Civil Procedure

A defendant, against whom a district attorney had filed an unfair competition action, was not entitled to a transfer of the case to a “neutral” county—i.e., a county other than the DA’s county. Read More

The trial court erred in failing to award the plaintiff the value of home health care and other household services provided to plaintiff’s decedent before his death by several of his children, as well as the value of nursing services that the decedent would have rendered to his wife had he not been injured by the defendant. Read More

The act of state doctrine defeated this attempted antitrust suit against a salt production company that was 51% owned by the Mexican government.  Read More

To be subject to the doctrine of incorporation by reference and reviewable at the pleading stage, a document must be mentioned "extensively," not just once, in the complaint and must be a significant basis of the claims the complaint alleges; by the same token, the district court must be careful about the facts that it takes from documents that are… Read More

A cautionary tale for all those who draft and review settlement agreements: plaintiff’s attorney who breached confidentiality clause in settlement agreement could not be liable for breach of contract, since he signed off on the agreement only by indicating his “approval as to form and content” and therefore could not be considered a signatory or party to the contract. Read More

An agreement settling a fee dispute between a client and a law firm is enforced despite the client’s argument that the agreement lacked consideration. Read More

A trial court has no discretion to deny a prevailing party ordinary court costs on the ground that the losing party lacks the financial ability to pay those costs, and may deny or reduce expert witness fees awardable under Code of Civil Procedure section 998 only upon making specific statutory findings. Read More

Plaintiff is estopped from arguing defendant waived untimeliness of her government claim because she misrepresented in the claim when she learned of her claim, making it seem timely when it was not. Read More

The act of state doctrine barred heir of Dutch citizen from reclaiming from a museum a painting the citizen had been forced to sell to the Nazis, as the Dutch government had previously denied the heir’s claims. Read More

The petitioner for a writ of administrative mandamus was correctly charged half the cost of the defendant agency’s preparation of the administrative record since petitioner had unreasonably delayed in preparing the record itself. Read More

A settlement agreement between the parties to this case was unenforceable because it imposed a substantial restriction on Golden's practice of his profession as a doctor by trying to prevent him from working with any hospital with which CEPMG had a contract, which amounted to 30% of the market. Read More

The notice of motion, memorandum, and all supporting papers in support of a discovery motion to compel and for sanctions must be filed and served by the Discovery Act’s 60-day deadline, not just the notice of motion alone. Read More

The federal Nutrition Education Act pre-empts Proposition 65’s requirement of a label on cereal warning of naturally occurring acrylamide in cooked whole grains. Read More

A job applicant who would not have been hired even if inaccuracies in his credit report were corrected lacked Article III standing to bring a claim against the employer for failure to give him pre-adverse action notice as required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Read More

A citizen is allowed to intervene as of right in the government’s Clean Air Act suit only when that suit would bar the citizen from filing a private action. Read More

PG&E was entitled to summary judgment on claim for punitive damages filed by victims of the 2015 Butte Fire since there was no evidence of malice. Read More

At trial, the court must give a party it has granted in forma pauperis status a free court reporter or other means of obtaining a verbatim transcript. Read More

Claims for prenatal injuries to a baby caused by the mother’s exposure to toxic chemicals are governed by the two-year statute of limitations for personal injuries from exposure to toxic chemicals, which includes tolling provisions for minors and for delayed discovery. Read More

A statute cannot be proactively invalidated on the ground that compliance with it is impossible, although noncompliance can be excused on impossibility grounds. Read More

The creditor of a father could not sue son to collect supposedly fraudulent transfer of money in the form of tuition payments that father made to cover son’s university education. Read More