California Appellate Tracker

(Under 28 USC 1728, a district court may order discovery from a party present in the district for use in litigation in a foreign court.  The factors to be considered in ruling on a petition under section 1728 were outlined in Intel Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (2004) 542 U.S. 241.  This decision holds that an order granting the… Read More

(Employees who provided dental care to prisoners in state prison sued for the state's failure to pay them for the time they spend in security checks before and after work.  This decision holds that the complaint's allegation that security was a principal duty of the employee's work was sufficient to overcome the state's demurrer to their FLSA claims under the… Read More

(Despite defendant's timely request, the trial court failed to enter a statement of decision in this complex case of claimed misrepresentations and omissions in the solicitation of a $20 million investment in a biomedical startup.  The Court of Appeal finds that in this case the error was prejudicial since it prevented effective appellate review of the appealed judgment, leaving undetermined… Read More

Judgment, Enforcement, Renewal, Family Law Judgment, Attorney Fee Award, 1, 10 Generally, a civil judgment may not be enforced more than ten years after its entry unless it has been renewed.  However, that rule does not apply to judgments entered in proceedings under the Family Code.  (Fam. Code 921.)  This decision holds that an attorney fee award entered as part… Read More

Under 28 USC § 1446(b)(1), a defendant may remove a civil action after it has received a copy of the complaint but before it has been formally served.   Read More

This decision affirms denial of an employer's arbitration agreement.  The arbitration agreement was procedurally unconscionable to a moderate degree because the agreement was adhesive, the circumstances under which Reddaway required Ronderos to sign the agreement involved significant oppression, and the arbitration agreement involved some surprise because the cost-splitting provision is substantively opaque.  The panel also held that two of the… Read More

Kroger was not a third party beneficiary of Instacart's arbitration agreement.  Instacart's agreement's only mention of retailers from which Instacart delivered goods per the customer's order was to state that Instacart was not liable for any wrongdoing by such a retailer.  Neither Instacart nor its users had any interest in shielding a retailer from court litigation. Read More

This decision holds that a non-competition clause in a contract for the sale of a part of an LLC member's interest in the LLC is not per se illegal but should, instead, be judged by the reasonableness standard.  A sale of a partial business interest differs drastically from the sale of an entire business interest. Following a partial sale, the… Read More

In a case similar to Lara v. First National Ins. Co. of America (9th Cir. 2022) 25 F.4th 1134 and also involving valuation of totaled cars under Washington law, the Ninth Circuit held that the district court should have certified a class on the claim that State Farm improperly deducted a negotiation discount meant to capture the typical amount buyers… Read More

Plaintiff waived any error in the jury's returning a special verdict form that did not dispose of one of his claims by failing to object to the jury verdict on that ground before the jury was discharged. Read More

The trial court erred in granting summary judgment against a Cal. professor's claim that the University violated his rights under the Information Practices Act (Civ. Code 1798, et seq.) by publicly disclosing personal information about the professor at a public meeting and by leaking a letter to the press which also disclosed personal information about the professor. Unlike the constitutional… Read More

Because the Song-Beverly Act makes unenforceable any contract provision that waives rights the Act gives consumers, if a manufacturer moves to transfer venue of a Song-Beverly Act claim to a court in another state under a forum selection clause, the manufacturer bears the burden of proving that litigating in a different forum will not diminish the plaintiff’s unwaivable rights. Here,… Read More

(After suing Coinbase for damages and having that case sent to arbitration, plaintiff filed this separate suit under the CLRA, UCL and FAL seeking only an injunction to prevent Coinbase from falsely advertising that its security features.  This decision follows Mejia v. DACM, Inc. (2020) 54 Cal.App.5th 691 and other decisions in holding that a suit seeking an injunction benefitting… Read More

Enmark v. KC Community Care, LLC (2024) 2024 WL 4290290 (A Lanterman-Petris-Short Act conservator for a mentally ill person does not have actual or ostensible authority to sign an arbitration agreement for the mentally ill person as part of his authorized placement of the conservatee in a mental health facility.  Hence, plaintiffs were not bound to arbitrate the conservatee's survival… Read More

(Defendant employer waived its right to compel arbitration.  Its claim to have suddenly discovered the employee's arbitration agreement five months after the suit was filed was not credible as no explanation was given why the employee's personnel file containing the arbitration agreement was not available earlier.  In addition, the employer agreed to mediate the case on a class action basis… Read More

(This opinion affirms a trial court's denial of plaintiff's attorney's seventh request for a continuance as an accommodation of his manic-depression mental illness.  Under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 1.100(f), a court may deny a request for one of three reasons:  the applicant has not satisfied the rule's requirements or the requested accommodation would create an undue financial or administrative… Read More

(This opinion affirms a trial court's denial of plaintiff's attorney's seventh request for a continuance as an accommodation of his manic-depression mental illness.  Under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 1.100(f), a court may deny a request for one of three reasons:  the applicant has not satisfied the rule's requirements or the requested accommodation would create an undue financial or administrative… Read More

A Chapter 13 debtor may exclude from her disposable income (from which the amount of monthly Chapter 13 plan payments are calculated) the amount of their voluntary retirement contributions to employer-managed plans.  (See 11 USC 541(b)(7) hanging paragraph.   Read More

Appeals, Recalling the Mandate or Remittitur, Extraordinary Circumstances Required, 2, 12 In a brief order, the Ninth Circuit denies the parties' joint application for it to recall its remittitur so that the district court will not proceed with the case on remand while the defendant petitions the US Supreme Court for certiorari.  Recalling the mandate is a last resort remedy… Read More

This decision holds that the trial court erred in not compelling arbitration in this wage-and-hour case.  The employment contract Gonzalez had with his direct employer, Nowhere, contained an enforceable arbitration clause.  Gonzalez also sued, on the same claims, nine other entities which could be liable only if they were his joint employers.  Since the liability of the nine alleged joint… Read More