A void default judgment, obtained without proper service on the defendant, cannot be the foundation of a valid claim of title to property, so the secured lender against whom the default judgment was entered prevails over a bona fide purchaser from the plaintiff. Read More
Normally, a payment is not “made” until the creditor receives it; however, if the creditor directs payment by mail, the payment is “made” when deposited in the mail. Read More
A court may not order sale by appraisal in a partition action without all joint owners’ consent. Read More
Attorney who had represented a corporation and its control group is not disqualified from representing the control group in a shareholder derivative action because the control group already knows the corporation’s confidential information. Read More
Unless the arbitration clause expressly adopts them, the Federal Arbitration Act’s procedural rules do not apply in state court proceedings to compel arbitration, even when the FAA’s substantive provisions govern the arbitration clause. Read More
In a Private Attorney General Act suit, the plaintiff is entitled, as a matter of course, to discovery of identification information of all employees affected by the employer’s alleged violations of wage and hour laws. Read More
When an employer's policy states that an employee does not begin to earn vacation pay until after a full year's employment, the employer does not owe an employee any vacation pay if employment is terminated less than a year after the date of initial employment. Read More
A foreign national who was invited to the US to work for defendant was not an "intern" or "trainee" during the 11 months he worked before securing a green card, because the work he did consisted of typical work tasks rather than education; so he was entitled to minimum wages under both federal and state law during this period. Read More
Trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification in this suit for overtime compensation by claims examiners, since plaintiff had not shown that it could prove, by common evidence, that all of the claims examiners in the proposed class actually worked overtime; hence there was no preponderance of common issues. Read More
A defendant meets its initial burden on summary judgment by showing that plaintiff suffered a workplace injury while employed by an independent contractor that defendant hired; plaintiff then bears the burden of producing evidence that defendant retained control over the way the contractor performed its work or over workplace safety. Read More
Defendant manufacturer of forklift was not entitled to summary judgment in design defect case, since its design included a large open area around the powered wheels, without any guards, which would crush any part of a human they ran over; and this permits an inference that the design fell below minimum safety assumptions of the product's users and bystanders during… Read More
State medical board, who was investigating a doctor for over-prescription of addictive drugs, did not violate privacy rights of doctor’s patients by obtaining database information on drugs which pharmacies had dispensed to them. Read More
Plaintiff, a rider in an endurance horse race who was injured when defendant’s horse bolted after being kicked by a tailgating horse, could not recover in negligence action because she had assumed the risk; horse tailgating and its dangerous aftermath are a normal part of that sport. Read More
Lawsuit alleging that defendant had contaminated real property through its ordinary business operations on the site, which it had used as a bulk terminal for petroleum products, was barred by three-year statute of limitations applicable to injuries to real property. Read More
Although government entities are immunized from liability for injuries caused by the natural condition of any unimproved public property, a campground counts as an improvement; so child could sue county after he was injured by a falling tree at a county-owned campsite. Read More
City could not claim sovereign immunity after plaintiff was injured by falling tree limb in a city park because the trail on which plaintiff had been walking had no causal connection to the injury. Read More
A homeowner is not generally responsible for supervising a child invited to his property if the child is accompanied and supervised by a parent, although the homeowner can assume and/or relinquish that duty; here, where homeowner assumed the supervisory duty but then relinquished it to a grandparent who proceeded to let the child drown, homeowner was not liable for the… Read More
Before a court may order a website to produce identifying information about an anonymous poster of information on the website, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case, including, in a defamation case, proof of falsity of the posting’s allegedly defamatory statements. Read More
Plaintiff could not sue defendant for defamation after defendant rated plaintiff’s website as carrying adult content and copyright-infringing material, since these ratings addressed matters of public interest and were therefore protected by the Anti-SLAPP statute. Read More
A whistleblower suit under Health and Safety Code 1278.5 cannot be stricken under the Anti-SLAPP statute, since defendant’s alleged wrongful purpose or motive in firing plaintiff was not protected Anti-SLAPP activity. Read More
