Though not limited by US Const. Art. III case or controversy standing requirements, California court apply prudential standing requirements. Absent a statutory grant of standing to represent the general public, a plaintiff must generally show that he has a beneficial interest in the claim he pursues. A statute like FCRA that allows for statutory damages that are intended to compensate… Read More
Patients sued medical group after the group suffered a data breach that allowed hackers access to personal indentifying information concerning patients, including SSNs and medical histories. This decision holds that the patients have UCL standing to sue. Under their "benefit of the bargain" theory, the patients suffered a loss of money by purchasing the medical group's services which (a) weren't… Read More
A defaulted defendant (or in this case, one against whom terminating discovery sanctions had been entered) may, nevertheless, move for a new trial on the ground that the court made an “error in law” in calculating damages. Even a defaulting defendant may appeal the resulting default judgment on the grounds that the damages award (1) “is so disproportionate to the… Read More
On remand after reversal of an order dismissing the complaint (Sicre De Fontbrune v. Wolfsy (9th Cir. 2016) 838 F.3d 992), this decision reverses a summary judgment in defendant's favor refusing to enforce a French judgment for "astreinte" damages for using photos of Picasso paintings infringing plaintiff's copyright in the photos. The French judgment that plaintiff sought to enforce was… Read More
In this PAGA suit, the original plaintiff died while the suit was pending. This decision holds that the trial court correctly denied a different employee's motion to intervene in the action in place of the deceased plaintiff because the would-be plaintiff was not an employee at the time the original plaintiff sent her complaint to the DLSE and therefore would… Read More
Plaintiff, a Russian citizen residing in Russia, obtained an arbitration award against defendant, a Russian citizen residing in California. Plaintiff domesticated the arbitration award, securing a judgment against defendant in a federal district court in California so that plaintiff could execute on defendant's California assets. Thereafter, defendant engaged in a series of complex domestic and foreign efforts to shelter his… Read More
CCP 902 allows an appeal only by a party "aggrieved" by the appealed order or judgment. Here, the watermaster appointed by the court to administer its judgment allocating water rights among claimants to the same river was not aggrieved and therefore lacked standing to appeal from a trial court order which interpreted the 60-year-old judgment allocating water rights among the… Read More
Plaintiff was the executrix as well as a beneficiary of her parents' estate. She claimed that a relative and co-beneficiary conspired with two other defendants to fraudulently induce her, as executrix, to take a large loan at usurious rates secured by the parents' house, the estate's principal asset, after which the co-beneficiary misappropriated most of the loan funds. This decision… Read More
Oakland lacked standing to bring a price-fixing antitrust claim against Oakland Raiders and other NFL teams arising out of the Raiders' move to Las Vegas. A finding of antitrust standing requires a balancing of the nature of the plaintiff’s alleged injury, the directness of the injury, the speculative measure of the harm, the risk of duplicative recovery, and the complexity… Read More
This decision dismisses as moot a suit that a taxpayer brought seeking to enjoin a program for granting emergency aid to undocumented aliens in California during the COVID pandemic. The program proceeded while the case was pending. All the program's money was spent. There is no way to get the money back and no realistic threat that the program will… Read More
To have standing to move to disqualify another party's attorney, the movant must generally be a present or former client of the challenged attorney, or at least a person who shared confidential information with that attorney in the course of a confidential or fiduciary relationship. Otherwise, the movant is generally not affected by any breach of the attorney's duties of… Read More
In a direct listing, the issuing company files a registration statement with the SEC which then allows it to sell its registered shares directly to the public and allows its existing shareholders to do so as well. Since direct listing does not involve bank financing of the issuance, there is no "lock up" period during which unregistered shares cannot be… Read More
A director of a nonprofit public benefit corporation who brings an action on behalf of that corporation loses standing to pursue its claims if the director is not reelected to the office of director at any point during the litigation. Here, plaintiff was not re-elected, lost standing, and his suit was properly dismissed. Read More
Following Kim v. Reins Internat. California, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 73, this decision holds that the plaintiff in this case had standing to pursue a PAGA suit against her employer because she alleged she had been a victim of one of the alleged violations of the Labor Code by her employer. She did not lose her standing to sue under… Read More
Distinguishing In re Pecan Groves of America (9th Cir. 1991) 951 F.2d 242, this decision holds that a creditor with a security interest in the debtor's real property has standing to quiet title to the property based on the fact that the homeowners association foreclosed on the property while the automatic stay was in effect on the debtor's bankruptcy. Under… Read More
Each class member must establish Article III standing in order to recover relief in a case in federal court. Here, TransUnion included incorrect OFAC terrorist information in its credit files on 8,000 class members but issued credit reports to third parties with the incorrect OFAC information only as to 1,600 of the class members. This decision holds that only 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
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
Under CCP 526a, as amended in 2018, to have standing to bring a taxpayer suit, the plaintiff must show that it or one of its members (a) resided within the jurisdiction of the governmental entity at suit and (b) within a year before the challenged governmental action paid a tax that funds that entity which is a property tax, an… Read More
For an association to have standing to sue for its members, it must show that (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit. … Read More
