California Appellate Tracker

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a worker’s regular rate of pay, used to compute overtime pay, includes any compensation paid even if it is not paid on an hourly basis; so payments to employees in lieu of medical insurance benefits should have been included in their regular rate of pay, for purposes of computing their overtime pay.  Read More

A narrow arbitration clause in a partnership's operating agreement did not apply to plaintiff's legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty and rescission claims which arose from duties the defendant lawyer owed independent of the partnership agreement.  Read More

The doctrine of primary assumption of the risk barred suit for injuries sustained by a skateboarder who was riding the skateboard down a hill on the wrong side of a city street without a helmet on and hit a gap in the pavement.  Read More

Breach or interference with the City of Carson’s contract with an agent for negotiations for an NFL team to come to the city is not protected speech under the Anti-SLAPP statute.  Read More

Leave to amend to state a UCL claim was properly denied in a mass action by defaulted home loan borrowers as the proposed amendment showed plaintiffs were improperly joined but alleged no facts to support the conclusion they were overcharged.  Read More

An Army Corps "approved" jurisdictional determination that "waters of the United States" are present on or absent from an owner's real property is a final agency action that may be judicially reviewed under the Administrative Procedures Act. Read More

The Communications Decency Act does not shield an internet website owner from liability for failure to warn users about dangers posed by sexual predators using the site to target vulnerable women for abuse. Read More

Suppliers who were third party beneficiaries of phone aggregator’s contract with consumer plaintiff could enforce that contract’s arbitration clause against plaintiff.  Read More

A child molester’s “grooming” presents to the molested minor did not trigger application of Insurance Code section 11583 which tolls the statute of limitations on partial payment of compensation for injury given without notice of applicable limitations periods.  Read More

An arbitration award cannot be vacated by the courts due to factual errors or for bias when the arbitrator had previously represented both sides in similar disputes.  Read More

The federal Airline Deregulation Act preempts California’s Online Privacy Protection Act, so Delta Airlines does not have to comply with the latter in constructing its mobile phone app.  Read More

Under CCP 1032(a), a prevailing party is entitled to a cost award even if it is united in interest with co-parties that did not prevail, but the trial court has discretion in awarding only those jointly incurred costs which were reasonably necessary to the prevailing party’s case.  Read More

A discriminatory constructive discharge from employment claim accrues on the employee’s resignation, not on the earlier date of the employer’s last discriminatory act.  Read More

Asbestos supplier could not escape strict product liability for worker’s mesothelioma based on the sophisticated user defense as substantial evidence supported the jury’s weighing of the gravity of harm posed by the asbestos, the likelihood the sophisticated user would give required warnings and the feasibility of the supplier’s doing so. Read More

Defendant was unable to challenge domestic violence protective order on the ground that he had not consented to have a court commissioner decide the issue, because he impliedly consented to have the commissioner decide the matter by participating in the hearing and couldn’t produce an oral record of the proceedings proving he had withheld consent at that time.  Read More

Arbitrators’ award holding defendant bound by a collective bargaining agreement as a member of the multi-employer bargaining unit should have been confirmed despite court’s finding arbitrators’ construction of the agreement “implausible” and despite argument it violated public policy.  Read More

Triable issue of fact existed as to whether school had a duty to supervise middle school classroom where child was injured while practicing risky break-dancing moves.  Read More

A defendant care-giver accused of elder neglect did not meet Welf. & Inst. Code 15610.57’s "having care and custody" requirement, when he merely furnished intermittent outpatient medical treatment to the elder, rather than providing for some/all of the elder’s fundamental needs.  Read More

Under federal attorney fee shifting statutes, including Title VII, a non-merits dismissal of the claims against a defendant still represents a victory sufficient to serve as the springboard for an award of attorney fees to the plaintiff.  Read More

A borrower who alleges defects in the transfer of her mortgage loan which render it void, can sufficiently establish the prejudice element of her wrongful foreclosure claim simply by alleging that the foreclosure was carried out by a party having no right to do so.  Read More