To be protected speech under CCP 425.16(e)(2), a pre-litigation communication must be connected with, or have some logical relation to litigation that is contemplated in good faith and under serious consideration. Here, most of the emails an estranged former wife sent her ex-husband did not relate to the RICO suit she threatened to file against him. Three of the emails… Read More
The wife of a candidate for a state assembly seat was not a limited public figure merely by being married to a candidate for public office. Here, the only evidence of the wife's involvement in her husband's campaign was were marching with her husband, carrying a campaign sign, during the Vietnamese-American community's annual Lunar New Year parade. That minimal involvement… Read More
A plaintiff insured waives the attorney-client privilege as to fee agreements, time sheets and the like by suing the insurer for bad faith and claiming Brandt fees as damages. A trial court may, but is not required to, bifurcate trial, leaving Brandt fees for a separate phase after the jury has determined liability for bad faith and allowing discovery of… Read More
Defendant twice failed to pay arbitration fees within 30 days after they became due. Once it timely paid all but $250 of the billed arbitration fees, contending that the remaining $250 was plaintiff's to pay as an initial arbitration fee. But plaintiff had already paid $250, so another payment of that sum would exceed the arbitration agreement's $400 limit on… Read More
A lawyer who serves discovery responses that are abuses of discovery because they contain only meritless objections rather than substantive responses to written discovery may be liable for monetary discovery sanctions even though he is no longer counsel of record for the answering party when the sanctions motion is filed. This attorney didn't help his cause any by his incivility… Read More
The Song-Beverly Act's replace-or-repair remedy applies to a used car that is purchased by a second consumer while the original warranty is still in effect. Civ. Code 1793.22(e)(2) defines "new motor vehicle" to include demonstrators or other motor vehicles sold with a manufacturer’s new car warranty. Read More
If an employer reasonably and in good faith believed it is providing a complete and accurate wage statement in compliance with the requirements of Labor Code section 226, then it has not knowingly and intentionally failed to comply with the wage statement and is not liable for statutory penalties under Labor Code section 226(e)(1). Just as the same good faith… Read More
Dodging the question whether the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment creates by its own force a cause of action authorizing suits for just compensation, the Supreme Court finds that the precondition for any such constitutional claim would be the absence of any other available remedy. Since Texas state law and… Read More
Defendant's arbitration agreement required arbitration of all claims and limited the arbitrator's ability to award a public injunction by stating that relief could be awarded only in favor of the individual party seeking relief. That limitation was unenforcable under McGill v. Citibank, N.A. (2017) 2 Cal.5th 945, but though unenforceable, the limitation was not unconscionable. See Poublon v. C.H. Robinson… Read More
The Game of Thrones Contest website use sign-in wrap, Immediately below the "Play" button on the initial screen there was a clear, different font color legend saying that by tapping that button the user agreed to the website's terms of service. The words "terms of service" were linked to the full text of those terms which disclosed in the first… Read More
The trial court correctly dismissed the consumer plaintiff's UCL unfair claim against Apple for its policies of taking a 30% cut of app developers' earnings and prohibiting app developers from advertising alternative means of paying for app purchases. Apple's policies were unilaterally conceived and imposed, not by agreement with any other entity. California's Cartwright Act does not contain a monopolization… Read More
A hospital does not need to give a physician a hearing on his application for hospital privileges if denial of his application is the automatic result of application of an administrative/quasi-legislative rule. Here, defendant had a policy of not extending emergency room privileged to any physician who had been officially disciplined by state medical regulators. Since plaintiff had been disciplined,… Read More
After a remand from an appeal, post-judgment interest runs from the date of the original judgment if the appellate court merely modified that judgment, but runs from the judgment entered after the appeal if the appelate court reversed the original judgment. Here, the appellate court had reversed, not modified the original attorney fee award so interest ran from entry of… Read More
A health care plan given as an employment benefit pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement contained an enrollment form that complied with Health & Safety Code 1363.1's requirement that immediately before the employee signature there appear a disclosue of the fact that the plan requires arbitration and that the enrollee waives the right to trial by jury. The plan also… Read More
Defendant waived delegation clause issue. While the petition to compel arbitration mentioned the clause, defendant did not argue in the trial court that the issue of whether the arbitration agreement met Health & Safety Code 1363.1 requirements was to be decided by the arbitrator rather than the court. Read More
Following Ajamian v. CantorCO2e, LP (2012) 203 Cal.App.4th 771 and other cases, this decision holds that an arbitration clause saying that the arbitration will proceed under AAA rules is not a sufficiently clear delegation of arbitrability to effectively delegate that issue to the arbitrator if the non-drafting party is an unsophisticated employee of the drafter. Also, even a clearer delegation… Read More
This decision holds that Jordan-Benel v. Universal City Studios, Inc. (9th Cir. 2017) 859 F.3d 1184 is no longer good law in light of the Cal. Supreme Court's later decisions in Park v. Board of Trustees of California State University (2017) 2 Cal.5th 1057 and Bonni v. St. Joseph Health System (2021) 11 Cal.5th 995. To state a claim for… Read More
Affirming an order certifying a class in this CLRA action for falsely advertising that defendant's dog food promoted healthy joints in dogs, the Ninth Circuit holds that the district court did not err in holding that damages were a common issue based on an expert's report showing how a study could be conducted to determine how much average consumers valued… Read More
The trial court correctly denied defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion in this defamation case. Plaintiff and defendant were each owners of units in a six-unit building governed by an HOA. Defendant sent his defamatory statements to the building's other owners. After an extensive analysis of the content and context of the defamatory messages, the Court concludes they were just part of a… Read More
To achieve the status of a bona fide purchaser of real property without notice of adverse claims, the purchaser must conduct research with due diligence to see if the title it is planning to acquire is good, and heed any warning signs its research reveals. The purchaser may not ignore information that comes to it from outside the recorded chain… Read More
