California Appellate Tracker

During a political campaign, one candidate's election manager wrote a letter to the editor, posted to websites and sent emails accusing plaintiff of having used his charitable foundation to make contributions to city council members in return for their voting to have plaintiff's company named as the contractor for a large construction project.  This decision holds that the trial court… Read More

The trial court erred in granting defendant summary judgment on the issue of duty of care when defendant moved for summary judgment, and its statement of undisputed facts related, only to the different issue of causation.  A court may grant a summary judgment motion on an issue not raised by the moving party, but only if the moving party's statement… Read More

Defendant waived its right to compel arbitration by participating in a putative class action for 24 months after service before moving to compel arbitration.  It could not excuse the delay on its belated discovery of the arbitration agreement bearing plaintiff's signature sisnce it alleged arbitration as an affirmative defense in its answer, knew that when plaintiff was hired its policy… Read More

This decision reverses a judgment confirming an arbitration award on the ground that the award violates public policy.  The award interpreted a provision of the union's memorandum of understanding with plaintiff department to mean that after one year the employing state agency not only had to delete negative material from the employee's file but also barred the agency from retaining… Read More

The federal Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (18 USC 1831 et seq.) proscribes the wrongful acquisition, disclosure or use of a trade secret without the owner's permission.  Unlike the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the DTSA does not contain a provision expressly disallowing claims for continued unpermitted use of the trade secret after the DTSA's enactment, if the use began… Read More

The trial court properly confirmed an arbitration award.  Contrary to the loser's claim, the fact that many years before the arbitrator had been a founding member of and lawyer for GLAAD, an LBGTQ organization, was not a fact that the arbitrator should have disclosed as showing potential for bias.  The case did not involve any LBGTQ issues, and the loser's… Read More

The decision affirms an order denying a nursing facility's motion to compel arbitration. The son and wife separately signed admission papers for the patient, including an arbitration agreement.  To overcome the trial court's finding that the patient had not authorized the son and wife to act for him in that regard, on appeal the defendant would have to show it's… Read More

A medical practice's summary of Relative Value Unit data for all its employees for several years was a trade secret.  Though the RVU system was a well-known system for evaluating physician efficiency and so no trade secret, each employee's annual RVU production was not publicly known and so it could be a trade secret.  The historical RVU productivity data had… Read More

CCP 2019.210 provides that in a trade secret  misappropriation case under Civ. Code 3426, before commencing discovery relating to the trade secret, the party alleging the misappropriation shall identify the trade secret with reasonable particularity.  This decision holds that the plaintiff cannot wait to raise a new alleged trade secret in opposition to a summary judgment motion directed towards its… Read More

California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act (Civ. Code 3426.7) preempts other remedies for misappropriation of trade secrets such as a claim for unfair competition under B&P Code 17200. Read More

This decision finds that plaintiff stated a viable claim for fraudulent transfer of properties from Shahen Minassian to his wife Alice via a fraudulent marital dissolution degree with actual intent to hinder, delay or defraud creditors, including plaintiffs who secured a $100 million judgment against Shahen in underlying litigation.  The complaint alleged badges of actual intent to defraud:  transfer to… Read More

This decision affirms an order denying an employer's motion to compel arbitration in a wage and hour case. Though the employer called the plaintiff an independent contractor, the relationship was close enough to an employment relationship to make the Armendariz v. Foundation Health Psychcare Services, Inc. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 83 standards of unconscionability applicable.  The arbitration provision was procedurally unconscionable… Read More

Plaintiff was a licensed solicitor in London and the subject of disciplinary proceedings before the independent regulatory body that governs solicitors and barristers in the UK.  He traveled to California and then claimed he was too ill to return to the UK, so an adjournment of the disciplinary proceedings should be continued.  Defendant, a doctor, was appointed as a neutral… Read More

When an employee sues her employer under Gov. Code 12940(n) for failing to engage in an interactive process concerning making a reasonable accommodation for the employee's disability, the employee need not suggest a possible accommodation to begin the process, but must, by the time of trial, be able to show that a reasonable accommodation existed at the time the employer… Read More

While a plaintiff who seeks an attorney fee award must apply for the fees before entry of a default judgment, not afterwards, as in contested cases (Garcia v. Politis (2011) 192 Cal.App.4th 1474), here the defendant successfully moved to vacate the default and default judgment.  At that point the case became a contested proceeding, and upon prevailing in that proceeding,… Read More

Despite the unconstitutional nature of the CFPB's original structure, the agency's civil investigative demand was enforceable since the current removable director of the agency had ratified the issuance of the CID.  The constitutional infirmity related solely to the CFPB's director, not to the agency itself or its staff which had issued the CID.  Seila law could not resist the CID… Read More

In Omstead v. Dell, Inc., 594 F.3d 1081 (9th Cir. 2010), the Ninth Circuit had held that a plaintiff, against whom the district court had entered an order compelling arbitration, could take an appeal from that otherwise unappealable order by dismissing all his claims with prejudice.  Now, reviewing that same question in light of Microsoft Corp. v. Baker (2017) 137… Read More

A 10-page rant that defendant wrote to his mailing list of interested gun enthusiasts about litigation against defendant that was then pending in Nevada state court was protected speech under CCP 425.16(e) since it related to a lawsuit.  The rant may have contained statements that could be viewed as violations of securities laws (in soliciting funding for the lawsuit and… Read More

The litigation privilege applied to and immunized most of a 10-page rant that defendant wrote to his mailing list of interested gun enthusiasts about litigation against defendant that was then pending in Nevada state court.  The rant conveyed information about the pending litigation and solicited financial support for defendant in that litigation, thus generally falling within the scope of the… Read More

A plaintiff who brings a suit against a government entity must first file a government claim with the defendant entity.  If the plaintiff misses the 6-month deadline for presentation of a claim, she may, within a year of accrual of her claim, file a petition for leave to file a late claim.  If the entity denies the petition, the plaintiff… Read More