California Appellate Tracker

The one-year limitations period on medical malpractice begins to run when the plaintiff first becomes aware that a preexisting disease or condition has developed into a more serious one, and since the evidence conflicted on this point, the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant.  Read More

In suit by fitness club member who slipped on shower room floor and broke his arm, summary judgment was properly entered in favor of fitness center since membership agreement contained a release of claims of ordinary negligence, and plaintiff did not plead or prove gross negligence.  Read More

A successor corporation that carries on a judgment debtor's business under a new business name may be added as a judgment debtor to a default judgment without proof that it controlled the litigation, but individuals may not be so added unless they are the corporation’s alter ego and had control over the original litigation.  Read More

The district court erred in dismissing plaintiff’s 10b-5 complaint based on lack of scienter, since defendant told its investors a misleading half-truth by disclosing that animal studies had confirmed the drug’s efficacy but omitting the fact that rats who received the drug had shown increased incidence of cancer.  Read More

Enforcement of a security interest is not collection of a debt under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, so a deed of trust trustee does not act as a debt collector, subject to that Act, in taking steps to nonjudicially foreclose the deed of trust.  Read More

A car dealer selling a “certified” used car must provide the buyer, before the sale, with an inspection report that lists each part that was inspected and states how the part performed on inspection; failure to provide the report violates the Consumers Legal Remedies Act and the Unfair Competition Law.  Read More

Labor Code 226 does not require an employer to list on an employee's ordinary pay stubs the amount of vacation benefits earned but not paid during the pay period.  Read More

Summary judgment for defendant casino is reversed as questions of fact exist about whether casino was a common carrier, subject to a stricter standard of care, in providing a van to transport gamblers to and from an adjoining town.  Read More

The one-year limitations period governing medical malpractice actions (CCP 340.5) governs a claim of injury suffered on a fall from a hospital  gurney, since gurney transport was under a doctor’s orders and was integral to the patient’s treatment.  Read More

The district court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's Rule 60(b)(1) motion for relief from dismissal due to its having filed an amended complaint two days after the deadline, since there was no prejudice, no bad faith, and the short delay was attributable to a reasonable misunderstanding of the district court’s docketing practices.  Read More

Plaintiff reasonably rejected earlier settlement offers requiring general releases and nondisclosure agreements and so was properly awarded her attorney fees under the Song-Beverly Warranty Act after agreeing to a settlement lacking those provisions.  Read More

A contract's indemnity clause requiring plaintiff to indemnify defendant against all claims resulting from defendant's performance of the contract applied only to claims by third parties—and not to claims asserted by one contracting party against the other, since there was no explicit language indicating the parties intended to agree to fee-shifting in that manner.  Read More

In this car crash case, substantial evidence existed to support jury verdict in favor of defendant, after defendant testified that he mistakenly—but in his opinion, reasonably—thought he could get through intersection safely before plaintiff's car came through in a cross-direction.  Read More

In ruling on a motion for attorney fees under the Lanham Act, the district court is free to exercise its discretion in examining the totality of the circumstances to decide if the case is exceptional, including whether the suit or prelitigation conduct was frivolous, ill-motivated or objectively unreasonable.  Read More

Evidence of the amount a medical finance company paid the provider for its lien on plaintiff’s personal injury claim is properly excluded as it is only marginally relevant to the reasonable value of the medical provider’s services, and rebuttal evidence would consume too much time, distracting the jury from the central issues in the case.  Read More

An order compelling arbitration of individual wage and hour claims, dismissing class claims, and staying PAGA claims—all arising from the same factual allegations—is not a death knell order and so is not immediately appealable, since other employees may use a judgment on those claims as collateral estoppel to bring their own suits, and the continued existence of the PAGA claims… Read More

Trial court did not abuse its discretion in granting a permanent injunction against U-Haul's enforcement in California of an unlawful non-competition clause in its dealer agreements, which affected 1,000 U-Haul dealers in California as well as U-Haul's competitors, customers and the general public, since U-Haul’s proposed voluntary non-enforcement of the clause would have allowed it to re-start its former policy… Read More

Nothing in the Homeowners’ Bill of Rights requires a foreclosing party to prove, prior to foreclosure, that it has the right to foreclose; rather, the statute allows pre-foreclosure injunction actions only for violation of certain specified HBOR sections, which are enumerated in sections 2924.12 and 2924.19 of the Civil Code.  Read More

A corporation and its lawyer behaved unethically in answering a city’s validation action when both knew the corporation was suspended for non-payment of state taxes; hence, they were properly denied a private attorney general fee award despite prevailing in the action.  Read More

Legal malpractice claim filed more than a year after client’s acceptance of attorney’s withdrawal was properly dismissed as time-barred, and retainer agreement attorney fee clause was broad enough to cover a malpractice claim whether sounding in tort or contract.  Read More