allowances for most vitamins. Read More

In a design defect case, industry custom is not admissible to prove the design was safe or the manufacturer acted reasonably in adopting it, but may be admissible as other Barker v. Lull factors in assessing risk vs. benefit of challenging design. Read More

Defendant was entitled to summary judgment because it was the only party who obtained expert declarations on the elements of a standard of care and causation of damage, neither of which could be established solely from plaintiff’s own testimony. Read More

Code of Civil Procedure 1714.10, which requires prior court approval before filing a complaint charging an attorney with conspiring with his client in an attempt to contest or compromise a claim or dispute, can be invoked even if the complaint does not use the word conspiracy, so long as it alleges joint tortious action. Read More

The trial court erred in failing to award the plaintiff the value of home health care and other household services provided to plaintiff’s decedent before his death by several of his children, as well as the value of nursing services that the decedent would have rendered to his wife had he not been injured by the defendant. Read More

Plaintiff avoided summary judgment in a False Claims Act suit by showing defendant expressly agreed, as a condition of receiving federal student aid, not to pay incentive compensation to its recruiters, but then violated that agreement and still submitted claims for student aid. Read More

Summary judgment for promoters of a half-marathon race is reversed; though the race’s release form was enforceable, it could not waive liability for gross negligence, and a triable issue of fact existed as to whether the promoters were grossly negligent in failing to provide adequate emergency medical care at the finish line. Read More

Defendant city government is immune from liability for accidents caused by police vehicular pursuits if it has promulgated a suitable written pursuit policy and requires annual training and certification by all officers that they have received, read, and understood the policy; the officers need not have actually signed the required certifications. Read More

Facts sufficient to show recklessness (not merely negligence) are necessary in order for the issue of liability on elder abuse claim by medical services provider to go to the jury. Read More

A homeowner who hired an unlicensed gardener to trim tall trees is vicariously liable to gardener’s employee who was injured in a fall due to gardener’s negligence. Read More