California Appellate Tracker

Wife getting a divorce revealed private sensitive formation about husband to her investigator who relayed the information to an agent.  This decision holds that the disclosure of the sensitive information was closely enough related to the divorce proceedings to be protected conduct under CCP 425.16(e).  The sensitive information related to possible financial misdealing that wife wanted the investigator to look… Read More

A district court reviews an ERISA administrator's denial of benefits de novo without deferring to the administrator's decision.  However, the court's only task is to decide whether the administrator's decision is supported by the record.  The court therefore reviews only the reasons the administrator gave for its denial of benefits.  The court may not adopt new rationales for denial of… Read More

The trial court erred in granting the general contractor summary judgment in this suit by a subcontractor's employee who was injured by a fall from defective scaffolding.  Though another subcontractor erected the scaffolding, questions of fact existed as to whether the general contractor had delegated to that subcontractor the duty to maintain the scaffolding in a safe condition even after… Read More

A real estate broker whom the court appointed to determine the listing price and sell the property in a partition action is entitled to quasi-judicial immunity from one of the co-owner's claims for breach of fiduciary duty and other torts. The broker was appointed by the court for his expertise to carry out the court’s order to sell the property… Read More

To register a sister-state judgment in California under CCP 1710.010 et seq., the judgment creditor need not show that the defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction in California.  If the sister-state judgment is otherwise enforceable, the defendant received due process in the original forum state and need not be afforded all due process rights in the states in which the… Read More

This decision holds that an arbitration agreement in an employment contract was unconscionable and therefore unenforceable because (1) it did not explain and separately provide for waiver of the employee's right to sue in court to enforce his individual PAGA claim (as opposed to the non-waivable right to sue under PAGA for the benefit of other employees), and (2) in… Read More

Property that the debtor has properly claimed as exempt (here, a homestead interest under Arizona law) is not property of the estate.  Therefore, the bankruptcy lacks authority under 11 USC 724(a) to avoid secured claims with liens on the exempt property since that section allows avoidance of liens only on property of the estate. Read More

A Controller notice of noncompliance under CCP 1576 is not a prerequisite to a false claims action for failre to report (reverse false claim) and pay (conversion) unclaimed property to the State of California.  The complaint in this case adequately alleged that cashier's checks were similar written instruments to money orders and thus that the banks had an obligation to… Read More

The Legislature amended H&S Code 1799.102 after Van Horn v. Watson (2008) 45 Cal.4th 322 to extend the statutory immunity for Good Samaritans who render emergency medical or nonmedical care or assistance at the scene of an emergency.  For these purposes, H&S Code 1797.70 defines "emergency" to mean "a condition or situation in which an individual has a need for… Read More

To be an automatic telephone dialing system within the TCPA's meaning, the system must randomly or sequentially generate telephone numbers, not other sorts of numbers.  So a system that selects telephone from a previously entered list of telephone numbers is not an autodialer even if the system automatically generates the ID numbers assigned to each telephone number on the stored… Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in entering a preliminary injunction under the CLRA against defendants continuing to sell puppies which they falsely claimed were healthy but in fact were not and died in many cases within days after sale.  Defendants' main argument on appeal was that the evidence didn't show that they sold the puppies that plaintiffs'… Read More

Under a manuscript endorsement, Yahoo's insurance policy provided covereage for “injury . . . arising out of . . . [o]ral or written publication, in any manner, of material that violates a person’s right of privacy.”  This decision holds that the "restrictive relative phrase" "that violates a person's right of privacy" might under standard rules of English usage and the… Read More

Following remand from the US Supreme Court, this decision holds that Unicolors' copyright registration is valid even though the application was incorrect in failing to comply with the "single unit" requirement because Unicolors did not know its application was inaccurate.  The decision rejects all of defendant's other attacks on the judgment, except for reducing damages by half to remove damages… Read More

In this case involving a slip-and-fall on a sidewalk on defendant's property, the trial court erred in granting the defendant summary judgment under the trivial defect doctrine.  Defendant failed to meet his initial burden of showing the discontinuity of pavement was a trivial defect, providing only a declaration that stated the conclusion that the separation was less than an inch… Read More

Civ. Code 1962 requires a residential landlord to give the tenant notice of the name, phone number and street address of each owner and manager of the premises and to update that information if it changes, as by sale of the property to a new owner.  The statute forbids service of a notice to quit or commencement of an unlawful… Read More

A shopping center landlord was not entitled to immunity from an independent contractor's personal injury suit under Privette v. Superior Court (1993) 5 Cal.4th 689 because the landlord did not hire the contractor.  A shopping center tenant did.  Also, the landlord did not delegate to the tenant the landlord's responsibility for maintaining in safe condition the portion of the premises… Read More

Plaintiff raised a triable issue of fact precluding summary judgment on her disability discrimination claim.  Defendant fired her because she failed a physical exam which allowed an inference that defendant regarded plaintiff as disabled due to balance and strength deficits in her right leg as shown on the physical exam.  Plaintiff also raised a triable issue as to whether she… Read More

Under Lab. Code 925(a)(1), an employer may not require an employee to agree to adjudicate in another state a dispute arising in California.  This decision holds that the provision does not prohibit a court or arbitrator in another state from adjudicating whether section 925 applies.  Here, Zhang was a full partner of Dentons, so there was ample room for questioning… Read More

Following Light v. California Department of Parks & Recreation (2017) 14 Cal.App.5th 75 and looking holistically at the evidence, plaintiff raised a triable issue of fact precluding summary judgment on her sex discrimination and retaliation claims.  The defendant was not entitled to a presumption of nondiscrimination based on the same actor (hiring and firing) her since the hiring was tied… Read More

Recognizing there is a split of authority on the question, this decision holds that rulings on evidentiary issues in connection with a summary judgment motion should be reviewed for abuse of discretion, not de novo.  However, on the merits, an order granting a new trial (after te grant of a summary judgment motion) is reviewed de novo. Read More