California Appellate Tracker

Order vacating consent judgment based on defendants’ substantial compliance is reversed because the record was insufficient to establish defendants’ compliance with all of terms of the judgment entered in favor of plaintiff, a prisoner who followed the Wiccan religion.  Read More

Service of summons and complaint on defendant was considered adequate when his father accepted substituted service at home, defendant could not establish that he had a permanent residence elsewhere, and his father gave him actual notice of the suit within three days of the substituted service.  Read More

The Supreme Court rejects the Federal Circuit’s Seagate Technology test for when to award treble damages in patent infringement suits under 35 USC 284, as too rigid and incompatible with the statute, adopting instead a “all circumstances considered” standard reviewed on appeal only for abuse of discretion.  Read More

In exercising its discretion under 17 USC 505 to award fees to the prevailing party in a copyright infringement suit, a district court should give significant, but not necessarily controlling, weight to whether the losing party advanced a reasonable claim or defense Read More

In an insurance bad faith action, Brandt legal fees that the insured incurs in his successful effort to obtain insurance benefits are actual damages which must be included with other actual damages in computing the actual to punitive ratio, even if the parties stipulate to having the trial judge set Brandt fees after the jury has awarded both other actual… Read More

District court judge did not err by reconvening jury for further deliberations to correct an error in the verdicts, since he did so within minutes of discharging them and questioned them to make sure they had not been influenced by outside sources.  Read More

11 U.S.C. 727(a)(2)—which provides that a debt may be exempted from discharge if the debtor has, within one year before filing his bankruptcy petition, made a fraudulent transfer—is not a statute of limitations and is not subject to equitable tolling.  Read More

Manufacturer of auto brake forming tools is strictly liable for worker’s injury caused by breathing asbestos dust while using the tools in the intended manner on asbestos-laced auto brakes even though manufacturer did not make the brakes.  Read More

Even though a federal defense contract required use of boxes only plaintiff made, plaintiff was not a third party beneficiary of the contract because neither contracting party intended to grant plaintiff enforceable rights under the contract.  Read More

Once it concludes that it lacks jurisdiction, a district court may not rule on the merits of an action; and if it does so anyway, the resulting judgment is not effective for purposes of res judicata.  Read More

Whether commission-paid employees were required to perform tasks not directly involved in selling, in violation of California’s minimum wage laws, was a common question permitting class certification. Read More

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