The district court erred in modifying CACI 3405, which states that a plaintiff may prove the second element of an unreasonable course of conduct claim by proving either anticompetitive purpose or effect, and CACI 3411, which lists factors for a jury to consider in weighing the anticompetitive purposes or effects of a defendant's conduct. The district court removed the word… Read More
The Court of Appeal issues a writ of mandate directing the trial court to enter summary judgment for the defendant in this personal injury action by a subcontractor's employee. Under the Privette doctrine, the hirer of an independent contractor is generally not liable for injuries suffered by the contractor's or its subcontractors' employees on the job. To invoke the doctrine… Read More
Collaborative law is a non-judicial alternative dispute resolution process commonly used for marriage dissolutions. In this case, a couple undergoing a divorce tried to settle their differences by that means. At the start they executed a "contract" which stated at the top "that this document does not give either of us enforceable legal rights that we did not already have." … Read More
After the Creek Fire, SoCal Edison's law department directed an investigation, conducted mostly by non-lawyer claims department personnel, of SoCal Edison's possible role in causing the fire. In later litigation, insurers of burnt homes sought production of emails between the claims department personnel and in-house experts or other witnesses sent as part of the internal investigation. This decision holds that… Read More
The university did not deny plaintiff students a fair hearing before expelling them for engaging in prohibited hazing activities in fraternity initiation of new pledges. Unlike cases that turn largely on disputed facts and credibility of witnesses, in this one most of the alleged hazing activities were undisputed. In that context, it was not a denial of a fair hearing… Read More
On a prior appeal in the same case, the Court of Appeal had held that Tyler’s judicial defense of the 2007 Amendment to her parents' Trust, an amendment that she had procured through undue influence constituted a direct contest of the Trust and that Tyler lacked probable cause to defendant that amendment. Key v. Tyler (2019) 34 Cal.App.5th 505, 510. … Read More
A district court has inherent authority to stay before it, pending resolution of independent proceedings which bear upon the case. The stay order is reviewed for abuse of discretion. When deciding whether to issue a docket management stay, the district court must weigh: (1) the possible damage which may result from the granting of a stay; (2) the hardship or… Read More
A stay order entered by a district court is appealable as a final judgment under 28 USC 1291 if it effectively places the plaintiff out of court. An indefinite stay to be ended only upon the occurrence of an external event that is not time delimited. If the stay lasts 18 months or longer, the stay is not automatically appealable,… Read More
Lawyers who owned an undercapitalized debt collection firm were properly held to be alter egos of the debt collection firm for purposes of liability under the FDCPA and the UCL as well as for attorney fee under CCP 1021.5. Read More
The trial court did not abuse its discretion in bifurcating and trying first plaintiff's UCL claim even though the claim was based on an alleged FDCPA violation and defendant was entitled to a jury trial of the FDCPA claim. The UCL claim is equitable. Equitable first is the rule in California. Also, that procedure serves the UCL's purpose of affording… Read More
Civ. Code 5655(a) provides that payments a homeowner makes to an HOA for delinquent assessments must to allocated first to repay the delinquent assessments and only thereafter to pay attorney fees, costs, and interest incurred in connection with the HOA's attempt to collect the delinquent assessments. This decision holds that the protections afforded by that section benefit the public, in… Read More
Plaintiff obtained a CGL policy from defendant which included an exclusion from coverage for injuries suffered by employees of a contractor. The exclusion did not define "contractor." The decision holds that the term is ambiguous. It could mean anyone contracted to work on a construction project, as the insurer contended. Or it could mean anyone with whom the insured had… Read More
Lyft driver suffered an unprovoked knife attack by a passenger, who, he later discovered that the passenger had a criminal history. Held, Lyft does not owe its drivers a duty of care to run criminal background checks on passengers it offers to its drivers. It would be too burdensome to run such checks on all passengers. And the rare random… Read More
The CFPB's funding mechanism is constitutional. Congress acts in accordance with the Appropriations Clause if it enacts a measure that identifies the source from which money may be drawn for a specified purpose. Congress need not set the amount; it can allow the executive or agency draw on the authorized source up to a stated cap. The appropriation also need… Read More
Affirming a summary judgment, this opinion finds that the city was immune from liability under Gov. Code 831.4 on plaintiff's claim that he tripped over a wire cable hanging between two posts on either side of the entrance to a path down to a lake, designed to keep vehicles from using the path. The path was used for the recreational… Read More
Affirming denial of class certification in this case charging Folsom with a public and private nuisance of furnishing its customers with too acidic, chlorinated water that corroded copper pipes, the court holds that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding that individual questions as to liability predominated. Folsom's own expert studies showed only that its water "could"… Read More
Education Code 24500 grants the California State Teachers Retirement System a right of subrogation to the rights of a teacher to whom the Retirement System has paid disability retirement benefits as a result of injuries the teacher sustained by reason of a third party's tort. As with an employer's payment of worker's compensation benefits or CalPERS payment of disability retirement,… Read More
Plaintiff alleged a hostile work environment claim against her employer, alleging a single course of harassing behavior over a two year period that began before she filed her bankruptcy petition and ended afterwards. Because plaintiff could have brought the claim before bankruptcy, the entire claim, including the post-bankruptcy damages, were property of the bankrupt estate and could be prosecuted only… Read More
California law does not recognize the concept of constructive termination in the context of ordinary commercial contracts between business entities. The social policies that allow constructive termination in the employment and landlord-tenant contexts do not apply to ordinary commercial contracts. Also, the contract in this case specifically provided four means of terminating the contract, none of which involved a constructive… Read More
Government entities and actors are free to speak and do so forcefully on issues of public importance. However, government actors may not use their governmental powers via veiled threats of adverse governmental action to coerce private parties to suppress speech that the government actors view unfavorably. Here, the NRA alleged a viable claim for such coerced third party suppression of… Read More
