California Appellate Tracker

Noncompliance with a court order to disclose financial condition precludes a defendant from challenging the sufficiency of the evidence of a punitive damages award on appeal. Read More

A company the city hired to maintain backup batteries in traffic signals owed a duty of care to motorists in performing its work, and it cannot invoke Government Claims Act immunities to avoid liability. Read More

The exhaustion of remedies doctrine requires a petitioner who sought expungement of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) disciplinary history to first to seek relief from FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before bringing state court action for expungement of public records. Read More

In a wrongful termination suit, a plaintiff-employee cannot defeat an employer’s summary judgment motion by arguing that the employer’s pre-termination investigation could have been better or more comprehensive. Read More

A foreign defendant’s knowledge that plaintiff is located in the forum state and will suffer harm there does allow the forum to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant; instead the defendant itself must establish contacts with the forum state. Read More

A Georgia-resident husband who sent a video of a mock suicide to his California-resident wife caused exceptional and specially regulated effects in California sufficient to support specific jurisdiction to enter a Domestic Violence Protection Act injunction against the husband. Read More

By providing for entry of a stipulated $300,000 judgment if defendant failed to pay $75,000 as agreed, a settlement agreement exacted a penalty, so the $300,000 judgment was void. Read More

A party is entitled to a continuance of a summary judgment hearing, or a new trial, when without fault of his or her own, the party reasonably believed that the case had been settled Read More

An order prohibiting a plaintiff from posting any references to pending litigation on its website is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Read More

An employer’s arbitration clause was denied enforcement as procedurally and substantively unconscionable because it was presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis and unduly limited both formal and informal discovery. Read More

A trial court cannot deny an unlawful detainer defendant the right to respond to an unlawful detainer complaint by answer or demurrer at the defendant's election. Read More

The workers' compensation exclusivity doctrine is inapplicable to claims under the Fair Housing and Employment Act. Read More

For purposes of enforcing a foreign judgment, a party was afforded sufficient due process, if the foreign court followed "procedures compatible with the requirements of fundamental fairness" even if the litigants were not given the specific constitutional due process guarantees afforded litigants in U.S. courts. Read More

The question of which risks are inherent in a recreational activity, here, dirt biking, is fact-intensive but, on a sufficient record, may be resolved on summary judgment. Read More

A party cannot manufacture a triable issue of fact with a self-serving expert opinion that lacks any basis or explanation for the opinion and that is inconsistent with its own admissible statements. Read More

Service of process and taking of a deposition in Arizona as part of Nevada litigation were insufficient minimum contacts with Arizona to create personal jurisdiction. Read More

A consignor must file a UCC-1 financing statement to perfect its security interest in proceeds of the consignee’s sale of consigned goods. Read More

A trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying class certification to a plaintiff in a suit challenging a hospital’s billing practices when any reasonable value determinations concerning the services provided to putative class members would substantially involve individual considerations regarding the patients' treatment, insurance, and charges. Read More

The relation-back doctrine will not save an architect or engineer malpractice action if the certificate of merit required by Code of Civil Procedure section 411.35 is filed after expiration of the statute of limitations. Read More

A no contest clause cannot apply to future amendments to the instrument containing the no contest clause unless the amendment itself contains a no contest clause or incorporates the original instrument's no contest clause by reference to that clause. Read More