California Appellate Tracker

Under CCP 1174.3, an occupant of a premises that is not an invitee, licensee, guest, or trespasser may file a claim of right to possession of the premises to forestall eviction from the premises under an unlawful detainer judgment rendered in a case to which the occupant was not made a party.  To be valid the claim must show that… Read More

Hill's umbrella insurance did not provide coverage for bodily injuries Gardineer sustained in a car accident caused by Hill's niece while she was driving Hill's car with his permission.  The umbrella policy extended coverage only to "insureds" a term it defined to include only the named insured, his wife and other relative who resided in the named insured's house.  The… Read More

For a federal Court of Appeals to have jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal under 28 USC 1292(b), the district court must first find that (a) there is a controlling question of law, (b) there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion on that question, and (c) immediate resolution of the question would materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation. … Read More

Lab. Code 970 prohibits an employer from inducing an employee to relocate and accept employment by means of knowingly false representations about the kind, character, or existence of work or how long it will last.  Here, the trial court erred in granting the defendant employer summary judgment on plaintiff's claim under section 970.  The at-will employment contract that the plaintiff… Read More

When an Anti-SLAPP motion attacks a mixed cause of action, the motion must identify the portions of the cause of action that allege protected activity, but when the motion attacks an entire cause of action, it does not need to identify the activity at issue, since by default it claims that all activity mentioned in the cause of action is… Read More

There is no right to a jury trial in a PAGA suit.  In such a suit a private plaintiff brings on the state's behalf a claim that otherwise would be handled by an administrative agency subject to trial court review, both without jury.  It would be anomalous to grant the private plaintiff greater rights than the administrative agency in whose… Read More

In this FEHA employment discrimination case, the court holds the employer's arbitration clause was substantively unconscionable because (1) it required the employee to demand arbitration or complain to the employer within the time for filing an administrative complaint with the FEHC, whereas the statute of limitations on the claim would potentially extend two more years, one for the FEHC to… Read More

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification in this case involving the valuation of totaled cars.  While defendants might have uniformly violated a Washington state insurance regulation requiring itemization of deductions in calculating the car's value, there was no private right of action under the regulation.  Plaintiffs sued for breach of contract and unfair trade… Read More

The district court denied defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the first amended complaint's defamation claims but granted defendant's motion to dismiss the other claims with leave to amend.  Plaintiff filed a second amended complaint before defendant appealed from the order denying the Anti-SLAPP motion.  This decision holds that the filing of the second amended complaint mooted the appeal from the… Read More

Following Judge v. Nijjar Realty, Inc. (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 619 and disagreeing with Maplebear, Inc. v. Busick (2018) 26 Cal.App.5th 394, this decision holds that an arbitrator's preliminary injunction order is not an "award" and is not reviewable by a California trial court under CCP 1294, and the trial court's order dismissing a petition to vacate the arbitrator's preliminary injunction… Read More

This decision holds that under Evid. Code 721(b)(3), an expert may be cross-examined by a scientific or professional publication if the publication is established as a reliable authority by the cross-examined expert, another expert or judicial notice.  Such a publication may be used even if the testifying expert did not consult it in preparing his opinion.  Here, the testifying expert… Read More

On remand after a prior appeal decided in plaintiff's favor, the district court granted defendant summary judgment finding that defendant was not negligent or willful in including in its credit report mention of plaintiff's criminal charge that was filed more than 7 years before the credit report but was dismissed less than 7 years before the report.  This decision affirms… Read More

A jury found Ford liable to a purchaser for fraud and a CLRA violation as well as a violation of the Song-Beverly Act for selling plaintiff a Ford pickup with a Navistar engine when Ford knew the Navistar engine created unsolvable problems when put in a Ford truck.  This decision holds that substantial evidence supported the jury's compensatory damage award… Read More

This decision holds that a second plaintiff who had standing to sue when a different plaintiff filed this PAGA claim may be amended in to replace the original plaintiff and relate back to the original plaintiff's PAGA notice to the Division of Labor and Workforce Development--and so include a longer period of alleged Labor Code violations than would be possible… Read More

Plaintiff was injured while jogging across defendant's property while in training to run a marathon.  This case holds that jogging for that purpose is a use of the property for a recreational purpose, and so Civ. Code 846 immunized the owner of the property from liability for plaintiff's injuries. Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding plaintiff's principal officer from the courtroom during the portions of the trial in which the technical details were discussed regarding Yelp's software for filtering out unreliable reviews.  The officer was an experienced programmer who had previously managed to circumvent Yelp's software and might do so again.  Though a party, he… Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion to compel Yelp to produce the source code for its software that filters unreliable reviews from its website.  The battling experts disagreed as to the usefulness of the source code in proving whether Yelp's reviews were "trustworthy" as advertised.  Yelp demonstrated that production of the source code would… Read More

A hospital cannot recover more for its emergency care of patients injured in car accidents than the amounts it has agreed with the patients' medical insurers to charge for those services.  Here, the hospital tried to collect more by requiring the patients to sign conditions of admissions that contained assignments of the patients' underinsured motorist coverage and medical benefits coverage… Read More

The Judicial Council's COVID-19 Emergency Rule 10a extended the time for bringing a case to trial by six months (i.e., a total of 5 years and 6 months) for actions filed before April 6, 2020.  This was such an action.  However, plaintiff didn't get it to trial until 5 years and 7 months after the action was filed.  Held, the… Read More

The parties' arbitration provision said that "except for claims seeking injunctive or other equitable relief," the parties agreed to arbitrate any dispute between them.  Plaintiff filed suit including among others claims for specific performance, rescission, and violation of the UCL.  This decision holds that all of those claims are equitable or seek equitable relief and thus are not arbitrable under… Read More