California Appellate Tracker

A class was ascertainable and should have been certified since the class was properly defined by objective criteria and its members could be identified from defendant’s records, even if those records also included an unknown number of non-class members.  Read More

Tenant's suit for breach of the warranty of habitability and constructive eviction was considered an “action on the lease contract” for purposes of attorney fee recovery under Civil Code 1717.  Read More

A hospital could not be held liable for a doctor’s malpractice on a respondeat superior theory when the hospital’s conditions of admission, which the patient signed many times in non-emergency situations, clearly disclosed that all doctors who treated patients at the hospital acted as independent contractors.  Read More

State statutes prohibiting licensed mental health providers from engaging in sexual orientation change efforts with minors do not abridge the religious freedom of either therapists or the minors in their care.  Read More

After trial court clerk improperly posted copy of confidential pleading that revealed plaintiff’s true name in his revenge porn lawsuit (in which plaintiffs are ordinarily permitted to proceed anonymously), the trial court compounded the error by ruling that all future filings would have to be in plaintiff’s real name.  Read More

To support an award of damages for lost earning capacity, plaintiff must introduce evidence showing the career it is reasonably probable plaintiff would have pursued but for the tortious injury and the amount plaintiff would have earned in that career.  Read More

Trial court did not abuse its discretion in requiring appellant to bear third parties’ entire attorney fees in interpleader actions triggered by respondent’s enforcement of judgment while appeal was pending as appellant could have avoided these costs by posting an appeal bond.   Read More

When a motion to dismiss raises a question of foreign law, the court may consider declarations or other "evidentiary" material regarding the content of relevant foreign law without converting the motion into a summary judgment motion; here, the Court of Appeal held that a French “astreinte” award was an enforceable foreign damage judgment, not an unenforceable penalty.  Read More

Compliance with the Government Tort Claims statute's claim presentation requirement may be alleged generally—as by checking a box on the Judicial Council form complaint stating that "Plaintiff … has complied with applicable claims statutes.”  Read More

When cases are merely related—as opposed to consolidated—transfer of one of them to a new judge based on an effective 170.6 challenge does not require or allow transfer of the other related case in which no challenge is filed.  Read More

The National Labor Relations Act did not preempt a manager’s state law wrongful termination claims, as his termination did not arguably interfere with employees’ right to organize—they had already voted to join a union when the manager was fired for goading them into unionizing.  Read More

A judgment in favor of a contractor's injured employee and against the homeowner who hired the contractor is affirmed under the “retained control exception” to the independent contractor rule, since the homeowner retained control by assuming responsibility for obtaining building permits and city inspections—one purpose of which is to assure that the work is safely carried out.  Read More

California’s Ellis Act preempts a key section of San Francisco’s Planning Code, penalizing a landlord’s withdrawal of a unit from the rental market by denying for ten years any permit to merge the withdrawn unit with any other.  Read More

Insurer is entitled to summary judgment against a claim under an auto insurance policy which the insurer had canceled before an accident, due to the insured's failure to respond within 30 days to written inquiry whether the insured wanted his driving age son to be included as an insured under the policy, since that information was reasonably necessary to underwrite… Read More

An arbitration clause excepting “any class or representative suit” from arbitration excludes from arbitration individual, as well as group, claims brought under the Private Attorney General Act (“PAGA”; Labor Code 2698 et seq).  Read More

Employer was entitled to judgment NOV in a negligence case brought against a plaintiff injured by employee’s negligent driving of his own car on his way home from work, since the employee’s commute was subject to the “going and coming rule.”  Read More

If the state does not intervene in an insurance false claims case, the plaintiff insurer may enforce the entire judgment against the defendants without first having the court determine the insurer’s share of the proceeds of the action.  Read More

The Communications Decency Act (47 USC 230) shielded Yelp! from liability for an allegedly defamatory review of plaintiff’s business as plaintiff alleged no facts to support his speculation that Yelp! rather than a customer wrote the review.  Read More

Judgment for defendant in a private nuisance action was affirmed as substantial evidence supported the trial court’s findings that the noise from defendants’ resort was not unreasonable nor was the injury to the plaintiff substantial, even if the noise violated the county noise ordinance.  Read More

The six-month limitations period under the federal Railway Labor Act was equitably tolled by time expended while the parties brought their dispute before the Railway Mediation Board.  Read More