California Appellate Tracker

Plaintiff suffers from PTSD.  He sought to have his wife present at his deposition as an accommodation because she calms him alleviating some PTSD symptoms.  Defendants opposed arguing that the wife was a percipient witness to the medical procedures that were the subject matter of the suit and allowing her to sit in on her husband's deposition would allow her… Read More

Under CCP 1281.9(a)(2), a neutral arbitrator must make disclosures to the parties to an arbitration as required by the Ethics Standards for Neutral Arbitrators in Contractual Arbitration.  Here, the arbitrator did so, and also disclosed that he would accept employment in other disputes as an arbitrator without informing the parties.  In a non-consumer arbitration, the arbitrator is allowed to make… Read More

A government agency cannot be held liable for inverse condemnation by reason of erosion caused by inadequate storm drainage facilities unless the agency owns those facilities.  Here, as a condition of approving subdivision maps, defendant county required the developers of two subdivisions along a creek to build storm drainage facilities in the creek adjoining the subdivisions.  The county also required… Read More

The no voluntary payment clause in plaintiffs' insurance policies barred its recovery for costs it incurred in complying with a settlement agreement and consent order with the government to remediate mercury contamination of water supplies.  Plaintiff had notified defendant of its receiving a notice of the federal government's claim for natural resources damages from the contamination, but then failed to… Read More

This case denies American Pipe tolling of the statute of limitations on claims for statutory penalties under the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (Civ. Code 1786.50).  The act clearly states that statutory penalties cannot be recovered in a class action, so that affected consumers could not reasonably rely on the pendency of a prior class action to protect their right… Read More

First Student Cases (2018) 5 Cal.5th 1026 is to be given retroactive effect so that pre-2018 violations of the Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act are actionable despite the conflict among Court of Appeal opinions before First Students over whether the Act was constitutional. Read More

A trial court must consider a party's ability to pay before ordering that party to pay all or a portion of the fees of an expert appointed by the court under Evid. Code 730 or Fam. Code 3111 or 3112. Read More

Under Fam. Code 6342(a)(1), a trial court may award "restitution be paid to the petitioner for loss of earnings and out-of-pocket expenses, including, but not limited to, expenses for medical care and temporary housing, incurred as a direct result of the abuse inflicted by the respondent in a Domestic Violence Prevention Act proceeding.  This decision holds that "restitution" in this… Read More

Most time deadline statutes and rules are now construed as non-jurisdictional unless Congress has clearly stated otherwise.  The 12-year statute of limitations on quiet title actions against the United States (28 U.S.C. §2409a(g)) is a claims processing rule, not a jurisdictional statute.  The time limit appears in a section separate from the Quiet Title Act's jurisdictional provision and does not… Read More

Appeal of an order interpreting a nonprofit corporation's by-laws governing annual election of its directors was not moot though several elections occurred after the suit was filed because the judgment had a continuing effect on the corporation's elections and was subject to repetition but evading review. Read More

Plaintiff homeowners association is a nonprofit corporation.  It held a recall election at which a majority of the votes cast, but not a majority of eligible votes, were in favor of the recall.  The corporation's articles required a majority of eligible voters to recall board members, but that provision is invalidated by Corp. Code 5034, 7222(a)(2), 7151(e), allowing a majority… Read More

Gov. Code 855.4 grants public entities and employees immunity from liability for injuries caused by discretionary decisions about protecting public health.  This decision follows s Wright v. City of Los Angeles (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 683 and City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court (2021) 62 Cal.App.5th 129 in holding that this provision is not governed by the same requirements as… Read More

A 2018 amendment to CCP 340.1 further relaxed the statute of limitations on childhood sexual assault claims, but it removed the words "on the merits" from the portion of the statute that used to state that it did not apply to any claim that had been litigated to finality on the merits before 2003.  The deletion of that language was… Read More

Following Galarsa v. Dolgen California, LLC (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 639 and Piplack v. In-N-Out Burgers (2023) 2023 Cal. App. LEXIS 166, this decision holds that plaintiff's individual PAGA claims (i.e., those which are based on Lab. Code violations affecting the plaintiff) must be arbitrated.  However, representative PAGA claims based on Lab. Code violations affecting only employees other than the plaintiff… Read More

Under CCP 904.1(a)(12), a monetary sanctions award of $5,000 or more is immediately appealable.  However, an order for an issue sanction on a discovery motion is not immediately appealable.  Even when the order awards both monetary and issue sanctions, the issue sanctions portion of the order is not appealable unless the two sanctions are intimately intertwined. (See Mileikowsky v. Tenet… Read More

This decision affirms a summary judgment on plaintiff's antitrust claim against a competing fast fashion retailer which had refused to buy from clothing vendors unless they quit selling to plaintiff.  Plaintiff failed to present evidence of a horizontal agreement among the clothing vendors to not sell to plaintiff.  A vertical agreement between defendant and each vendor was not a per… Read More

This decision affirms an order disqualifying plaintiff's attorney in a case arising from a dispute among the three principals of a closely held corporation.  Plaintiff sued the other two principals as one of those defendants' wives.  Using the corporation's computers, plaintiff accessed emails the wife sent her husband over the corporation's email server.  The decision holds that the trial court… Read More

One insurer may recover equitable contribution from another insurer only if the two insurers share the same level of liability on the same risk as to the same insured.  Here, a business' CGL insurer sought equitable contribution from the same business' workers compensation insurer.  Dismissal of the complaint was affirmed because the two insurers did not insure the same risk. … Read More

Unclean hands may be raised as a defense to a malicious prosecution action.  Here, the jury voted in favor of the defense based on evidence that the plaintiff had lied at her deposition in the underlying action, leading the defendant not to amend its cross-complaint after plaintiff's demurrer to it was sustianed with leave to amend.   Whether the particular misconduct… Read More

Olson, Uber and Postmates stated a viable claim that AB 5, which adopts the ABC test of employment for most employees, violates the Equal Protection Clause even under the rational basis test because of its many exemptions, including of app-based gig companies that perform errand services, which have similar business models to Uber and Postmates.  What differentiates this case from… Read More