California Appellate Tracker

Summary judgment for promoters of a half-marathon race is reversed; though the race’s release form was enforceable, it could not waive liability for gross negligence, and a triable issue of fact existed as to whether the promoters were grossly negligent in failing to provide adequate emergency medical care at the finish line. Read More

An employer must give an employee a meal break if the shift is five hours or longer, but if the total work period is not more than six hours, the employer and employee may waive this requirement by mutual agreement, such as through a clear and unmistakable collective bargaining agreement. Read More

Defendant city government is immune from liability for accidents caused by police vehicular pursuits if it has promulgated a suitable written pursuit policy and requires annual training and certification by all officers that they have received, read, and understood the policy; the officers need not have actually signed the required certifications. Read More

A borrower may challenge an interest rate as unconscionable even when the Legislature has exempted the loan from usury rate limitations. Read More

Even though compensatory damages were reduced to zero by an offset for the other party’s breach of an independent covenant of a contract, a $2 million punitive damage award is affirmed on a breach of fiduciary duty claim. Read More

An agreement settling a fee dispute between a client and a law firm is enforced despite the client’s argument that the agreement lacked consideration. Read More

Department of Justice required SABMiller to divest entirely of its domestic beer business as a condition of approving its merger with Anheuser-Busch; so consumers could not maintain suit alleging that the merger would lessen competition in the domestic market. Read More

A trial court has no discretion to deny a prevailing party ordinary court costs on the ground that the losing party lacks the financial ability to pay those costs, and may deny or reduce expert witness fees awardable under Code of Civil Procedure section 998 only upon making specific statutory findings. Read More

A former client need prove only that attorney’s fraud and breach of fiduciary duty in secretly funneling information about the client to opposing party while negotiating a settlement was a substantial factor in causing her harm, not that she would have obtained a better result but from the attorney’s wrongdoing. Read More

College’s disciplinary procedures did not pass due process muster because student accused of assault did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the accuser either directly or indirectly, and fact-finder did not have the ability to watch accuser testify so as to assess her credibility. Read More

Facts sufficient to show recklessness (not merely negligence) are necessary in order for the issue of liability on elder abuse claim by medical services provider to go to the jury. Read More

A will’s bequest of 35% of residue including a specific ranch is a residuary, not a specific, bequest and so the distribution to the donee of the bequest is measured by the ranch’s post-death sale price. Read More

Although corporations are immune from antitrust liability for conspiracy when their alleged co-conspirator has substantially common ownership, this immunity does not apply when wholly unrelated corporations are alleged to be part of the conspiracy. Read More

A homeowner who hired an unlicensed gardener to trim tall trees is vicariously liable to gardener’s employee who was injured in a fall due to gardener’s negligence. Read More

Plaintiff was entitled to automatic vacatur of an arbitration award because the arbitrator knowingly violated ethical rules by receiving and accepting offers to arbitrate other disputes involving defendant or its attorneys without notifying plaintiff of those offers and acceptances. Read More

An employee cannot state a claim against his employer based on a theory of “receiving stolen property” on the basis that the employer “received” the employee's labor without paying the agreed price for it.  Read More

Community college is not immune from liability to a student on a visiting community college team who suffers an injury on the defendant college's playing fields. Read More

A Washington state law requiring an employer to allow an employee to reschedule accrued vacation time to care for the medical needs of close relatives is not pre-empted by the federal Railway Labor Act, since that preemption extends only far enough to protect the role of labor arbitration in resolving disputes over collective bargaining agreements—which was not at issue in… Read More

The employee is the prevailing party, entitled to a fee award on an employer’s appeal from a Labor Commissioner’s ruling unless the appeal reduces the employer’s liability to $0. Read More

Retired former lab employees who sued the University of California claiming that it had unconstitutionally impaired their contractual rights to post-retirement health benefits were entitled to class certification after management of their health benefits plans passed to successor manager of the lab, who proceeded to institute less favorable policies. Read More