A bankruptcy trustee may avoid prospective liability for premises liability on property of the bankrupt estate by abandoning the property to the debtor. However, the abandonment will not operate retrospectively to absolve the trustee of liability for injuries a visitor to the property suffered before the trustee abandoned the property. Also, the Barton doctrine (Barton v. Barbour (1881) 104 U.S.… Read More
A civil harassment order is affirmed due to deficiencies of the pro per appellant's opening brief. It didn't separately state and title its arguments or support them with authority and citations to the record. Insofar as it attacked the sufficiency of the evidence, it failed to set forth a fair recital of all the relevant evidence. Read More
A civil harassment injunction entered in favor of an attorney for one of a divorcing couple against the attorney for the other spouse was reversed. Insofar as the injunction was based on emails that defendant sent plaintiff about the divorce, the emails didn't threaten violence and so were protected First Amendment speech which could not be considered in support of… Read More
Following Delgado v. Trax Bar & Grill (2005) 36 Cal.4th 224, this case holds that bar owners owe their patrons a special duty of care to assist their customers who become ill or need medical attention, to warn of known dangers and, in circumstances in which a warning alone is insufficient, . . . to take other reasonable and appropriate… Read More
Michael Jackson's corporations owed a duty of care to protect minors from Jackson's sexual predation even though the corporations were wholly owned and controlled by Jackson. A corporation that facilitates the sexual abuse of children by one of its employees is not excused from an affirmative duty to protect those children merely because it is solely owned by the perpetrator… Read More
Since 2010, the public disclosure bar to a False Claims Act qui tam action (31 USC 3730) has applied to bar Federal False Claims Act suits only if (1) the disclosure at issue occurred through one of the channels specified in the statute; (2) the disclosure was public; and (3) the relator’s action is substantially the same as the allegation… Read More
Defendant's "Nature Fusion" products featured those words on the front label along with a picture of an avocado on a leaf. This decision holds that the label was not false advertising because it was ambiguous and the back label clarified the product's actual contents so that no reasonable consumer who examined both front and back would think that the product… Read More
Under Education Code 44808, a school district is generally not liable for injuries students receive while not on school property. There is an exception to that immunity, however, when the district has undertaken to provide students transportation to and from school and the student is injured while he is or should be under the immediate and direct supervision of a… Read More
As amended in 1984, the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act excepted from the definition of "employee" "individuals employed by a club, camp, recreational operation, restaurant, museum, or retail outlet," whether for-profit or not-for-profit, so long as the individiuals are covered by a state worker's compensation scheme. This decision holds that general federal admiralty and maritime law follows this statutory… Read More
A manufacturer is liable in strict liability for injuries foreseeably caused by a feature of the product design that could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design. Here, plaintiff fell from a scissor lift when he failed to close the chain avross the opening to enter the lift's platform. The manufacturer offered an alternative… Read More
The trial court erred in granting the defendant gun shop summary adjudication of plaintiff gun shot victim's negligence per se claim based on sale of the gun to an 18-year-old who did not possess a valid, unexpired hunting license. See Pen. Code 27510.) Though "valid, unexpired" was ambiguous as to whether it included a valid license before its effective date,… Read More
While the Rowland factors' foreseeability factors weigh in favor of imposing a duty of care on employers to take safety measures to prevent employees from contracting COVID-19 and transmitting the disease to family members and others, the public policy factors weigh against finding such a duty of care and they outweigh the foreseeability factors. Recognizing liability would create staggering risk… Read More
Applying Ixchel Pharma, LLC v. Biogen, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal. 5th 1130 to an at-will employment contract, this decision holds that to assert a tort claim for inducing breach of the contract, the plaintiff must allege independently wrongful conduct. Here, plaintiff could not do so. He lacked antitrust standing to rely on the antitrust violation that he had alleged as… Read More
Following Weidenfeller v. Star & Garter (1991) 1 Cal.App.4th 1, this decision holds that when a plaintiff's injury results in part from one defendant's negligence and another defendant's intentional act, the court must on either defendant's request, submit a jury instruction and special verdict directing apportionment of liability as between the defendants under Civ. Code 1431.2. Read More
The primary assumption of the risk doctrine does not apply to students who engage in sports activities as a mandatory part of their physical education classes. Read More
The interim adverse judgment rule bars malicious prosecution actions by establishing probable cause for bringing the action. However, that rule applies only to judgments or rulings on formal dispositive motions, not oral remarks from the bench during the course of trial which are not rulings on any matter then pending for decision. Furthermore, the fraud or perjury exception to the… Read More
This decision holds that Gov. Code 821.6 immunizes governmental entities and employees only from tort claims that allege damage resulting from the initiation or prosecution of official judicial proceedings, not injury from preparatory work such as investigation. Other immunity provisions may apply to immunize the investigatory work, but section 821.6 does not. Read More
This decision holds that the US DOJ may move to dismiss a False Claims Act suit whenever it has intervened in the litigation, whether during the period the complaint remained sealed or thereafter. However, the government must give the relator notice and an opportunity to be heard regarding the dismissal. In deciding whether to approve dismissal, the court must apply… Read More
Gov. Code 818 immunizes governmental agencies from liability for damages imposed primarily for the sake of example and by way of punishing the defendant. This decision holds that section 818 bars a claim for treble damages under CCP 340.1(b) for a childhood sexual assault resulting from the defendant's concerted effort to hide evidence relating to such assaults. Section 340.1 imposes… Read More
The federal False Claims Act prohibits "knowingly" submitting a false claim. It defines knowingly to mean actual knowledge, deliberate ignorance, or reckless disregard of truth or falsity. (31 U.S.C. §3729(b)(1)(A).) This decision holds that especially as read against the background of common law fraud which the False Claims Act builds on, the statutory definition of "knowingly" sets a standard governed… Read More
