California Appellate Tracker

A judgment creditor may recover costs and fees incurred in enforcing the judgment by either filing a memorandum of costs including both fees and costs or a motion for the award of costs and fees.  The memorandum or motion must be filed within two years after the costs or fees are incurred and before the judgment is satisfied.  The judgment… Read More

The First Amendment bars Colorado from applying its law banning discrimination in places of public accommodation to a person whose business is creating websites to celebrate and document the couple's wedding.  The website designer's collaborative effort with the couple to create a website that celebrates the story of their marriage is pure speech, not commercial speech, and it is speech… Read More

Under Title VII (42 USC 2000e(j)), an employer must accommodate an employee's religious observance practice unless it is unable to do so without undue hardship in the conduct of the employer's business.  Undue hardship requires substantially more than "more than de minimus cost."  Instead, to establish "undue hardship," an employer must show is that the burden of granting an accommodation… Read More

Federal legislation is presumed to apply only within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States unless Congress affirmatively and unmistakably instructs otherwise.  Absent such an instruction, the court must determine the focus of congressional concern underlying the legislation and then determine whether the conduct relevant to that focus occurred in the US or elsewhere.  Here, the focus of the Lanham… Read More

While Lab. Code 1102.5 protects whistleblowers who are employees of a city or other governmental agency, the section does not apply to or protect elected governmental officials, like plaintiff who was a city treasurer.  By contrast, Lab. Code 3351 defines "employee" for purposes of the Workers Compensation Act to include all elected, paid public officers.  So the Workers Compensation Act… Read More

While the act of demoting or firing a city employee or official is not protected activity, city council members' votes and debates are protected speech under the Anti-SLAPP statute.  Here, a city treasurer sued city council members individually (and not the city) for acts taken to deprive her office of most of its functions and salary.  Held, the claim against… Read More

The trial court properly granted summary judgment against the plaintiff insureds who sought coverage under their named peril property insurance policy for loss of their frozen embryos due to a failure of the refrigeration unit of the embryo storage company.  The insureds could not prove that the embryos had suffered physical damage.  The storage company refused to say, and the… Read More

Although recognizing that a minority of decisions apply a substantial evidence standard of review on appeal from an order granting or enforcement to a forum selection clause, this decision adopts what it says is the majority rule applying, instead, an abuse of discretion standard of review.  In this case, the contract included not only a clause selecting Illinois as the… Read More

The Song-Beverly Act (Civ. Code 1790.1) renders any waiver of its provisions contrary to public policy, unenforceable and void.  This decision holds that while the antiwaiver provision does not bar all settlement agreements resolving Song-Beverly Act claims, it did invalidate the waiver of Song-Beverly Act rights in the pre-litigation settlement agreement in this case because there was no evidence that… Read More

A corporation that is incorporated elsewhere but has registered to do business in a state that requires as a condition of that registration that the corporation appoint an in-state agent for service of process is subject to general personal jurisdiction in that state's courts on all causes of action.  Such forced consent to general personal jurisdiction does not offend the… Read More

True threats are not protected by the First Amendment.  True threats are “serious expressions conveying that a speaker means to “commit an act of unlawful violence.”  This decision holds that to prosecute a defendant for making a true threat, a state need only prove that the defendant was reckless in consciously disregarding a substantial and unjustifiable risk that his conduct… Read More

Disagreeing with Felisilda v. FCA US LLC (2020) 53 Cal.App.5th 486, this decision holds that a standard California car sale contract with an arbitration clause does not require the car buyer to arbitrate his warranty claims against the car's manufacturer.  Breach of warranty claims are based on statute, not the car sale contract, and so are not intertwined with the… Read More

This decision holds that a party seeking to vacate an arbitration award must file a petition to vacate or a response (seeking vacatur) to a petition to confirm an arbitration award within 100 days of service of the arbitration award.  (CCP 1288, 1288.2.)  A response seeking to vacate is untimely if filed beyond that 100 day limit even if filed… Read More

Plaintiff homeowners sued to cancel amended CC&Rs which changed their subdivision into a common interest development governed by the defendant association, a nonprofit corporation with the power to assess member-homeowners and acquire property as common areas, bringing the subdivision under the Davis-Sterling Act.  Plaintiffs claimed that the homeowner votes to approve the amendment were insufficient in number and land area… Read More

Idaho lacked personal jurisdiction over defendant, a British company.  There was no general jurisdiction.  Examining both the effects and the purpose availment tests, the court found the effects test couldn't be met because the plaintiffs, Indiana and Louisiana residents, suffered no injury in Idaho, the forum state.  Defendant's long-term contract with the defendant, which was an Idaho company, was insufficient… Read More

Resolving a split among the circuits, this decision holds (5-4) that an interlocutory appeal from an order denying a motion to compel arbitration automatically stays proceedings in the district court on the merits of the dispute until the appeal is resolved. Read More

While RICO does not apply extra-territorially, in deciding whether the complaint alleges a domestic injury sufficient to invoke RICO, the court must engage in a fact- or allegation-specific inquiry to determine whether the plaintiff's injury arose in the United States, even if the plaintiff is not a US-resident.  Here, the complaint adequately alleged injury arising fom US-based conduct in hiding… Read More

This decision holds that Gov. Code 821.6 immunizes governmental entities and employees only from tort claims that allege damage resulting from the initiation or prosecution of official judicial proceedings, not injury from preparatory work such as investigation.  Other immunity provisions may apply to immunize the investigatory work, but section 821.6 does not. Read More

Plaintiff engaged in a large development project in Oakland to rehabilitate an abandoned aggregate mine and build multi-family and single family residences on the property, along with various amenities.  Plaintiff entered into a contract with the City which specified that by paying a specified sum, plaintiff satisfied its fee payment obligations to the City.  Years later when plaintiff applied for… Read More

The Rosenthal FDCPA (Civ. Code 1788.15(a))  forbids collecting consumer debt by judicial proceedings when the collector knows that service of process, if necessary to establish personal jurisdiction, was not properly effected.  This decision holds that the absolute litigation privilege does not apply to immunize the debt collector from liability under the cited section, which is more specific that Civ. Code… Read More