California Appellate Tracker

By submitting arguments on the merits to the arbitrator without objecting to his jurisdiction until long after the fact, employer waived the argument that arbitrator lacked authority under the collective bargaining agreement to decide labor union’s claim for bonus pay to new hires. Read More

Individual plaintiff-voter lacks standing to challenge statewide voting inequalities involving districts other than his own. Read More

A suit challenging the non-waivable $150 jury fee in civil cases should have been filed against the Judicial Council, not the State of California. Read More

A hotel and restaurant owe a duty of care to its patrons to protect them against black widow spiders on the premises. Read More

When an administrative agency makes its decision immediately effective, the 30-day limit for petitioning for court review is not tolled by a motion for reconsideration. Read More

The required vehicle exception to the going and coming rule did not apply to a public defender’s drive home from work on a day he did not need the car for work, so his employer, the county, was not liable for the accident on the drive home. Read More

When the government sues for civil penalties under a statutory cause of action, the defendant is entitled to a jury trial on the issue of liability but not the amount of any resulting civil penalty. Read More

The State Housing Law allows a city to recover its attorney fees if it sues to have a receiver appointed to remedy code violations in a non-compliant building, but not if the city intervenes in a lender’s suit for appointment of a receiver. Read More

In this tort action arising from a vehicular collision, defendant was entitled to summary judgment based on the sudden emergency or imminent peril doctrine after he rear-ended the car in front of him, which had come to a sudden stop when a car further along in traffic slammed on its brakes. Read More

Under Delaware law, a plaintiff must satisfy a stricter test to excuse failure to demand action from a corporation’s board of directors before filing a shareholder derivative suit, if the suit challenges the board’s neglect rather than its affirmative decision. Read More

Defendant school board members’ Anti-SLAPP motion was properly denied since it failed to show that plaintiff’s claims that defendants disclosed her medical records and threatened her arose out of school board’s official proceedings. Read More

FRCP 44.1 permits federal courts to determine the meaning of a foreign country’s law, and in doing so, the court should accord respectful consideration to a foreign government’s submission regarding the meaning of its own law; but the court is not ultimately bound by that submission. Read More

Minnesota's statute that automatically revokes an ex-spouse's revocable designation of the other ex-spouse as a death beneficiary of an insurance policy or pension plan does not violate the federal constitution's Contracts Clause since it implements the former spouse’s presumed intent, thus supporting rather than impairing the contract. Read More

American Pipe tolling during the pendency of an initial class action does not toll the statute of limitations for a follow-on class action, but only for individual suits by members of the putative class in the initial class action. Read More

Demurrer sustained on grounds of misjoinder was reversed and remanded after one of two misjoined plaintiffs settled out while the case was on appeal, thereby resolving the misjoinder. Read More

Though Uber’s arbitration clause contained a delegation clause, its motion to compel arbitration was wholly groundless and thus properly denied since the plaintiff’s claim arose from his work as a Lyft driver, not as an Uber driver. Read More

An addendum to a standard form workers compensation release did not release the employee’s sexual orientation employment discrimination claims as it did not clearly reference claims outside the workers' compensation system. Read More

A premature post-trial motion (in this case, a Rule 59 motion to alter or amend the judgment) neither shortens nor extends the time for appeal. Read More

Unless the plaintiff follows steps prescribed in Code of Civil Procedure 1281.5, it's filing of a mechanics lien foreclosure suit waives its right to compel arbitration in that suit or any other action. Read More

By moving to have the judge decide an equitable claim, plaintiff waived error in an allegedly premature mistrial based on a hung jury. Read More