California Appellate Tracker

A defendant is not aggrieved by, and so has no standing to appeal from, an order exonerating a co-defendant from liability to the plaintiff, even if the would-be appellant has a claim for contribution or indemnity against the exonerated defendant.  So, in this case, one contractor at the work site where plaintiff was injured had no standing to appeal from… Read More

A probate judge has authority to enter orders or take other action necessary or proper to dispose of matters before it.  (Prob. Code 12706.)  Those incidental powers include the power to order parties to the proceeding to a mandatory mediation session.  Here, the probate court did just that.  Persons who claimed an interest in the trust but who did not… Read More

Defendant was not a state actor for purposes of 42 USC 1983 and thus could not be sued under that section when it canceled plaintiff's license to use a portion of its leased premises to present a program by a speaker that was anti-LGBT rights and thus contrary to defendant's values.  Under Burton v. Wilmington Parking Auth., 365 U.S. 715,… Read More

Whitaker adequately alleged standing to bring a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act by alleging that the counters in Tesla's showrooms were inaccessible to him (as a wheelchair-bound person) and deterred him from returning to Tesla's showrooms.  However, Whitaker's complaint was properly dismissed for failure to meet Iqbal/Twombly pleading standards as it mostly repeated the statutory elements of an… Read More

The regional stay at home order banning public gatherings to avoid spread of COVID-19 which forbade restaurants from indoor or outdoor service (other than take-out or drive-thru service) did not unconstitutionally restrict the First Amendment-protected right of restaurants to present live nude adult entertainment since the health measure was applied to all restaurants regardless of whether they engaged in adult… Read More

This decision reverses a preliminary injunction against the county's implementation of COVID-19 health protocols that shut down restaurants, and particularly, those like plaintiff's restaurant that provided nude or semi-nude adult entertainment with their restaurant services.  The preliminary injunction violated due process in banning all restrictions on restaurants generally, when the complaint and preliminary injunction papers were limited to First Amendment… Read More

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 USC 230) immunized Twitter from liability for suspending Murphy's account after she posted messages critical of transgender women in violation of Twitter's hateful conduct rules.  Section 230 immunizes an interactive service provider, like Twitter, from any claim that would treat it as the author or publisher of content provided by another person. … Read More

Plaintiff sought to serve her petition for issuance of a Civil Harrassment injunction on the defendant by social media since she had been unable to serve him by normal means of service of process.  Though it notes that some states (New York, New Jersey and Texas) have allowed service of process by social media, this decision holds that at least… Read More

Assuming the conditions subsequent in a deed to SCST were subject to the Marketable Record Title Act, they remained enforceable by injunction (but not power of termination) as equitable servitudes.  (Civ. Code 885.060(c).)  The trial court erred in employing the forfeiture doctrine to convert one of the conditions subsequent (which required sale of the property to Claremont at a set… Read More

A guide to nutritional supplements that professed to be neutral but was allegedly favorable to a competing manufacturer that paid it handsomely for high rankings was commercial speech, largely because the manufacturer's payments gave the guide an economic motivation (apart from merely selling guides) to make the speech.  The guide also made false statements insofar as it denied plaintiff's products… Read More

An organization may have associational standing to sue on behalf of its members when: (1) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (2) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization’s purpose; and (3) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.  When… Read More

A federal court may award sanctions using civil procedures only if the sanctions are compensatory in nature, recompensing the harmed party for harm that was caused by (would not have occurred but for) the sanctioned party's sanctionable conduct.  For any sanctions beyond that or having a punitive or deterrent purpose, the court must employ criminal type of procedure with an… Read More

The trial court prejudicially erred in granting plaintiff's in limine motion to exclude defendant from introducing evidence and seeking allocation of fault to two defendants (the State of California and an adjoining landowner) which had settled out of the case before trial.  Under Prop. 51, a defndant is entitled to have the jury allocate fault (and thus the share of… Read More

This split decision holds that when the case is in federal court under their federal question jurisdiction, federal common law, rather than the law of the state or foreign country in which the contract was entered into, governs threshold questions of arbitrability, such as whether a nonsignatory to the arbitration agreement may enforce it through equitable estoppel.  Under federal common… Read More

Allegedly defamatory emails that Simplified sent Trinity and a co-defendant seeking documents and other information for its later-filed lawsuit were protected activity for purposes of the Anti-SLAPP statute (CCP 425.16(e)).  The emails were also protected by the absolute litigation privilege, so Trinity could not prove a probability of success on the merits.  The trial court properly granted Simplified's Anti-SLAPP motion… Read More

Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903 ane the ABC test it adopted for distinguishing employees from independent contractors for purposes of IWC wage orders applies retroactively to all cases pending on the date Dynamex became final.  Since Dynamex decided an issue of first impression, no one could reasonably have relied on the prior uncertain state… Read More

A creditor or other holder of property of the bankrupt estate does not violate the automatic stay (11 USC 362(a)(3)) by merely continuing to hold that property after the debtor files a bankruptcy petition.  Instead, 11 USC 542 governs the circumstances under which the bankruptcy court can compel a holder of property of the bankrupt estate to turn the property… Read More

Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, an employee may take 12 weeks of unpaid family or medical leave in a 12 month period.  This decision holds that when the employee works on a 7 days on, 7 days off schedule, the off days as well as the on days are counted toward the 12 weeks of allowed leave. Read More

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's regulation interpreting 49 U.S.C. § 31141(c) governing preemption of state law relating to commercial motor vehicle safety was entitled to Chevron deference.  The regulation reasonably found California's meal and rest breaks statutes preempted by federal law since the state laws required more frequent and longer rest and meal breaks than federal law and with… Read More

A subpoena served on a third party witness to produce business records is a deposition subpoena.  If the subpoenaed witness objects rather than producing the requested documents (in whole or in part), the subpoenaing party has 60 days to move to compel compliance with the subpoena.  Meet and confer efforts in the meanwhile do not continue the 60 day deadline… Read More