California Appellate Tracker

Attorney fee award in connection with damages for breach of a settlement agreement is reversed for lack of admissible evidence of the attorney fees reasonably incurred since the only witness at trial lacked meaningful knowledge of these matters. Read More

There are no circumstances under which a records custodian can resist a subpoena for a collective entity’s records on Fifth Amendment grounds. Read More

When the question is one of public right and the object of a petition for writ of mandate is to enforce a public duty, the petitioner need not demonstrate some special interest to be served or some particular right to be preserved or protected over and above the interest held in common with the public at large. Read More

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

The prior federal judgment did not bar plaintiff's refiled state law claims because they had been dismissed only because the Eleventh Amendment barred a federal court from awarding damages against a state entity—not because of the actual merits of those claims. Read More

Plaintiff borrowers declaration that he did not recall receiving thirty or more telephone calls with servicer prior to recordation of a notice of default on his mortgage loan did not suffice to create a triable issue of fact as to whether those contacts had taken place since he did not deny that they happened. Read More

For purposes of ownership of real property mineral rights, dinosaur fossils are considered minerals. Read More

The trial court did not abuse its discretion in awarding fees to a prevailing plaintiff in an individual FLSA retaliation claim, properly apportioning total fees among several plaintiffs, and attributing to this prevailing plaintiff only those fees reasonably incurred in prosecuting her individual claims. Read More

Since plaintiff won jury verdicts for actual damages and emotional distress, but the jury awarded $0 on plaintiff's claim for defendant's profits from the use of plaintiff's likeness, neither party was a "prevailing party" for purposes of attorney fees. Read More

The arbitration clause in a law firm’s partnership agreement was unconscionable and unenforceable because it required the lawyer/partner to pay half the arbitration costs and her own attorney fees, because it restricted the arbitrators’ ability to “override” or “substitute [their] judgment” for that of the law firm’s management, and it required confidentiality about all arbitrations. Read More

Unless a personal injury plaintiff’s (future) heirs join in the settlement agreement individually, they are not bound by it or by its releases, so money paid to the plaintiff to settle future wrongful death suits is worth only as much as the hold harmless agreement by the now-deceased plaintiff is; moreover, non-settling defendants cannot take advantage of any setoff as… Read More

Defendant’s one-year non-compete clause was illegal and unenforceable under Business & Professions Code 16600 since it sought to bar former employees from soliciting the employment of any other current employees. Read More

A homeowner association’s recorded CC&Rs, which contained a provision granting the association a first-priority lien on an adjoining golf course if for maintenance fees the association paid after the course's owner failed to do so, gave association’s lien priority over a mortgage that was recorded after the CC&Rs but before the fees were paid. Read More

A PAGA pre-suit notice of a Labor Code violation need not meet pleading standards or include evidence, but it must include sufficient detail to give the employer adequate notice of the nature of the violation. Read More

A licensee of an administrative agency may not short-cut the administrative process by filing a court action seeking declaratory relief interpreting the relevant statutes before administrative disciplinary proceedings have been completed. Read More

Extrinsic evidence of trustor’s intent is admissible to shed light on the applicability of the “impossibility limitation” on conditions precedent to dispositions by will or trust. Read More

The 30-day deadline for an employer to petition for administrative mandamus runs from entry of the OSHA Appeals Board’s order denying reconsideration, not from the employer’s receipt of the order. Read More

Plaintiff's loss of its city license to operate a bar after a shooting death on its premises qualified as "loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured," a loss expressly covered by its commercial general liability policy. Read More

Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged, for purposes of the Alien Tort Statute, that (1) cocoa purchasers’ conduct in paying personal spending money to Ivory Coast growers—despite knowledge of their use of child slave labor—was not ordinary business conduct and (2)  the payments were made from the United States, even though the slave labor itself occurred overseas. Read More

For purposes of Industrial Welfare Commission wage orders, drivers like plaintiff who rented taxicab permits from the defendant are considered employees, not independent contractors, because they are not engaged in employment independent of the defendant; rather, they cannot switch companies without obtaining a new driver’s license from the city due to municipal ordinances. Read More