Torts

State medical board, who was investigating a doctor for over-prescription of addictive drugs, did not violate privacy rights of doctor’s patients by obtaining database information on drugs which pharmacies had dispensed to them.   Read More

Plaintiff, a rider in an endurance horse race who was injured when defendant’s horse bolted after being kicked by a tailgating horse, could not recover in negligence action because she had assumed the risk; horse tailgating and its dangerous aftermath are a normal part of that sport.   Read More

Lawsuit alleging that defendant had contaminated real property through its ordinary business operations on the site, which it had used as a bulk terminal for petroleum products, was barred by three-year statute of limitations applicable to injuries to real property.   Read More

Although government entities are immunized from liability for injuries caused by the natural condition of any unimproved public property, a campground counts as an improvement; so child could sue county after he was injured by a  falling tree at a county-owned campsite.   Read More

City could not claim sovereign immunity after plaintiff was injured by falling tree limb in a city park because the trail on which plaintiff had been walking had no causal connection to the injury.   Read More

A homeowner is not generally responsible for supervising a child invited to his property if the child is accompanied and supervised by a parent, although the homeowner can assume and/or relinquish that duty; here, where homeowner assumed the supervisory duty but then relinquished it to a grandparent who proceeded to let the child drown, homeowner was not liable for the… Read More

Before a court may order a website to produce identifying information about an anonymous poster of information on the website, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case, including, in a defamation case, proof of falsity of the posting’s allegedly defamatory statements.   Read More

Plaintiff could not sue defendant for defamation after defendant rated plaintiff’s website as carrying adult content and copyright-infringing material, since these ratings addressed matters of public interest and were therefore protected by the Anti-SLAPP statute.   Read More

Relators stated an actionable False Claims Act claim for fraud against defendant drug manufacturer, claiming that defendant had obtained a key active ingredient for HIV antiretroviral drugs it sold to the U.S. government from unapproved Chinese factories and that the improperly sourced ingredient was adulterated.  Read More

Plaintiff's medical malpractice suit was untimely, having been filed more than a year after discovery of the malpractice; formal CCP 364 pre-suit notice from her attorney did not extend the limitations period since plaintiff had already sent her own letter which operated as a pre-suit notice despite not being intended as such.  Read More

An employer owed no duty of care to an employee’s steady, non-live-in girlfriend to protect against transmission of asbestos dust on employee’s clothing; gas station, which did occasional car repairs, was not sufficiently in the stream of asbestos-containing products so as to incur strict liability for those products.  Read More

Plaintiff’s asbestos-caused mesothelioma claim accrued when she received that diagnosis; her government claim, filed 10 months later, was untimely, so her suit was dismissed.  Read More

Jury verdict for defendant on strict liability/duty to warn was fatally inconsistent with verdict against defendant on negligent failure to warn, requiring retrial of suit by a plaintiff who contracted a rare skin disease from taking ibuprofen.  Read More

Senior citizen who held controlling interest in corporate borrower could not state elder abuse claim against lender that foreclosed on borrower; the senior citizen suffered only derivative harm; any damage claim belonged solely to the corporate borrower.  Read More

An elderly couple stated an elder abuse claim against an insurance agency that schemed to gut their whole life insurance policies and replace them with a less desirable policy, all for the purpose of earning a larger commission.  Read More

Defendant hospital was entitled to summary judgment after plaintiff’s expert declaration stated only that husband "could have survived" had defendant treated him in accord with the standard of care—but stopped short of saying that survival was more likely than not but for the hospital’s acts, which is the standard for showing causation in a medical malpractice wrongful death action.   Read More

Proof of an employer's own wrongdoing is needed to impose punitive damages on the employer for an employee’s torts, even if as a separate matter it is vicariously liable for those torts.  Read More

A person who is arrested, but not ultimately prosecuted, may not maintain an action for malicious prosecution against the witness whose complaint prompted the arrest.  Read More

A federal False Claims Act suit was properly dismissed because the suit was based on facts publicly disclosed in a prior suit and the plaintiff was not the original source of that information, but learned it only as a party to the prior suit.  Read More

Governmental immunity from liability for injuries on recreational trails does not shield a city from liability for injury from errant golf balls hit from an adjoining commercial golf course on city property. Read More