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Employment, , 1, 1 Trial courts lack inherent authority to strike PAGA claims on manageability grounds.  Trial courts do not generally possess a broad inherent authority to dismiss claims.  Nor is it appropriate for trial courts to strike PAGA claims by employing class action manageability requirements.  Trial courts may use a vast variety of tools to efficiently manage PAGA claims,… Read More

Plaintiff filed Action #1 against DiMartini and recorded a lis pendens.  DiMartini's motion to expunge the lis pendens was granted because the action sought to enforce an arbitration award and did not allege a real property claim.  After abandoning Action #1, plaintiff filed Action #2 and again recorded a lis pendens.  This decision holds that under CCP 405.36, a plaintiff… Read More

McKee owned a Palmdale house with her domestic partner, but she moved out of that house years before filing her bankruptcy petition because, she said, the domestic partner who lived there was abusive to her.  Because McKee did not live in the house and did not intend to return to live in it (at least so long as the domestic… Read More

A petition to determine heirship or beneficiary status and entitlement to distribution of a portion of a probate estate under Prob. Code 11700 is an entirely elective procedure.  A right to distribution is otherwise settled by the probate court's final order approving distribution of the estate.  Moreover, in a proceeding on a petition under section 11700, the court determines only… Read More

Disagreeing with Hardy v. America's Best Home Loans (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 795 and Gray v. La Salle Bank (2023) 94 Cal.App.5th 1215, this split decision holds that Fed. R. Civ. P. 41's two dismissal rule bars later litigation in state court even if limited to state law claims so long as the second dismissal was in federal court on a… Read More

Ordinarily, an employer is not liable for injuries an employee suffers on the way to or from work.  However, under the premises line rule, the commute ends and the employee becomes entitled to Workers Compensation benefits for injury suffered once the employee has entered the employer's premises.  Here, the court held that plaintiff, a UC Irvine employee, had not yet… Read More

The trial court correctly denied enforcement of the employer's arbitration agreement.  The arbitration agreement was procedurally unconscionable both because it was an adhesion contract in the employment context and because the way it was presented to the prospective employee for electronic signature made it difficult for her to read before signing.  The agreement was substantively unconscionable in containing a confidentiality… Read More

Effective in 2023, the Legislature amended Family Code 6344 to authorize attorney fee awards in Domestic Violence Prevention Act cases to the prevailing party without any requirement of a showing of need by the prevailing party.  This decision holds that the new statute applies retroactively to all still pending cases because the Legislature has provided in Family Code section 4… Read More

The doctrine of primary assumption of the risk bars liability for injuries caused by a negligent surfer to a fellow surfer because those injuries were caused by risks inherent in the sport of surfing.  Wipe-outs are common as are injuries from collisions with other surfers or their surf boards.  Surfers often violate unwritten rules of etiquette governing surfing and surf… Read More

The trial court correctly denied defendant's motion to compel arbitration despite the agreement's delegation clause because plaintiff, a minor, disaffirmed all agreements with defendant pursuant to Family Code 6710.  The disaffirmance voided not only the underlying agreement and its arbitration clause but also its delegation provision.  Plaintiff's disaffirmance of any agreement with defendant was sufficient to disaffirm the delegation clause… Read More

An appellate court may affirm on any ground supported by the record (J.B. Aguerre, Inc. v. American Guarantee & Liability Ins. Co. (1997) 59 Cal.App.4th 6, 15-16), including grounds not raised by the respondent, and even if the respondent does not file a brief (Fleming Distribution Co. v. Younan (2020) 49 Cal.App.5th 73, 84, fn. 8; Smith v. Smith (2012)… Read More

Website owners brought a class action against Google for displaying related items of interest including competitors' ads and uncomplimentary customer reviews along with copies of the owner's website page in response to a browser user's request to open that website page.  This decision holds that the website owners have an insufficient property interest in the copy of the webpage Google… Read More

This decision holds that Jack Daniel's Properties, Inc. v. VIP Products LLC (2023) 599 U.S. 140 effectively overruled prior 9th Circuit decisions to the extent that they held the Rogers v. Grimaldi (2d Cir. 1989) 875 F.2d 994 test exempts all expressive use of trademarks from trademark law.  Jack Daniel's held that the Rogers test does not apply when the… Read More

Plaintiffs alleged that Gilead was researching two alternative drugs to treat HIV and both passed Phase III trials with approximately equal effectiveness in HIV treatment but that Gilead chose to pursue the alternative that carried a risk of bone and kidney side effects instead of the alternative because doing so allowed it greater financial returns on its patent for the… Read More

Under Ins. Code 11580.2(f), insured and insurer must arbitrate any dispute about whether the insured is entitled to recover damages from an uninsured motorist and the amount of those damages.  The trial court erred in denying the insurer's motion to compel arbitration.  The insurer did not waive arbitration by failing to pay the insured the amount that the insured claimed… Read More

CCP 340.1(q) revived sexual abuse claims for three years between 1/1/2020 and 1/1/2023.  This decision holds that the revivor is part of the "statute of limitations" and thus was continued for an additional 6 months by Emergency COVID Rule 9(a). Read More

The trial court erred in giving a jury instruction in this invasion of the constitutional right of privacy case which stated unconditionally that bank customers have a reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to financial information disclosed to their bank.  While a bank customer has a right to privacy of financial records, the customer does not have an unconditional expectation… Read More

Penal Code 502(c)(2) prohibits knowingly accessing and without permission taking, copying, or making use of any data from a computer, computer system, or computer network.  Section 502(e)(1) grants a private right of action to an owner or lessee of the data who suffers damage from a violation of section 502(c)(2).  This deciison holds that the trial court erred in giving… Read More

If a jury instruction contains “an incorrect statement of law, the party harmed by that instruction need not have objected to the instruction or proposed a correct instruction of his [or her] own in order to preserve the right to complain of the erroneous instruction on appeal." Read More

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