California Appellate Tracker

Statutory one-year lien on a judgment debtor’s personal property is tolled by 11 U.S.C. 108(c), which extends the time for commencing or continuing a civil action on a pre-petition claim against the debtor during the automatic bankruptcy stay. Read More

A new trial may properly be ordered on the sole issue of the comparative fault of various defendants, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in doing so here when there was much evidence that independent contractor defendant was far more at fault than hirer defendant for failing to warn plaintiff that a circuit breaker was still engaged—yet… Read More

A child whom the decedent raised and held out as his own child (but without ever formally adopting the child) has standing to sue for the decedent's wrongful death. Read More

Plaintiff, whose lawsuit was dismissed after defendant’s demurrer to the complaint was sustained without leave to amend because no opposition was filed, was entitled to mandatory relief from judgment after his attorney admitted fault in the form of ignorance of Code of Civil Procedure’s deadlines for filing an amended complaint. Read More

The probate court did not abuse its discretion in excusing a trustee from liability for breaching a trust, because he acted reasonably and equitably in allowing the trustor’s elderly friend to retain his life estate in the trust property even though he had fallen behind on certain expenses that were supposed to be a condition of the life estate. Read More

An insurer was allowed to deny life insurance coverage based on the insured's failure to provide notice of disability, only if it could show it was actually prejudiced by the lack of notice.  Read More

Plaintiff’s unfair competition claim was pre-empted by FDA regulations governing how the defendant should calculate the protein content of its product, but plaintiff’s similar false advertising claim was not preempted because it accused the defendant of misrepresenting the source of the protein in the product. Read More

Student accused of sexual assault was denied basic due process by university disciplinary board by withholding evidence of antidepressant drugs being taken by the victim until the last minute and barring accused student’s attorney from participating in the proceedings while allowing university’s own counsel to act in a prosecutorial role. Read More

Substantial evidence supported finding by the university that a student had cheated on a biology exam, and since this determination was moreover made by a fair procedure, the trial court incorrectly granted the student’s administrative mandamus petition. Read More

Blind plaintiff alleged a viable claim for disability discrimination when he claimed that defendants’ aggressive unleashed guard dog attacked his seeing-eye dog on a public sidewalk outside their business establishment. Read More

While FDA regulations governing nutrition facts panels preempt state law as to facts stated within the panel, the regulations do not govern or preempt state law as to the rest of the product label; so a state may require that packaging on the remainder of the product meet stricter standards than is required for the facts listed in the nutrition… Read More

Defendant’s method of compensating its technicians—by giving each technician a base salary rate that was above the minimum wage but allowed the technician to increase his hourly rate by performing more production work that customers paid for during the workweek—did not violate California’s wage and hour laws, since each technician received an above-minimum wage rate for each hour worked. Read More

In calculating value of class action coupon settlement for purposes of awarding attorney fees, only the value of the coupon credits actually used by class members should have been counted; the district court erred by performing its fee calculation based on the full value of all the credits available to class members.  Read More

Homeowners association could not invoke the Davis-Stirling Act to pursue claims in its own name without joining its individual owners since that Act only applies if the homeowners have mutual or reciprocal easements appurtenant to their separate interests (which was not true in this case). Read More

In a criminal prosecution for theft from an elder, defendant stipulated to a restitution amount of $700,000, so she was estopped from denying that damage amount in a later action for double damages under the Probate Code. Read More

For purposes of comparison with the amount of the judgment, pre-offer fees and costs are added to the amount of a rejected 998 settlement offer that is silent as to fees and costs since upon acceptance the offeree would have been entitled to an award of pre-offer fees and costs in addition to the amount of the settlement. Read More

The trial court abused its discretion by failing to consider all required factors under the Rule of Court governing minors’ compromise, which permits the reduction of plaintiffs’ attorneys’ contingency fees under certain circumstances. Read More

Plaintiff employees’ law firm was not entitled to attorney fees it sought separately and independently of court approval of class action settlement. Read More

Law firm’s investigative due diligence report, completed prior to an acquisition to determine whether target company was in possession of another’s protected trade secrets, is not protected from discovery by any attorney-client privilege because it was jointly directed by and shared with opposing parties in the acquisition negotiations; and it was not protected by the work product privilege because it… Read More

Blind plaintiff alleged a viable claim for disability discrimination when he claimed that defendants’ aggressive unleashed guard dog attacked his seeing-eye dog on a public sidewalk outside their business establishment. Read More