California Appellate Tracker

Under 28 USC § 1446(b)(1), a defendant may remove a civil action after it has received a copy of the complaint but before it has been formally served.   Read More

This decision affirms denial of an employer's arbitration agreement.  The arbitration agreement was procedurally unconscionable to a moderate degree because the agreement was adhesive, the circumstances under which Reddaway required Ronderos to sign the agreement involved significant oppression, and the arbitration agreement involved some surprise because the cost-splitting provision is substantively opaque.  The panel also held that two of the… Read More

Kroger was not a third party beneficiary of Instacart's arbitration agreement.  Instacart's agreement's only mention of retailers from which Instacart delivered goods per the customer's order was to state that Instacart was not liable for any wrongdoing by such a retailer.  Neither Instacart nor its users had any interest in shielding a retailer from court litigation. Read More

This decision holds that a non-competition clause in a contract for the sale of a part of an LLC member's interest in the LLC is not per se illegal but should, instead, be judged by the reasonableness standard.  A sale of a partial business interest differs drastically from the sale of an entire business interest. Following a partial sale, the… Read More

In a case similar to Lara v. First National Ins. Co. of America (9th Cir. 2022) 25 F.4th 1134 and also involving valuation of totaled cars under Washington law, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should have certified a class on the claim that State Farm improperly deducted a negotiation discount meant to capture the typical amount buyers… Read More

Plaintiff waived any error in the jury's returning a special verdict form that did not dispose of one of his claims by failing to object to the jury verdict on that ground before the jury was discharged. Read More

The trial court erred in granting summary judgment against a Cal. professor's claim that the University violated his rights under the Information Practices Act (Civ. Code 1798, et seq.) by publicly disclosing personal information about the professor at a public meeting and by leaking a letter to the press which also disclosed personal information about the professor. Unlike the constitutional… Read More

Because the Song-Beverly Act makes unenforceable any contract provision that waives rights the Act gives consumers, if a manufacturer moves to transfer venue of a Song-Beverly Act claim to a court in another state under a forum selection clause, the manufacturer bears the burden of proving that litigating in a different forum will not diminish the plaintiff’s unwaivable rights. Here,… Read More

(After suing Coinbase for damages and having that case sent to arbitration, plaintiff filed this separate suit under the CLRA, UCL and FAL seeking only an injunction to prevent Coinbase from falsely advertising that its security features.  This decision follows Mejia v. DACM, Inc. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 691 and other decisions in holding that a suit seeking an injunction benefitting… Read More

Enmark v. KC Community Care, LLC (2024) 2024 WL 4290290 (A Lanterman-Petris-Short Act conservator for a mentally ill person does not have actual or ostensible authority to sign an arbitration agreement for the mentally ill person as part of his authorized placement of the conservatee in a mental health facility.  Hence, plaintiffs were not bound to arbitrate the conservatee's survival… Read More

(Defendant employer waived its right to compel arbitration.  Its claim to have suddenly discovered the employee's arbitration agreement five months after the suit was filed was not credible as no explanation was given why the employee's personnel file containing the arbitration agreement was not available earlier.  In addition, the employer agreed to mediate the case on a class action basis… Read More

(This opinion affirms a trial court's denial of plaintiff's attorney's seventh request for a continuance as an accommodation of his manic-depression mental illness.  Under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 1.100(f), a court may deny a request for one of three reasons:  the applicant has not satisfied the rule's requirements or the requested accommodation would create an undue financial or administrative… Read More

(This opinion affirms a trial court's denial of plaintiff's attorney's seventh request for a continuance as an accommodation of his manic-depression mental illness.  Under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 1.100(f), a court may deny a request for one of three reasons:  the applicant has not satisfied the rule's requirements or the requested accommodation would create an undue financial or administrative… Read More

A Chapter 13 debtor may exclude from her disposable income (from which the amount of monthly Chapter 13 plan payments are calculated) the amount of their voluntary retirement contributions to employer-managed plans.  (See 11 USC 541(b)(7) hanging paragraph.   Read More

Appeals, Recalling the Mandate or Remittitur, Extraordinary Circumstances Required, 2, 12 In a brief order, the Ninth Circuit denies the parties' joint application for it to recall its remittitur so that the district court will not proceed with the case on remand while the defendant petitions the US Supreme Court for certiorari.  Recalling the mandate is a last resort remedy… Read More

This decision holds that the trial court erred in not compelling arbitration in this wage-and-hour case.  The employment contract Gonzalez had with his direct employer, Nowhere, contained an enforceable arbitration clause.  Gonzalez also sued, on the same claims, nine other entities which could be liable only if they were his joint employers.  Since the liability of the nine alleged joint… Read More

Insurance, Exclusions, Sexual Molestation, "Care, Custody, or Control", 1, 12 Gordon sued the owner and operator of a massage parlor for sexually molesting her while giving her a massage.  This decision holds that the massage parlor's insurer owed no duty to defend  or indemnify with respect to the claim due to a sexual molestation exclusion in the policy.  The exclusion… Read More

Summary judgment was properly entered against plaintiff who tried to hold Farmers vicariously liable for its agent's underestimate the replacement cost of plaintiff's house and thus ordered inadequate fire insurance from California FAIR Plan.  Farmers' contract with the agent allowed the agent to write insurance on Farmers but not on the FAIR Plan.  And Farmers had not engaged in any… Read More

Under Com. Code 2305(2), a party that has the discretionary power to set the price of goods under the parties' contract must set that price in good faith.  Section 2305 defines good faith as the observance of reasonable commercial standards of fair dealing in the trade, and .includes a “safe harbor” provision, providing that “in the normal case a posted… Read More

The trial court improperly allowed plaintiff to avoid arbitration under CCP 1281.98 when her employer defendant missed paying an arbitrator's fee in a timely manner after having paid for a year in a timely manner.  The reason the section did not apply was that the parties had agreed to arbitration only after suit was filed and only after weeks of… Read More