While a police department could not legally discriminate against its employee police officers based on their ethnicity, it could legally take adverse employment action against them based on the race of the man they shot. Read More
The Home Owners Loan Act does not preempt a state law breach of contract claim that the bank miscalculated adjusted interest rates on loans, since common law breach of contract claims impose no requirements other than those the bank voluntarily assumed in its own agreements. Read More
The Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act (“FIRREA”) preempts a Nevada law that limited deficiency judgments on foreclosure to the amount by which the price the owner paid to acquire the loan exceeded the foreclosure sale price. Read More
Plaintiff’s suit for physical injuries suffered when she tripped over a scale as she left a community health facility is governed by the two-year limitations period for ordinary negligence, not the shorter limitations period for claims against a health care provider’s negligent delivery of professional services. Read More
False Claims Act lawsuit was not subject to defendant employer’s arbitration clause in its contract with employee claimant, since it had no substantial connection to the employment relationship, and it was a claim by the United States, not the employee, against the employer. Read More
A fully trained service dog must be accommodated under federal law and Civil Code § 51; a service dog in training must also be accommodated under Civil Code §§ 54, 54.1, but only if accompanied by the disabled person, or a person licensed or otherwise qualified to train the dog. Read More
Trial court abused its discretion in declining to consider time records that had been filed with a previous attorney fee motion in the case and were incorporated by reference in a later attorney fee motion in the same case, since parties are permitted to incorporate by reference any paper previously filed in the action. Read More
A subcontractor’s commercial general liability insurance policy did not exclude coverage of water damage to the interiors of modular units it supplied since the damage was not the specific part of the units on which the subcontractor was then working nor the part on which the subcontractor incorrectly performed its work. Read More
Plaintiff's claims against defendant for common law privacy violations through use of zombie "cookies" through which defendant gathered data on plaintiff's internet usage on his Verizon phone without Verizon’s knowledge or approval, let alone plaintiff's, were not subject to the arbitration clause in plaintiff’s phone contract with Verizon. Read More
Plaintiff, who was fired when his wife complained to his boss (who was also her mother) that plaintiff was armed, angry and on drugs, failed to state an actionable claim for discrimination based on marital status. Read More
The Ninth Circuit rejects the Department of Labor’s informal interpretation of the dual job limitation on tip credit against the Fair Labor Standards Act’s minimum wage; "two jobs" is determined by occupation, not individual tasks. Read More
A collective bargaining agreement explicitly requires arbitration of wage and hour claims by referencing a wage order; so long as a Private Attorney General Act claim survives, decertification of a class is not immediately appealable. Read More
If a tenant’s leasehold interest is foreclosed upon, the purchaser at the foreclosure sale succeeds, as assignee, to the tenant's right to occupy the premises and to all covenants of the lease that run with the land, but not to the lease contract itself absent express assumption. Read More
The insured was not entitled to require an excess insurer to pay under its policy just by showing claims remained unpaid after exhausting all underlying policies for the one policy year, as some excess policies’ “other insurance” provisions required exhaustion of insurance issued for other policy years if it covered the same loss. Read More
A construction subcontractor’s CGL policy did not clearly exclude "completed operations" coverage for an additional insured (here, the developer) or terminate insurance coverage when the subcontractor finished working on the project. Read More
Because hot air balloon operators are not common carriers, they can take advantage of the primary assumption of the risk doctrine and thus owe no duty of care as to risks inherent in the sport or activity of hot air ballooning—even if an injury is caused by pilot error in failing to adjust altitude properly to account for cross-winds. Read More
Federal law recognizing the legality of tobacco and cigarettes does not preempt state tort law that holds most cigarettes to be a “defective product,” thus exposing the manufacturers to substantial tort liability in California. Read More
A spouse is liable for the other spouse’s debts incurred for the “necessaries of life” before separation, but only for debts incurred for the "common necessaries of life" after separation and before divorce; the former includes only the basics of food, clothing, and shelter, whereas the latter is a broader category that takes into account the circumstances of the particular… Read More
Unionized prison guards’ pay is governed by the union’s memorandum of understanding, which was passed as state legislation, not general state wage and hour laws; but those general laws do apply to non-unionized prison workers. Read More
The Fair Employment and Housing Act’s one year statute of limitations starts to run from the date of termination of employment of a faculty member, rather than the earlier date on which he was denied tenure for allegedly discriminatory reasons. Read More
