California Appellate Tracker

The trial court erred in granting defendant summary judgment in this suit by a spectator injured by a foul ball during a college baseball game. Despite primary assumption of the risk, the venue has a duty to take reasonable steps to increase safety and minimize the risk of injury to spectators at its baseball games, if it could do so… Read More

The district court abused its discretion in denying Volkswagen's motion to intervene in a FOIA action seeking production of documents concerning Volkswagen's dieselgate fraud.  Volkswagen satisfied Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)'s three requirements for intervention as of right.  It had a significant protectible interest in asserting that the sought documents were exempt from FOIA disclosure under Exemption 4.  A ruling… Read More

Rice recovered judgment against Downs.  While Downs' appeal from the judgment was pending, Rice moved for a charging order against Downs' interest in Triton, an LLC of which he was the managing member.  That motion was denied due to the automatic stay on appeal.  Glaser, Downs' lawyer, then obtained a security interest in Downs' interest in Triton, which it perfected… Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification in this wage and hour case.  Insofar as plaintiff claimed that the employer's rounding of hours worked was illegal, the trial court properly found that noncommon issues predominated because it had no single rounding policy but left matters up to managers at its different locations.  Plaintiff's theory that… Read More

Defendant bought the property adjacent to plaintiff's property and improved the purchased property with a drip-irrigated walnut orchard.  A strip of land on defendant's side of the fence between the two properties was actually plaintiff's property.  After defendant completed the orchard improvements, plaintiff sued for trespass on that strip of land and sought an injunction requiring defendant to restore the… Read More

There are four styles of assenting to agreements on Internet sites: (1) browsewrap, where mere use of the site is taken as consent to the site's terms and conditions, (2) signwrap, where the user's entry into a transaction on the site is taken as consent to its terms and conditions, (3) clickwrap, where the user must click a statement that… Read More

Fraud in factum, in execution or in the inception differs from promissory fraud, which is a false promise.  Fraud in execution occurs when the defendant causes the plaintiff to execute a contract that has materially different terms from those on which the parties orally agreed.  To allege a claim for fraud in execution, the plaintiff must allege facts showing the… Read More

Civil Code 1799.1 requires a creditor to provide any co-signer of a consumer credit contract with a specified warning about the risks of guaranteeing someone else's debt.  And Civil Code 1799.5 provides that the creditor may not enforce the contract and any accompanying security interest against the co-signer if the statutory warning isn't given.  This decision holds that these provisions… Read More

A notary is liable in negligence in failing to exercise due care in determining the identity of the person signing a notarized document.  (Gov. Code, 8214.)  However, there is a statutory safe harbor from liability if the notary relies on a DMV driver's license issued within the last 5 years and there is no information, evidence, or other circumstances that… Read More

Plaintiff had no arbitration agreement with Essential Seasons, by which she was employed in 2017.  During that year Expert Staffing provided payroll services to Essential Seasons. In 2019, Expert Staffing hired plaintiff, and she signed its arbitration agreement which provided for arbitration of all claims against Expert Staffing and all related entities including entities where employees are sent to work. … Read More

The 2020 Executive Order N-35-20 provided for a 60-day extension of the time for presenting a claim under Gov. Code 911 et seq.  The 60-day extension did not apply to the time for presenting an application to the governmental entity for leave to file a late claim under Gov. Code 911.4(a). Read More

Plaintiff waived/forfeited her right to disqualify the trial judge on the ground she had worked as an attorney for the defendant county within the last four years because plaintiff did not object or request the judge's disqualification in response to the judge's disclosure of her prior employment at the beginning of a hearing on the merits of plaintiff's petition for… Read More

Even when an arbitration agreement delegates arbitrability issues to the arbitrator, the court must decide whether an agreement to arbitrate was formed.  Formation issues may not be delegated to the arbitrator.  Here, no agreement to arbitrate was formed because the agreement purported to be between plaintiff and the corporate parent of plaintiff's employer, yet the arbitration agreement never referred to… Read More

Under former Ins. Code 2051.5, an insurer's liability under a replacement cost policy was the lesser of (a) the amount it would cost to replace the damaged structure at the insured location (without regard to depreciation), or (b) the policy's limits.  If the insurer requires the insured to repair the structure before claiming replacement cost, the insurer must first pay… Read More

California's Electronic Discovery Act (CCP 1985.8) requires a trial court to protect a third party witness from undue burden and expense in producing electronically stored information in response to a third-party subpoena.  Here, the trial court properly applied the statute and did not abuse its discretion in ordering plaintiff to pay $130,000 which represented half the cost of the Department… Read More

Statements made in 8-K and 10-Q reports filed with the SEC are protected activity under the Anti-SLAPP statute (CCP 425.16(e)(2)) as statements “made in connection with an issue under consideration or review by [an] official proceeding.”  Statements made during earnings calls with investors and analysts about a public company's financial projections are also protected under CCP 425.16(e)(4) since they are… Read More

Statements made in a 10-K report filed with the SEC are protected activity under the Anti-SLAPP statute (CCP 425.16(e)(2)) as statements “made in connection with an issue under consideration or review by [an] official proceeding.”  That was particularly so in this case where the 10-K report addressed issues that the SEC was then investigating. Read More

A writ of error coram vobis will be issued by an appellate court (and the trial court may grant relief for error coram nobis) only on a showing that (1) some fact existed which, without any fault or negligence on the petitioner's part, was not presented to the court at the trial on the merits, and which if presented would… Read More

A corporation can be held liable under the respondeat superior doctrine for loss and fire suppression costs caused by the corporation's employee's negligent acts in starting a wildfire.  Neither the statutory language nor the legislative history of Health & Safety Code 13009 and 13009.1, which allow the state to recover for wildfire suppression costs and wildfire damage to public property… Read More

A district court may approve a class action settlement that provides monetary relief only in the form of cy pres payments to non-parties, so long as distribution to class members is not possible and the recipients of the cy pres payments are appropriately chosen in light of the nature of the plaintiffs’ lawsuit, the objectives of the underlying statutes, and… Read More