While a landlord can give the tenant more than the 3 days' notice that CCP 1161(2) requires (and must do so if the lease so requires), if the eviction is for non-payment of rent, the notice (for however long a period) must state the amount of the rent due, and the name and address of the person to whom it… Read More
Plaintiff successfully sued defendant for violating a conservation easement on his property. The trial court awarded plaintiff $2.9 million in attorney fees for five years of hard-fought litigation and a 19-day trial. This decision affirms the award. Plaintiff could recover fees for all hours spent by its attorneys though the first $500,000 in fees was paid for by its insurance. … Read More
The triall court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's request for an award of fees under CCP 2033.420(a) for proving facts stated in requests for admission that the defendant had wrongly denied. None of the grounds the trial court stated were supported by the evidence. Nor was the plaintiff required to allocate its fees to specific requests that defendant had… Read More
For an association to have standing to sue for its members, it must show that (a) its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right; (b) the interests it seeks to protect are germane to the organization's purpose; and (c) neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit. … Read More
Disagreeing with Villacorta v. Cemex Cement, Inc. (2013) 221 Cal.App.4th 1425, this decision holds that income a wrongfully terminated employee earns from another job after termination must be subtracted from her past economic damages for the wrongful termination whether or not the subsequent employment was not comparable or substantially similar to the job that was wrongfully terminated. The comparable or… Read More
When an appellate court’s reversal is accompanied by directions requiring specific proceedings on remand, those directions are binding on the trial court and must be followed. Here, the disposition language of the prior appellate decision directed a new trial of damages, which the trial court properly held. The opinion also contained advice on how the trial court should frame special… Read More
Following Contreras v. Superior Court (2021) 61 Cal.App.5th 461 and Provost v. YourMechanic, Inc. (2020) 55 Cal.App.5th 982, this decision holds that even when the arbitration agreement delegates arbitrability issues to the arbitrator, a plaintiff bringing a PAGA claim cannot be compelled to arbitrate the threshold issue of whether she is an "employee" with standing to bring a PAGA claim… Read More
In this case interpreting an old water decree, the court recognizes that use of the disjunctive "or" can, depending on context, mean either "one or the other, but not both" (its exclusive meaning) or "one or the other or both" (its inclusive meaning). Which meaning is to be given "or" depends on the context in which it is used. Here,… Read More
A landowner does not owe invitees a duty to provide adequate onsite parking so that the invitee won't be exposed to risks from traffic on adjoining streets that the invitee must cross to access the landowner's property from available offsite parking. Both precedent (Vasilenko v. Grace Family Church (2017) 3 Cal.5th 1077) ad the Rowland factors weigh against such a… Read More
Applying Kisor v. Wilkie (2019) 139 S.Ct. 2400 and its analysis of Auer deference, this decision concludes that a decision of the HHS Departmental Review Board which interpreted an ambiguous HHS Medicare regulation was entitled to Auer deference. The Board's interpretation was "authoritative" because the Board issues HHS' final decision in contested cases, subject to federal court review. The interpretation… Read More
Under the deferential abuse of discretion standard used to review trial court orders granting a new trial, this decision affirms a new trial order based on juror misconduct. It finds there was substantial evidence to support the trial court's implied finding that the defendant had not forfeited its right to complain of bias by failing to act promptly (before verdict)… Read More
Plaintiffs sued claiming they had been sexually molested while minors by a Roman Catholic priest. They sought to hold the Archdiocese vicariously liable for ratifying the molestation and directly liable for its own negligence in failing to supervise the priest. The trial court correctly denied the Archdiocese's Anti-SLAPP motion. The gravamen of the complaint was the priest's sexual molestation and… Read More
Defendant initially violated HBOR by refusing to consider plaintiff's loan modification application because only his deceased wife was the borrower on the loan, but defendant cured its violation after suit was filed by canceling the pending foreclosure, accepting and review plaintiff's loan modification application, and offering him a trial payment plan intended to lead to a loan modification. Thinking he… Read More
The gist of a teacher's FEHA claim for retaliation for filing a complaint with the DFEH was the defendant's adverse employment action, not the protected activity of the investigation it conducted leading up to that action or its later protected action of defending the adverse employment action before a review commission. Accordingly, the case did not arise from conduct protected… Read More
In determining whether a defendant's tortious conduct was the proximate cause of plaintiff's damage, the court must view the general set of circumstances not the particular facts of the case. So, here, the defendant escrow company's negligence in closing an escrow for the sale of a house led foreseeably to the seller's incurring damages in the form of attorney fees… Read More
The trial court abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's motion to amend the complaint in response to the trial court's ruling, before trial, on a motion in limine that plaintiff could not introduce evidence of attorney fees as damages under the tort of another theory because those damages were not alleged in the complaint. Plaintiff sought leave to amend to… Read More
When a contract provides that a third party (such as an engineer) will determine whether a party has sufficiently performed the contract, the third party's decision is conclusive and binding on the parties in the absence of bad faith, fraud, or gross negligence. Here, to settle prior litigation, three landowners agreed that they would each remediate a mudslide on their… Read More
The CMA sued under the UCL seeking an injunction banning Aetna's policy of discouraging its in-network doctors from referring patients to out-of-network doctors. This decision holds that the CMA's diversion of its time and assets to help its doctor members fight Aetna's policy doesn't qualify as a loss of money or property under B&P Code 17203 and that absent a… Read More
Although California and Indiana both generally enforce spendthrift trusts, the law of both states allow creditors to collect from the trust's assets when required by strong public policy--for example, to pay child support owed by the spendthrift beneficiary. This decision holds that under the law of both states, the trust's assets are accessible to pay attorney fees that an opposing… Read More
After firing Towner, an investigator in the County's District Attorney's office, the County sought a writ of mandate to enjoin the County's Civil Service Commission from reviewing the termination. In support of its writ petition, the County publicly filed confidential reports of its investigation of Towner's conduct, in violation of Gov. Code 832.7, part of the Police Officer's Bill of… Read More
