Torts

Website owners brought a class action against Google for displaying related items of interest including competitors' ads and uncomplimentary customer reviews along with copies of the owner's website page in response to a browser user's request to open that website page.  This decision holds that the website owners have an insufficient property interest in the copy of the webpage Google… Read More

Plaintiffs alleged that Gilead was researching two alternative drugs to treat HIV and both passed Phase III trials with approximately equal effectiveness in HIV treatment but that Gilead chose to pursue the alternative that carried a risk of bone and kidney side effects instead of the alternative because doing so allowed it greater financial returns on its patent for the… Read More

Under Gov. Code 831.8(b), the state, an irrigation district, and their employees are not liable for injuries suffered in irrigation ditches, canals, or drains used for water distribution "if at the time of the injury the person injured was using the property for any purpose other than that for which the district or state intended it to be used."  This… Read More

Under CCP 527.6(j), an anti-harrassment injunction may be extended only once for a period of 5 years or less without evidence of further harassment since the original anti-harassment injunction was issued.  To obtain an additional extension of the injunction, post-order harassment must be shown. Read More

ERISA did not preempt an ERISA plan's suit against Bayer, the manufacturer of an allegedly defective pregnancy prevention device.  The Plan's claims for negligence, products liability, failure to warn (of defects in the device), etc. did not act immediately and exclusively on ERISA plans.  The ERISA plan was relevant to the claims only insofar as it granted the plan a… Read More

Persons paid under the In-Home Supportive Services program (Welf. & Inst. Code 12300 et seq.) to care for disabled and elderly California residents are not employees of the State of California which, therefore, is not vicariously liable for their torts, such as negligent driving in this case. Read More

This decision affirms a summary judgment for defendant in a slip and fall case based on the trivial defect doctrine.  The discontinuity between the sidewalk and PG&E's manhole cover was less than an inch vertically.  There was nothing that concealed the discontinuity of the pavement from view.  The fact that the sidewalk was on a steep hill did not make… Read More

The San Francisco Fire Department and San Francisco Metropolitan Transit Agency are departments of the City and County of San Francisco, not independent public agencies.  Hence, a fireman was a city employee and when he was injured by an MTA bus driver who drove through an active fire scene, severing a fire hose which caused the fireman serious injuries, the… Read More

Agreeing with Connelly v. Bornstein (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 783 and Garcia v. Rosenberg (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 1050, this decision holds that CCP 340.6's one-year limitations periods governs a malicious prosecution action against the attorney for the opposing party in the underlying litigation.  CCP 340.6(a)(2) tolls that one-year period during the time “[t]he attorney continues to represent the plaintiff regarding the… Read More

In a heavy rainstorm, plaintiff slipped and fell in a swiftly moving water current running down a sloped driveway that she tried to cross to access one entrance to her apartment building.  The danger of slipping in the water was open and obvious, so the landlord owed plaintiff no duty of care to warn her of the danger.  Also, there… Read More

The city was not liable for plaintiff's son's death in a shooting in a city park.  There was no dangerous physical condition of the park.  The city had no duty to provide guard services or security cameras, particularly as there had been only two prior killings in the park during the previous 23 years. Read More

Plaintiff wandered drunk into a parking garage owned by defendant and engaged in "horseplay," ending up sitting on a 43 inch tall perimeter wall on an upper story of the garage, from which she fell to the ground, severely injuring herself.  Plaintiff claimed that the defendant had hired a security service to, among other things, find and stop horseplay, as… Read More

A bankruptcy trustee may avoid prospective liability for premises liability on property of the bankrupt estate by abandoning the property to the debtor.  However, the abandonment will not operate retrospectively to absolve the trustee of liability for injuries a visitor to the property suffered before the trustee abandoned the property.  Also, the Barton doctrine (Barton v. Barbour (1881) 104 U.S.… Read More

A civil harassment order is affirmed due to deficiencies of the pro per appellant's opening brief.  It didn't separately state and title its arguments or support them with authority and citations to the record.  Insofar as it attacked the sufficiency of the evidence, it failed to set forth a fair recital of all the relevant evidence. Read More

A civil harassment injunction entered in favor of an attorney for one of a divorcing couple against the attorney for the other spouse was reversed.  Insofar as the injunction was based on emails that defendant sent plaintiff about the divorce, the emails didn't threaten violence and so were protected First Amendment speech which could not be considered in support of… Read More

Following Delgado v. Trax Bar & Grill (2005) 36 Cal.4th 224, this case holds that bar owners owe their patrons a special duty of care to assist their customers who become ill or need medical attention, to warn of known dangers and, in circumstances in which a warning alone is insufficient, . . . to take other reasonable and appropriate… 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

Since 2010, the public disclosure bar to a False Claims Act qui tam action (31 USC 3730) has applied to bar Federal False Claims Act suits only if (1) the disclosure at issue occurred through one of the channels specified in the statute; (2) the disclosure was public; and (3) the relator’s action is substantially the same as the allegation… Read More

Defendant's "Nature Fusion" products featured those words on the front label along with a picture of an avocado on a leaf.  This decision holds that the label was not false advertising because it was ambiguous and the back label clarified the product's actual contents so that no reasonable consumer who examined both front and back would think that the product… Read More

Under Education Code 44808, a school district is generally not liable for injuries students receive while not on school property.  There is an exception to that immunity, however, when the district has undertaken to provide students transportation to and from school and the student is injured while he is or should be under the immediate and direct supervision of a… Read More