California Appellate Tracker

To have standing to move to disqualify another party's attorney, the movant must generally be a present or former client of the challenged attorney, or at least a person who shared confidential information with that attorney in the course of a confidential or fiduciary relationship.  Otherwise, the movant is generally not affected by any breach of the attorney's duties of… Read More

Because the employer did not keep adequate records to show how much of an employee's pay was based on commissions, the trial court correctly divided the entire compensation received by the employee during the week by 40 to determine his base pay for calculating the 150% of base pay owed for overtime work.  Had the employer kept better records, the… Read More

Under the Displaced Janitor Opportunity Act (Lab. Code 1060 et seq.) a successor janitorial company must hire the janitorial workers of a predecessor company at the same site for at least 60 days after taking over the site.  Here, the building owner supposedly terminated the janitorial service contract on the 13th of the month and claimed that there were no… Read More

The plaintiff insurer did not void its claim for equitable contribution by other insurers allegedly covering the loss by alleging that after paying for the insured's defense, it discovered facts that it claimed showed it owed the insured no coverage.  The duty to defend attaches immediately and is not undermined by later discovery of facts that show coverage was not… Read More

The trial court correctly refused to take judicial notice of insurance policies that were not matters of public record. The existence of a contract between private parties cannot be established by judicial notice under Evidence Code section 452(h). (Gould v. Maryland Sound Industries, Inc. (1995) 31 Cal.App.4th 1137, 1145.) Read More

The insurer did not breach its policy or the duty of good faith in settling plaintiff's claim which arose from destruction of her house by a wildfire.  Under the policy, she was entitled to the least of (a) the policy limit, (b) the cost to rebuild the same house, or (c) the actual cost paid for reconstruction.  Here, the insurer… Read More

This opinion affirms the trial court's denial of attorney fees sought by plaintiff in long-running litigation between the two parties.  Plaintiff recovered $38,0000 in the original proceeding.  It waited more than a year after the remittitur issued ending the appeal from that judgment before filing a separate action to enforce the judgment against the supersedeas bond that defendant had posted… Read More

Hoffman's recordation of an abstract of judgment against Weeden's property was protected activity under CCP 425.16(e), satisfying his Anti-SLAPP motion's first prong.  The litigation privilege also shielded Hoffman from liability on Weeden's claim for slander of title, and that cause of action was properly stricken.  However, the litigation privilege did not apply to or bar Weeden's claims to quiet title… Read More

Following Nolte v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 1401, this decision holds that it is not an unfair or unlawful business practice for a hospital not to affirmatively disclose, prior to treatment, that it will charge an emergency room charge to patients using the emergency room.  Extensive state and federal statutes and regulations require specific sorts of disclosures of… Read More

Plaintiff introduced sufficient evidence to establish a probability of success on his defamation and false light invasion of privacy claims to overcome defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion.  Plaintiff is a world record holder in a number of computer arcade games.  Defendant facilitates video game competitions and runs a website with leaderboards showing top scorers on the games.  After receiving a complaint from… Read More

In this case, defendant avoided summary judgment by submitting a declaration from a non-party witness which said she knew facts undermining the defendant's going and coming rule defense.  After summary judgment was denied on that basis, defendant took the witness' deposition at which she disclaimed any personal knowledge of the facts stated in her declaration which she said she signed… Read More

The trial court properly granted defendant a partial nonsuit on its affirmative defense of settlement following plaintiff's opening statement that conceded plaintiff's husband and guardian ad litem had authorized plaintiff's attorney to offer to settle her catastrophic injury claim for the $15,000 limit of defendant's auto insurance policy.  Nonsuit can be granted on an issue that is less than an… Read More

In this case, defendant avoided summary judgment by submitting a declaration from a non-party witness which said she knew facts undermining the defendant's going and coming rule defense.  After summary judgment was denied on that basis, defendant took the witness' deposition at which she disclaimed any personal knowledge of the facts stated in her declaration which she said she signed… Read More

The trial court properly granted defendant a partial nonsuit on its affirmative defense of settlement following plaintiff's opening statement that conceded plaintiff's husband and guardian ad litem had authorized plaintiff's attorney to offer to settle her catastrophic injury claim for the $15,000 limit of defendant's auto insurance policy.  Nonsuit can be granted on an issue that is less than an… Read More

AB 5 and its amended version Lab. Code 2778 et seq. does not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments in its application to freelance journalists and others who supply creative content to newspapers, films and other media.  The regulation does not single out those engaged in speech for harsher treatment.  The exemption for some freelancers may not be as broad… Read More

Contrary to 40 years of appellate authority, this decision holds that when a trial court must exercise its independent judgment in ruling on an administrative mandamus petition under CCP 1094.5 and the administrative agency was required to apply a clear and convincing evidence standard in the administrative proceeding, the trial court cannot affirm based on a preponderance of the evidence… Read More

Newspaper delivery carriers sued to recover their mileage expenses under Lab. Code 2082, claiming that defendant had misclassified them as independent contractors, rather than as employees.  On that claim, the control plus test set out in G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations (1989) 48 Cal.3d 341 governs whether a worker is an employee.  Newspaper carriers were… Read More

The plaintiff in a parallel PAGA suit against the same employer does not have standing to move to vacate or appeal from a judgment entered after the trial court approved settlement of a different plaintiff's similar PAGA suit against the employer.  To have standing to appeal one must be both a party to the action and be aggrieved by the… Read More

In a quiet title action, if summons is served by publication, the published notice must describe the property at issue, giving either or both of its street address or legal description.  (CCP 763.,020.)  Here, the published notice gave only the assessor's parcel number.  As the notice did not comply with the statute, it was insufficient; so the default of the… Read More

An order quashing service of summons is an appealable order under CCP 904.1(a)(3).  The statute does not draw any distinction between orders quashing service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction (which are final orders ending the case) and orders quashing service because it was inadequately performed (which are interlocutory since summons can be served again by proper means).  Hence,… Read More