California Appellate Tracker

To invoke the fraud-on-the-market presumption of reliance under Basic, Inc. v. Levinson (1988) 108 S.Ct. 978, the plaintiff must  prove: (1) that the alleged misrepresentation was publicly known; (2) that it was material; (3) that the stock traded in an efficient market; and (4) that the plaintiff traded the stock between the time the misrepresentation was made and when the… Read More

A shareholder in a California-based corporation has Article III standing to sue the California Secretary of State to seek to enjoin SB 826 (2018) which enacted Corp. Code  301.3, 2115.5, requiring covered corporations to have at least one female director by 2019 and up to three female directors by 2021.  Even though the statute is directed against corporations, not their… Read More

The NCAA is not entitled to any special immunity from application of the Sherman Act.  The district court properly evaluated the NCAA's rules limiting athletes' compensation under the rule of reason analysis.  At either end of the spectrum of restraints, abbreviated analysis may suffice to show the challenged restraint either is or is not a violation of the Sherman Act. … Read More

The trial court retains jurisdiction to consider and approve a final report by a receiver appointed to remediate a nuisance caused by a substandard building is appointed under both H&S Code 17980.7 even after the plaintiff governmental entity dismisses the action.  The receiver's final report and motion for its approval must be served on all persons with an interest in… Read More

In a personal injury action, a plaintiff must, before entry of a default serve the defendant with a statement of damages by the same means as the plaintiff served the summons and complaint.  Here, service by publication had been authorized.  Plaintiff could and did properly serve the statement of damages by publication without an additional order permitting service of the… Read More

After serving a defendant by publication, the plaintiff may obtain entry of the defendant's default if the defendant does not file an answer, a motion to transfer, a motion to quash service of summons, a motion to strike or a demurrer within the time for filing an answer.  (CCP 585(c).)  Here, within the time for answering, defendant filed a motion… Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting service by publication.  Substantial evidence supported its finding that plaintiff had made diligent efforts to locate Singh and serve him by other means.  He had tried service by mail, but received no signed receipt.  He tried substituted service at Singh's purported place of business but found no one present with… Read More

Two individuals and a number of states lack standing to challenge the minimum essential coverage provision of Obamacare because Congress eliminated the penalty for non-compliance with the statutory requirement of minimum coverage.  As there was no longer any governmental compulsion to obtain the coverage, the individual plaintiffs could not show that their supposed injury from having paid for coverage was… Read More

The Alien Tort Claims Act does not apply extraterritorially.  In this case, plaintiffs did not allege acts occurring within the United States that are the focus of the statute's concern.  They said only that the corporate defendants made corporate decisions in the United States.  That was insufficient.  The actual acts of foreign cocoa growers' use of child slave labor and… Read More

Plaintiff stated a viable 10b-5 action against Google's holding company based on its 10-Q which disclosed generic cybersecurity risks as a threat to the company, but didn't disclose that Google had discovered three glitches in its Google+ programming that had exposing user personal data to an unknown group of program developers over a period of three years.  Also, Google misleadingly… Read More

Compensation for expected but unearned future income to which the plaintiff has no legal entitlement is not recoverable as restitution under the UCL, regardless whether it is characterized as lost market share. Lost profits are damages, not restitution, and are unavailable in a private action under the UCL.  Here, the trial court properly dismissed plaintiff optometrist's UCL claim against a… Read More

The anti-suit and other injunctions entered when Castlepoint was placed in receivership under the California Insurance Commissioner did not prevent suit by shareholders of a related entity against other related entities and their controlling officers and directors on claims of breach of contract (to which Castlepoint was not a party), tortious interference with that same contract, and breach of fiduciary… Read More

Plaintiff's subcontract with defendant, the prime contractor, incorporated by reference the 151-page prime contract between defendant and the owner.  The prime contract contained an arbitration clause.  The subcontract did not.  This decision affirms an order denying arbitration.  The incorporation of the prime contract was in a clause referring only to the subcontractor's assuming the prime contractor's obligations to the owner. … Read More

Like Board of Registered Nursing v. Superior Court (2021) 59 Cal.App.5th 1011, this writ proceeding arises from Johnson & Johnson's discovery in the county's opioid UCL, FAL and public nuisance action.  J&J subpoenaed several non-party counties to produce records of opioid prescriptions and drug treatment records with intact personal identification information to J&J's third party vendor for it to de-identify… Read More

Civ. Code 3287(b) gives the trial judge broad discretionary power to award prejudgment interest in contract cases even when the damages are not certain or capable of being made certain.  Uncertainty of damages alone would not be a proper reason to deny discretionary prejudgment interest under section 3287(b), but here, the trial judge also relied on the fact that the… Read More

The trial court properly admitted HP's expert's lost profits opinion.  Unlike the plaintiff in Sargon Enterprises, Inc. v. University of Southern California (2012) 55 Cal.4th 747, HP was an established business.  The expert had based his opinion on HP's past performance data and considered multiple variables including new product offerings by competing manufacturers.  The expert's projection of lost profits five… Read More

Oracle breached its contract with HP by announcing that its next product releases would not be compatible with HP's Itanium computers.  Following the first phase of trial in this case, the trial court concluded that the parties' contract required Oracle to offer Itanium-compatible versions of its product releases.  Oracle then announced that it would release Itanium-compatible versions, but also announced… Read More

Having agreed to maintain its strategic relationship with HP and support of their shared customer base, by continuing to offer its product suite on HP platforms, Oracle six months later announced that its next product releases would not be available for HP computers.  This decision holds that the announcement was a present breach of the parties' agreement, not an anticipatory… Read More

To settle disputes that arose from Oracle's hiring HP's former CEO, the two signed a settlement agreement containing a "reaffirmation" clause that  stating each company’s commitment to their strategic relationship and support of their shared customer base, and that Oracle "“will continue to offer its product suite on HP platforms.”  This lengthy opinion holds that the quoted words committed Oracle… Read More

An independent insurance agent that transacts business with many insurance companies is an agent of the insured, not any of the insurance companies, more akin to an insurance broker than a true insurance agent.  The insurer owes no duty of care to supervise such an agent and is not liable for the agent's torts.  In determining whether an applicant meets… Read More