In 2007, Congress amended FOIA to partly overrule Buckhannon Board & Care Home, Inc. v. West Virginia Dept. of Health & Human Resources (2001) 121 S.Ct. 1835 and allow the plaintiff to recover attorney fees on the catalyst theory in FOIA cases. The 2007 amendment allows a FOIA plaintiff to prove eligibility for a fee award by either (a) he… Read More
Ins. Code 533.5 provides that no insurer (no matter what the insurance policy says) owes any duty to indemnify or defend a suit by the Attorney General, a district attorney or city or county counsel to recover a fine, penalty or restitution for a violation of B&P Code 17200 or 17500. This decision holds that the statute does not violate… Read More
Using the website of the administrator hired by Northrup Grumman to manage its pension plan, plaintiffs submitted requests for the administrator to tell them the monthly pension benefit they would receive if they retired on a certain date. The administrator miscalculated the benefit because it used the requesters' wages during their second period of employment by Northrup Grumman rather than… Read More
In determining the constitutionally permissible ratio of actual to punitive damages, the court may take into account actual harm which cannot be compensated for by an award of actual damages. Here, for example, the plaintiff suffered emotional distress when her employment was terminated and her employer told her she was fired for poor performance when the real reason was that… Read More
Over a vigorous dissent, the majority holds that the adult daughter of the insureds under this homeowner's insurance policy does not have standing to sue the insurer for bad faith in regard to coverage for damage to the daughter's personal property that was damaged while in the insured premises. Only the parents were named insureds under the policy, which expressly… Read More
Older 9th Circuit decisions hold that while statutory employment discrimination claims under Title VII and similar laws are arbitrable, there must be a showing that the employee knowingly waived his right to a jury trial of such claims. In this decision, the court holds that even if the "knowing waiver" standard is still good law, it was satisfied in this… Read More
Section 105(c) of the federal Mine Safety and Health Act (30 U.S.C. § 815(c)) prohibits an employer from taking adverse action against an employee "because of" the employee's reporting a violation of the Act or seeking benefits under it. Following the Supreme Court's decisions in Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 140 S.Ct. 1731, 1739 (2020) and other recent cases, this decision… Read More
Kaiser adequately proved that Kuntz's decedent enrolled with Kaiser under a CalPERS medical insurance plan which included an arbitration clause. Kaiser showed that CalPERS keeps the individual enrollment forms, just sending Kaiser electronic enrollment information. Kaiser's electronic enrollment information showed that Kuntz's decedent had been enrolled in the Kaiser health plan continuously since 1983. Kaiser was not required to show… Read More
A collective bargaining agreement will not be interpreted to require arbitration of statutory wage and hour claims unless the agreement clearly and unmistakably requires arbitration of those claims. Here, the CBA did not meet that standard. It required arbitration of only those issues that the union and employer later agreed to arbitrate. Also, litigation of the statutory wage and hour… Read More
Following SEIU Local 121RN v. Los Robles Regional Medical Center (9th Cir. 2020) 976 F.3d 849, this decision holds that, at least with respect to delegation of arbitrability questions to the arbitrator, arbitration clauses in collective bargaining agreements are to be interpreted just like arbitration clauses in other types of contracts. Arbitrability questions are determined by the court unless the… Read More
Under the PSLRA, to state a 10b-5 securities fraud claim, a plaintiff must plead specific facts that make the inference that the defendant acted with fraudulent intent more persuasive than the opposing inference of innocent mistake. Although it is possible to allege facts making the requisite strong showing of scienter even if the complaint does not allege facts showing the… Read More
The trial court erred in denying class certification in this action arising from allegedly terrible conditions at an apartment complex which the defendant owner had advertised as a luxury apartment building with many fancy amenities, but which was instead plagued with trashed common areas and other defects. Reliance is not an element of the claim for false advertising under B&P… Read More
Statistical evidence is admissible to establish predominance under FRCivP 23(b)(3) if that evidence would be admissible in an individual action on the same claim, the statistical evidence is linked to the plaintiffs' theory of liability and the use of averaging assumptions does not conceal the variations that otherwise would defeat class certification. Here, plaintiffs' statistical evidence satisfied those three tests. … Read More
California's 2-year statute of limitations rather than Connecticut's 3-year statute of limitations applies to a products liability claim brought by plaintiff who then resided in and were injured in Connecticut by the defendant California manufacturer's malfunctioning medical robotic surgery device. A statute of limitations serves the state's interest in protecting its defendants against stale claims on which memories will have… Read More
The trial court erred in denying defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion. Plaintiff's complaint was based on allegedly false statements made in reports posted by plaintiff on the Internet, accusing a Chinese company of defrauding investors by claiming inflated sales based on purchases by intermediaries like plaintiff who then resold the product. Public postings on the Internet are a public forum for purposes… Read More
BPI was a subcontractor on a public works project. The department found that BPI had not been paying its workers at the prevailing wage rate and issued a Civil Wage Penalty Assessment for the underpaid wages plus a statutory penalty. BPI claimed the general contractor was at fault for misinforming it about the prevailing wage rate. After BPI filed a… Read More
Plaintiff sued City in federal court, alleging both federal and state law claims arising from her arrest and strip search by City police officers. The federal jury rendered a verdict in the City's favor on the federal law claims. The federal court dismissed the state law negligence claims without prejudice. Plaintiff refiled those claims in state court. Following Hernandez v.… Read More
To secure a Coastal Commission permit to build a beach house, the prior owner agreed to grant the Coastal Conservancy a 5-feet wid public easement along one side of the house to afford public access to the beach. After a public acceptance of the easement was recorded, the prior owner then ignored it and built an unpermitted deck above the… Read More
NLRA section 301 completely preempts state law claims that implicate a collective-bargaining agreement or an agreement between labor organizations, except for claims that (1) arise independently of the agreement, and (2) don’t substantially depend on analysis of the agreement. Here, union members of a Nevada local sued to challenge the national union's placing the local into trusteeship. The union members'… Read More
Google's use of 11,000 lines of programming code that Oracle's subsidiary Sun Microsystems had prepared and copyrighted was a fair use and thus not actionable infringement of Oracle's copyright. The copied lines were "method calls," essentially a user interface that allows programmers to designate the standard subroutines they wish their program to invoke to perform certain functions. Sun had adopted… Read More
