California Appellate Tracker

The invited error doctrine bars a party from appealing from an order the party submitted for the sole purpose of creating an appeal that would derail trial. Read More

A commercial general liability policy does not cover a claim that the insured drug company over-promoted its addictive drug since promotion is intentional conduct, not an accident, and addiction is a natural and foreseeable result of the intentional promotion. Read More

An action for civil penalties under Proposition 65 must be brought in the county in which the claim arose. Read More

A party moving for limited remand while a case is on appeal need not have moved for an indicative ruling in the district court if the district court has entered an indicative ruling in response to some other proceeding. Read More

In a suit for discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, district courts have the discretion to “gross up” an award for back pay to account for income-tax consequences. Read More

In deciding whether to award attorney fees in a partition action, fees may be for the common benefit of all owners even if the proceeding is contested, with some joint owners not wishing to partition the property. Read More

Noncompliance with a court order to disclose financial condition precludes a defendant from challenging the sufficiency of the evidence of a punitive damages award on appeal. Read More

A company the city hired to maintain backup batteries in traffic signals owed a duty of care to motorists in performing its work, and it cannot invoke Government Claims Act immunities to avoid liability. Read More

The exhaustion of remedies doctrine requires a petitioner who sought expungement of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) disciplinary history to first to seek relief from FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before bringing state court action for expungement of public records. Read More

In a wrongful termination suit, a plaintiff-employee cannot defeat an employer’s summary judgment motion by arguing that the employer’s pre-termination investigation could have been better or more comprehensive. Read More

A foreign defendant’s knowledge that plaintiff is located in the forum state and will suffer harm there does allow the forum to exercise specific personal jurisdiction over the defendant; instead the defendant itself must establish contacts with the forum state. Read More

A Georgia-resident husband who sent a video of a mock suicide to his California-resident wife caused exceptional and specially regulated effects in California sufficient to support specific jurisdiction to enter a Domestic Violence Protection Act injunction against the husband. Read More

By providing for entry of a stipulated $300,000 judgment if defendant failed to pay $75,000 as agreed, a settlement agreement exacted a penalty, so the $300,000 judgment was void. Read More

A party is entitled to a continuance of a summary judgment hearing, or a new trial, when without fault of his or her own, the party reasonably believed that the case had been settled Read More

An order prohibiting a plaintiff from posting any references to pending litigation on its website is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Read More

An employer’s arbitration clause was denied enforcement as procedurally and substantively unconscionable because it was presented on a take-it-or-leave-it basis and unduly limited both formal and informal discovery. Read More

A trial court cannot deny an unlawful detainer defendant the right to respond to an unlawful detainer complaint by answer or demurrer at the defendant's election. Read More

The workers' compensation exclusivity doctrine is inapplicable to claims under the Fair Housing and Employment Act. Read More

For purposes of enforcing a foreign judgment, a party was afforded sufficient due process, if the foreign court followed "procedures compatible with the requirements of fundamental fairness" even if the litigants were not given the specific constitutional due process guarantees afforded litigants in U.S. courts. Read More

The question of which risks are inherent in a recreational activity, here, dirt biking, is fact-intensive but, on a sufficient record, may be resolved on summary judgment. Read More