California Appellate Tracker

This opinion affirms the trial court's denial of attorney fees sought by plaintiff in long-running litigation between the two parties.  Plaintiff recovered $38,0000 in the original proceeding.  It waited more than a year after the remittitur issued ending the appeal from that judgment before filing a separate action to enforce the judgment against the supersedeas bond that defendant had posted… Read More

Hoffman's recordation of an abstract of judgment against Weeden's property was protected activity under CCP 425.16(e), satisfying his Anti-SLAPP motion's first prong.  The litigation privilege also shielded Hoffman from liability on Weeden's claim for slander of title, and that cause of action was properly stricken.  However, the litigation privilege did not apply to or bar Weeden's claims to quiet title… Read More

Following Nolte v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 1401, this decision holds that it is not an unfair or unlawful business practice for a hospital not to affirmatively disclose, prior to treatment, that it will charge an emergency room charge to patients using the emergency room.  Extensive state and federal statutes and regulations require specific sorts of disclosures of… Read More

Plaintiff introduced sufficient evidence to establish a probability of success on his defamation and false light invasion of privacy claims to overcome defendant's Anti-SLAPP motion.  Plaintiff is a world record holder in a number of computer arcade games.  Defendant facilitates video game competitions and runs a website with leaderboards showing top scorers on the games.  After receiving a complaint from… Read More

In this case, defendant avoided summary judgment by submitting a declaration from a non-party witness which said she knew facts undermining the defendant's going and coming rule defense.  After summary judgment was denied on that basis, defendant took the witness' deposition at which she disclaimed any personal knowledge of the facts stated in her declaration which she said she signed… Read More

The trial court properly granted defendant a partial nonsuit on its affirmative defense of settlement following plaintiff's opening statement that conceded plaintiff's husband and guardian ad litem had authorized plaintiff's attorney to offer to settle her catastrophic injury claim for the $15,000 limit of defendant's auto insurance policy.  Nonsuit can be granted on an issue that is less than an… Read More

In this case, defendant avoided summary judgment by submitting a declaration from a non-party witness which said she knew facts undermining the defendant's going and coming rule defense.  After summary judgment was denied on that basis, defendant took the witness' deposition at which she disclaimed any personal knowledge of the facts stated in her declaration which she said she signed… Read More

The trial court properly granted defendant a partial nonsuit on its affirmative defense of settlement following plaintiff's opening statement that conceded plaintiff's husband and guardian ad litem had authorized plaintiff's attorney to offer to settle her catastrophic injury claim for the $15,000 limit of defendant's auto insurance policy.  Nonsuit can be granted on an issue that is less than an… Read More

AB 5 and its amended version Lab. Code 2778 et seq. does not violate the First or Fourteenth Amendments in its application to freelance journalists and others who supply creative content to newspapers, films and other media.  The regulation does not single out those engaged in speech for harsher treatment.  The exemption for some freelancers may not be as broad… Read More

Contrary to 40 years of appellate authority, this decision holds that when a trial court must exercise its independent judgment in ruling on an administrative mandamus petition under CCP 1094.5 and the administrative agency was required to apply a clear and convincing evidence standard in the administrative proceeding, the trial court cannot affirm based on a preponderance of the evidence… Read More