California Appellate Tracker

A trustee is not deemed to have abandoned property of the estate under 11 USC 554(c) on closure of a bankruptcy case unless that property has been scheduled.  Here, the bankrupt described his then-pending lawsuit against his home loan servicer in his statement of financial affairs and discussed the case with his bankruptcy trustee but did not list the lawsuit… Read More

A bankruptcy court may retroactively annul the automatic stay so as to validate actions taken before the order annulling the stay. This remains true even after Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Juan, Puerto Rico v. Acevedo Feliciano (2020) 140 S. Ct. 696, which held that a federal district court could not retroactively remand a case to state court to validate… Read More

This decision upholds an employer's arbitration clause in the employment agreement of a relatively high-level employee against the employee's argument it was unconscionable.  It finds no evidence of procedural unconscionability, carefully distinguishing OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho (2019) 8 Cal.5th 111 on its facts.  Here, the employer did not rush the employee but encouaged him to seek legal advice.  Also, the… Read More

Following Clifford v. Quest Software Inc. (2019) 38 Cal.App.5th 745, this decision holds that an employer's arbitration clause could not avoided as unconscionable or contrary to public policy under McGill v. Citibank, N.A. (2017) 2 Cal.5th 945 because the employee's wage and hour complaint did not seek a public injunction, but only relief for a small group of employees, including… Read More

A hiker on a trail in a public park's optional-leash area for dogs did not assume the risk that she would be injured by another hiker's unleashed dog.  The park's rules for the area required unleashed dogs to be under their owners' control at all times and created a presumption that the dog was not under the owner's control if… Read More

A non-attorney did not engage in the unauthorized practice of law by filling out and filing an application and renewal of judgment form to renew a judgment of which he and several other individuals were judgment creditors.  The task was clerical in nature, not legal.  Choosing the right form is simple.  There's only one Judicial Council form for the task. … Read More

This decision holds that the California Arbitration Act (and CCP 1282.6) do not authorrize an arbitrator to issue a subpoena for documents from a third party for discovery purposes, as opposed to for production at the arbitration hearing.  At least, that is true if, as in this case, the arbitration agreement did not invoke the expanded discovery procedures allowed under… Read More

When an arbitrator issues an order directing a third person, not a party to the arbitration, to provide discovery at the request of one of the arbitrating parties, the third person must first object before the arbitrator.  If unsuccessful there, the third person may petition the superior court to vacate the arbitrator's decision on the discovery matter.  In that court,… Read More

In 5 U.S.C. § 5520a(b), the federal government waived its sovereign immunity and subjected a federal employee’s pay to “legal process in the same manner and to the same extent as if the agency were a private person.”  Here, defendant secured a judgment against plaintiff in California and garnished his federal wages by an order issued by the California court. … Read More

In this wrongful death action, the trial court properly granted Kaiser summary judgment based on the going and coming rule.  Kaiser's volunteer had finished providing dog therapy to one of Kaiser's patients and was returning home when the volunteer struch and killed plaintiffs' decedant.  The required-vehicle exception to the going and coming rule did not apply because there was no… Read More

Eminent domain actions are special proceedings governed by the Eminent Domain Law, CCP 1230.10 et seq.  In eminent domain proceedings, a party may bring a pretrial motion for a ruling on “an evidentiary or other legal issue affecting the determination of compensation" under CCP 1260.040(a).  Inverse condemnation actions, however, a common law suits that are not governed by the Eminent… Read More

Plaintiffs bought some real property from Guillermo Guerrero.  LBS had recorded an abstract of judgment against the same person but under the name Wilbert G. Guerrero.  This decision holds that plaintiffs, who had no actual knowledge of LBS' judgment lien also had no constructive knowledge of the lien since a regular search of the grantor-grantee indices for the name under… Read More

Defendant was a signatory as an employer to a collective bargaining agreement with the union which supplied lighting technicians for the TV commercials that defendant produced or that were produced by non-signatory production companies that rented defendant's services and its signatory status to hire the technicians.  This decision reverses a summary judgment in defendant's favor on wage claims by technicians… Read More

The amount in controversy under CAFA is the defendant's possible liability, not likely or probable liability.  When the complaint prays for an unspecified amount of punitive damages, a removing defendant can meet its burden of showing its possible liability for an amount of punitive damages by presenting evidence of the compensatory to punitive damage ratio(s) awarded in other cases alleging… Read More

The district court erred in entering a nationwide injunction against the Trump Administration's unlawful restrictions on federal grants to localities, requiring them to forego the grants or foreswear their "sanctuary" statutes or ordinances.  The only plaintiffs in this case were San Francisco and California.  They suffered injury only within California, and they could be restored to their rightful position by… Read More

Following the Supreme Court's interpretation of excess insurance policies' other insurance clauses in Montrose Chemical Corp. v. Superior Court (2020) 9 Cal.5th 215, this decision holds that in a case involving coverage for injuries occurring over multiple coverage periods, the insured can reach an excess policy after "vertically" exhausting any primary insurance policies for the same period, but need not… Read More

Applying Singapore law in accordance with a stock purchase agreement's choice of law clause, this decision holds that the employer did not breach that agreement when it bought back the employee's stock after having fired him.  The agreement provided for an employer buy back at market value of the stock if the employee left employment voluntarily or involuntarily for any… Read More

The trial court erred in granting a temporary restraining order on an ex parte basis in this case.  The declaration supporting the request for the TRO did not present admissible evidence of any impending emergency that required relief on an ex parte basis, as opposed to a noticed motion.  The case challenged the Governor's emergency order regarding voting by mail… Read More

Following Baumann v. Chase Investment Serv. Corp. (9th Cir. 2014) 747 F.3d 1117, this decision holds that a PAGA suit is not a "class action" that can be removed under CAFA because a PAGA suit lacks the characteristics of a class action under FRCivP 23.  That conclusion not weakened by more recent decisions, but is instead by the Cal. Supreme… Read More

Following Urbino v. Orkin Services of California, Inc. (9th Cir. 2013) 726 F.3d 1118, this decision holds that statutory penalties cannot be aggregated in a PAGA suit to meet the $75,000 amount in controversy threshold for traditional diversity jurisdiction purposes.  Instead, the statutory penalties and attorrney fees attributable solely to the named plaintiff must exceed $75,000 for there to be… Read More