The 30-day deadline for an employer to petition for administrative mandamus runs from entry of the OSHA Appeals Board’s order denying reconsideration, not from the employer’s receipt of the order. Read More
Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged, for purposes of the Alien Tort Statute, that (1) cocoa purchasers’ conduct in paying personal spending money to Ivory Coast growers—despite knowledge of their use of child slave labor—was not ordinary business conduct and (2) the payments were made from the United States, even though the slave labor itself occurred overseas. Read More
Plaintiff, whose lawsuit was dismissed after defendant’s demurrer to the complaint was sustained without leave to amend because no opposition was filed, was entitled to mandatory relief from judgment after his attorney admitted fault in the form of ignorance of Code of Civil Procedure’s deadlines for filing an amended complaint. Read More
Plaintiff’s unfair competition claim was pre-empted by FDA regulations governing how the defendant should calculate the protein content of its product, but plaintiff’s similar false advertising claim was not preempted because it accused the defendant of misrepresenting the source of the protein in the product. Read More
Substantial evidence supported finding by the university that a student had cheated on a biology exam, and since this determination was moreover made by a fair procedure, the trial court incorrectly granted the student’s administrative mandamus petition. Read More
While FDA regulations governing nutrition facts panels preempt state law as to facts stated within the panel, the regulations do not govern or preempt state law as to the rest of the product label; so a state may require that packaging on the remainder of the product meet stricter standards than is required for the facts listed in the nutrition… Read More
In a criminal prosecution for theft from an elder, defendant stipulated to a restitution amount of $700,000, so she was estopped from denying that damage amount in a later action for double damages under the Probate Code. Read More
For purposes of comparison with the amount of the judgment, pre-offer fees and costs are added to the amount of a rejected 998 settlement offer that is silent as to fees and costs since upon acceptance the offeree would have been entitled to an award of pre-offer fees and costs in addition to the amount of the settlement. Read More
While FDA regulations governing nutrition facts panels preempt state law as to facts stated within the panel, the regulations do not govern or preempt state law as to the rest of the product label; so a state may require that packaging on the remainder of the product meet stricter standards than is required for the facts listed in the nutrition… Read More
In a criminal prosecution for theft from an elder, defendant stipulated to a restitution amount of $700,000, so she was estopped from denying that damage amount in a later action for double damages under the Probate Code. Read More
For purposes of comparison with the amount of the judgment, pre-offer fees and costs are added to the amount of a rejected 998 settlement offer that is silent as to fees and costs since upon acceptance the offeree would have been entitled to an award of pre-offer fees and costs in addition to the amount of the settlement. Read More
For res judicata purposes, a person seeking mandate review of a city’s approval of a Walmart store expansion is in privity with an earlier petitioner for similar relief as both sought to represent the public interest. Read More
California statute extending state wage laws governing public works to cover delivery drivers of ready-mix concrete is not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act and does not violate concrete companies’ equal protection rights. Read More
Defendant-employer was not vicariously liable for an after-work car accident which the defendant’s employee caused while on the phone with another employee, as the call related to personal matters, not work. Read More
Defendant wrongly removed the case under federal officer removal provision, since defendant was not acting as a government contractor in selling weapons with the plaintiff, even if the defendant acted as a government contractor in selling the same weapons to the US military. Read More
By committing an intentional tort in the state, a person purposely directs his actions toward the state, subjecting himself to personal jurisdiction there, unless the state’s exercise of jurisdiction over him does not comport with fair play and substantial justice under the seven-factor Paccar test. Read More
In determining whether the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act (SLUSA) preempts a state court class action alleging fraud in connection with securities transactions, a district court should not dismiss the action without first allowing the plaintiff leave to amend—as it might do so to eliminate class claims and by that or other means avoid SLUSA preemption. Read More
Plaintiff's False Claims Act complaint alleged that all the defendant health insurers submitted false claims using false diagnoses of patients' medical condition from the same vendor, and no further differentiation among the health insurers was needed to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) since they all acted the same way. Read More
A defendant does not waive an objection to personal jurisdiction by defending on the merits after having litigated the objection to an adverse ruling in the district court. Read More
When a question of foreign law arises, the burden is on the party relying on foreign law to raise the specific legal issues governed by foreign law and to provide the district court with the information needed to determine the meaning of the foreign law; if this burden is not met, the district court may rely on other law, usually… Read More
