California Appellate Tracker

Settlement agreement signed by tenant, which contained a release of claims arising from the tenancy, was enforceable against the tenant since it was a voluntary agreement rather than a tenant waiver of rights under the city’s rent ordinance.  Read More

A federal court may exercise supplemental jurisdiction over a state-law cross-claim between nondiverse parties so long as the cross-claim remains part of an action commenced by a complaint that properly invokes diversity or federal question jurisdiction, but if the cross-claim is severed, the district court loses jurisdiction over it.  Read More

A declaratory relief claim based on equitable subrogation in a priority dispute between two home equity lines of credit is not governed by a three-year limitations period and so was wrongly dismissed.  Read More

Since a non-contingent contract for attorney fees between a lawyer and client must be in writing and signed by both parties in order to be enforceable, agreement which client never executed was not enforceable, and the statute of limitations had already passed on a quantum meruit action by the lawyer.  Read More

A plaintiff-buyer’s notice that does not satisfy the Right to Repair Act’s requirement of describing a construction defect in reasonable detail nevertheless is sufficient to trigger the builder's 14 day time period for acknowledging receipt of the notice.  Read More

District court properly denied defendant employer’s motion to compel arbitration of plaintiff workers’ wage and hour claims, since collective bargaining agreement’s arbitration clause covered only contract-related claims, not statutory claims.  Read More

A van the driver’s employer gave her for business and personal use was a non-owned vehicle furnished for the driver’s regular use and thus was excluded from coverage under the driver’s personal auto policy.  Read More

Anti-SLAPP motion to strike plaintiff actor’s complaint was properly granted in favor of defendant actor-director with respect to racial discrimination claims alleging defendant had called plaintiff the N-word on set.  Read More

Summary judgment was properly entered for city in a public nuisance suit since the city showed its conduct had not caused the sea lions to occupy near-shore rocks, fouling the air with the stench of their excrement.  Read More

Neither the statute of frauds nor the parol evidence rule precluded a real estate broker’s suit for her commission, as she could rely on extrinsic evidence to show that the one owner who signed her listing agreement did so as agent for the other owners.  Read More

Two nationwide classes were properly certified in a RICO suit alleging that defendants fraudulently collected reimbursement for miscalculated taxes; the plaintiff’s claim was typical as she was harmed by the same scheme as class members, and she proposed adequate methods for proving damages on a classwide basis.  Read More

The automatic stay in bankruptcy prevents a taxing authority from holding a tax sale of the debtor’s property after the bankruptcy petition is filed even if the tax lien redemption period expired before the petition was filed.  Read More

Plaintiff could not rely on the delayed discovery rule to toll the limitations period on his fraud claim, because memoranda dating to the time of the alleged fraud—which were presented as part of plaintiff’s own evidence—disclosed the very facts which gave rise to the claim.  Read More

For purposes of the False Claims Act, plaintiff (a New York Deputy AG) did not fall within the pre-2010 definition of an “original source,” because he had only suspicions—not direct knowledge—of defendant’s fraudulent overcharging of the government for wiretaps, and he disclosed those suspicions in response to a FCC inquiry rather than voluntarily.  Read More

It was an abuse of discretion to deny defendant employer’s motion to compel arbitration due to the low level of procedural unconscionability and the absence of substantive unconscionability.  Read More

Employee raised genuine issue of material fact sufficient to survive summary judgment on gender discrimination claim, after she introduced evidence of disparate treatment of male colleagues and of her immediate supervisor's discriminatory remarks about having a woman in plaintiff's position.  Read More

It was not an abuse of discretion to exclude portions of plaintiff’s expert declaration which asserted (without any factual basis) that plaintiff’s injury was exacerbated by a short delay in transporting him to hospital.  Read More

One wrongly decided California Court of Appeal opinion is not sufficient grounds for avoiding the res judicata impact of a prior judgment on “change of applicable law” grounds since no other appellate court need follow that errant decision.  Read More

Trial court erred in awarding nearly $8000 in contempt sanctions against plaintiff/deponent for failure to appear at her deposition, since court had not actually ordered plaintiff to appear at the deposition. Read More

A contractual jury trial waiver is unenforceable in California state court despite the contract’s choice of New York law which allows such waivers.  Read More