California Appellate Tracker

Defendant’s motion to dismiss class action for plaintiff’s failure to bring to trial within five years should have been granted; trial court miscalculated the relevant time period when it failed to include a 43-day period during which the court stayed the filing of pleadings and the service of discovery requests while the parties met and conferred on a case management plan. Read More

Plaintiff stated a viable claim for unjust enrichment after it contracted with a property owner to appeal property tax assessments in return for 30% of any resulting refund, but the property was foreclosed upon by defendant before the tax refund came through. Read More

A plaintiff may state a claim under 42 USC 1981 for denial of equal rights in making or enforcing contracts by showing that race was a factor in the decision not to contract, even if not the but-for cause of the decision.  Read More

None of the exceptions to hearsay rule applied to permit admission of plaintiff’s supervisor’s testimony that he had seen defendant’s name on invoices and shipping orders for asbestos-containing pipes. Read More

Since an employer must pay workers for time spent on employer-provided transportation only when the employer requires the workers to use that transportation, defendant was not required to pay its technicians for time they spent driving from home to their first appointment of the day using company vehicles, because employees could return the company vehicles at the end of each… Read More

When plaintiff’s attorney improperly used a mini-opening to try to precondition potential jurors to vote in plaintiff's favor, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in not allowing mini-opening statements to the second and third venires of prospective jurors. Read More

Civil Code 1668 bars enforcement of a release as to fraud and statute-based claims if any element of the complete tort (such as reliance or damages) still remains unsatisfied at the time the release is signed. Read More

For limitations purposes, the client discovered malpractice claim against a lawyer who structured a transaction when the other party to the transaction threatened to sue client based on the transaction’s structure. Read More

The Right to Repair Act precludes class actions premised on a violation of the Act’s standards for new residential construction. Read More

The extra costs allowed when a 998 offer is rejected may not be collected by a defendant in an action under California’s Fair Employment & Housing Act unless the defendant shows that the action was frivolous, unreasonable, or groundless when brought, or the plaintiff continued to litigate after it clearly became so. Read More

Attorney fee award in connection with damages for breach of a settlement agreement is reversed for lack of admissible evidence of the attorney fees reasonably incurred since the only witness at trial lacked meaningful knowledge of these matters. Read More

There are no circumstances under which a records custodian can resist a subpoena for a collective entity’s records on Fifth Amendment grounds. Read More

When the question is one of public right and the object of a petition for writ of mandate is to enforce a public duty, the petitioner need not demonstrate some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large. Read More

Anti-SLAPP motions to strike may not be filed in limited jurisdiction cases. Read More

The prior federal judgment did not bar plaintiff's refiled state law claims because they had been dismissed only because the Eleventh Amendment barred a federal court from awarding damages against a state entity—not because of the actual merits of those claims. Read More

Plaintiff borrowers declaration that he did not recall receiving thirty or more telephone calls with servicer prior to recordation of a notice of default on his mortgage loan did not suffice to create a triable issue of fact as to whether those contacts had taken place since he did not deny that they happened. Read More

For purposes of ownership of real property mineral rights, dinosaur fossils are considered minerals. Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees to a prevailing plaintiff in an individual FLSA retaliation claim, properly apportioning total fees among several plaintiffs, and attributing to this prevailing plaintiff only those fees reasonably incurred in prosecuting her individual claims. Read More

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

The arbitration clause in a law firm’s partnership agreement was unconscionable and unenforceable because it required the lawyer/partner to pay half the arbitration costs and her own attorney fees, because it restricted the arbitrators’ ability to “override” or “substitute [their] judgment” for that of the law firm’s management, and it required confidentiality about all arbitrations. Read More