Skip to Content (Press Enter)

Skip to Nav (Press Enter)

California Appellate Tracker

Subscribe to California Appellate Tracker

Thank you for your desire to subscribe to Severson & Werson’s Appellate Tracker Weblog. In order to subscribe, you must provide a valid name and e-mail address. This too will be retained on our server. When you push the “subscribe button”, we will send an electronic mail to the address that you provided asking you to confirm your subscription to our Weblog. By pushing the “subscribe button”, you represent and warrant that you are over the age of 18 years old, are the owner/authorized user of that e-mail address, and are entitled to receive e-mails at that address. Our weblog will retain your name and e-mail address on its server, or the server of its web host. However, we won’t share any of this information with anyone except the Firm’s employees and contractors, except under certain extraordinary circumstances described on our Privacy Policy and (About The Consumer Finance Blog/About the Appellate Tracker Weblog) Page. NOTICE AND AGREEMENT REGARDING E-MAILS AND CALLS/TEXT MESSAGES TO LAND-LINE AND WIRELESS TELEPHONES: By providing your contact information and confirming your subscription in response to the initial e-mail that we send you, you agree to receive e-mail messages from Severson & Werson from time-to-time and understand and agree that such messages are or may be sent by means of automated dialing technology. If you have your email forwarded to other electronic media, including text messages and cellular telephone by way of VoIP, internet, social media, or otherwise, you agree to receive my messages in that way. This may result in charges to you. Your agreement and consent also extend to any other agents, affiliates, or entities to whom our communications are forwarded. You agree that you will notify Severson & Werson in writing if you revoke this agreement and that your revocation will not be effective until you notify Severson & Werson in writing. You understand and agree that you will afford Severson & Werson a reasonable time to unsubscribe you from the website, that the ability to do so depends on Severson & Werson’s press of business and access to the weblog, and that you may still receive one or more emails or communications from weblog until we are able to unsubscribe you.

Federal Debt Collection Practices Act’s one-year statute of limitations began to run when debtor discovered (or reasonably should have discovered) that a collections suit was filed against her—not when the suit was actually filed.  Read More

Plaintiff who took a medical leave of absence from her full-time job and, upon her return, was offered only part-time work, could not show that the employer’s legitimate business reason for not offering full-time work was pretextual.  Read More

Since a court has the power to enter orders against non-parties to keep them from nullifying the effect of an injunction against a defendant, Yelp! could not successfully challenge a default judgment finding defendant’s negative reviews of plaintiff were defamatory and ordering Yelp!, a third party, to remove these reviews.  Read More

A trial judge has discretion to dispose of a case or claim on the merits in the course of ruling on a motion in limine, but must do so using the normal nonsuit standard of review.  Read More

28 USC 2676, which bars tort judgments against individual federal employees when a judgment has been entered in favor of the federal government for the same tort, does not apply to a case excepted from the Federal Tort Claims Act under the discretionary function exception; so the plaintiff, having lost against the government, remains free to sue the individual officers… Read More

Madonna's song Vogue, in which she used a 0.23 second horn segment from an earlier copyrighted song, did not infringe on the earlier song’s copyright; any copying—even if deliberate—was de minimis and an average audience would not recognize the appropriation.  Read More

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a worker’s regular rate of pay, used to compute overtime pay, includes any compensation paid even if it is not paid on an hourly basis; so payments to employees in lieu of medical insurance benefits should have been included in their regular rate of pay, for purposes of computing their overtime pay.  Read More

A narrow arbitration clause in a partnership's operating agreement did not apply to plaintiff's legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty and rescission claims which arose from duties the defendant lawyer owed independent of the partnership agreement.  Read More

The doctrine of primary assumption of the risk barred suit for injuries sustained by a skateboarder who was riding the skateboard down a hill on the wrong side of a city street without a helmet on and hit a gap in the pavement.  Read More

Breach or interference with the City of Carson’s contract with an agent for negotiations for an NFL team to come to the city is not protected speech under the Anti-SLAPP statute.  Read More

Leave to amend to state a UCL claim was properly denied in a mass action by defaulted home loan borrowers as the proposed amendment showed plaintiffs were improperly joined but alleged no facts to support the conclusion they were overcharged.  Read More

The Communications Decency Act does not shield an internet website owner from liability for failure to warn users about dangers posed by sexual predators using the site to target vulnerable women for abuse. Read More

Suppliers who were third party beneficiaries of phone aggregator’s contract with consumer plaintiff could enforce that contract’s arbitration clause against plaintiff.  Read More

A child molester’s “grooming” presents to the molested minor did not trigger application of Insurance Code section 11583 which tolls the statute of limitations on partial payment of compensation for injury given without notice of applicable limitations periods.  Read More

An arbitration award cannot be vacated by the courts due to factual errors or for bias when the arbitrator had previously represented both sides in similar disputes.  Read More

Under CCP 1032(a), a prevailing party is entitled to a cost award even if it is united in interest with co-parties that did not prevail, but the trial court has discretion in awarding only those jointly incurred costs which were reasonably necessary to the prevailing party’s case.  Read More

A discriminatory constructive discharge from employment claim accrues on the employee’s resignation, not on the earlier date of the employer’s last discriminatory act.  Read More

Asbestos supplier could not escape strict product liability for worker’s mesothelioma based on the sophisticated user defense as substantial evidence supported the jury’s weighing of the gravity of harm posed by the asbestos, the likelihood the sophisticated user would give required warnings and the feasibility of the supplier’s doing so. Read More

1 164 165 166 167 168 172