Constitutional Law

Anti-SLAPP motions to strike may not be filed in limited jurisdiction cases. Read More

Student accused of sexual assault was denied basic due process by university disciplinary board by withholding evidence of antidepressant drugs being taken by the victim until the last minute and barring accused student’s attorney from participating in the proceedings while allowing university’s own counsel to act in a prosecutorial role. Read More

First Amendment’s ministerial exception barred seminary dean-plaintiff’s claims for defamation, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, but not breach of contract, since the latter is a matter of compliance with a faculty handbook and hence does not turn on an ecclesiastical inquiry or excessively entangle the court in religious matters. Read More

Plaintiff, a property owner, had additional administrative remedies he could exhaust after the city changed an ordinance that had previously kept him from getting a building permit. Read More

Ads for musical, political or artistic works are not categorically excluded from protection under the Anti-SLAPP statute, but still must concern a matter of public interest to be protected; here, an ad for Michael Jackson’s posthumous record album was protected because its claim Jackson was the lead singer on three tracks addressed a matter of public interest. Read More

Washington's unlawful detainer statute violates due process insofar as it permits summary issuance of a writ of restitution without hearing if the landlord claims non-payment of rent and the tenant fails to file a timely, sworn written statement in dispute. Read More

The Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act is not unconstitutionally vague merely because some types of consumer reports fall within its scope as well as within the scope of the Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act, and an employer seeking any information about a consumer other than creditworthiness can easily comply with both statutes simply by complying with the stricter requirements of… Read More

College’s disciplinary procedures did not pass due process muster because student accused of assault did not have the opportunity to cross-examine the accuser either directly or indirectly, and fact-finder did not have the ability to watch accuser testify so as to assess her credibility. Read More

A state law requiring public employees who are non-union members to pay agency fees to the union that is the certified bargaining agent for employees in their work unit violates the First Amendment by compelling the employees to fund speech with which they may not agree. Read More

Under the Commerce Clause, the states’ power to impose sales taxes on sellers is limited only by the requirement of a substantial nexus to the taxing state; the seller’s physical presence in the state is no longer required for the imposition of sales tax. Read More

Minnesota's statute that automatically revokes an ex-spouse's revocable designation of the other ex-spouse as a death beneficiary of an insurance policy or pension plan does not violate the federal constitution's Contracts Clause since it implements the former spouse’s presumed intent, thus supporting rather than impairing the contract. Read More

City of San Diego’s ordinance setting a 30-day limitations period on challenges to tax assessments does not deny plaintiffs due process and is not subject to equitable tolling based on a prior suit by a different taxpayer. Read More

Growers’ First Amendment rights were not violated by having to pay assessments that funded advertising by the California Table Grapes Commission since the advertising was government speech and there was sufficient government responsibility for and control over the advertising. Read More

The federal statute prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting violates the Tenth Amendment. Read More

California's Medical Waste Management Act, which purports to require incineration of medical waste even after it is shipped outside of California, violates the dormant Commerce Clause. Read More

Proposition 65 is constitutional despite requiring cancer warnings as to chemicals designated as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Read More

Since website’s data security breach exposed plaintiffs to a substantial risk that hackers will commit identity theft, they had Article III standing to maintain the suit. Read More

The dormant Commerce clause does not apply to acts that a state takes as a participant in the market, even if such acts discriminate against interstate commerce (such as, here, regulation of the rates at which the State of California will reimburse hospitals for services rendered to Medi-Cal patients). Read More

The separation of powers forbids Congress from compelling findings or results under an old law, but not from enacting a new law that dictates the outcome of pending cases. Read More

An internet website may assert the First Amendment rights of its anonymous posters when opposing a subpoena requiring it to reveal a poster’s identity, but the poster has no right to remain anonymous if the party issuing the subpoena demonstrates that the posted information was defamatory. Read More