Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff worked as a delivery driver for TBS, a “last-mile” delivery company whose primary client was Amazon.com. At the start of his employment, he signed an At-Will Employment, Non-Disclosure, Non-Solicitation, Class-Action Waiver and Arbitration Agreement. Plaintiff filed suit asserting violations of the Labor Code, California’s Unfair Competition Law, and the Private Attorneys General Act, unlawful retaliation, and wrongful termination. The trial court denied TBS’s motion to compel the plaintiff to arbitrate his individual claims and to dismiss his class claims. The court found that the plaintiff was exempt from Federal Arbitration Act (9 U.S.C. 1, FAA) coverage because he was a transportation worker engaged in interstate commerce and that the class action waiver was unenforceable, rendering the arbitration agreement unenforceable.The court of appeal affirmed that the plaintiff is exempt from FAA coverage and that the class action waiver is unenforceable under California law. The court reversed the order denying the motion to compel arbitration of the plaintiff’s individual claims; the trial court improperly found the arbitration agreement unenforceable in its entirety rather than severing the class action waiver provision from the remainder of the employment agreement and considering the validity of the arbitration provision with respect to the individual claims for unlawful retaliation and wrongful termination. View "Betancourt v. Transportation Brokerage Specialists, Inc." on Justia Law

Yue, living in California, established and moderated a Chinese language online community website, ZZB. Many of ZZB’s bloggers and readers are California residents. Liu is a California resident who lives in Canada and owns and operates a competing website, Yeyeclub.com. Yang, who lives in Canada, posted on both sites. Yue filed suit in Contra Costa County against several defendants, including Yang and Liu, alleging unfair competition and defamation, citing Yang’s “sexually explicit, violent and insulting” posts on Yeyeclub. Some posts referred to Yang traveling to California to harm Yue. According to the complaint, Yang intentionally directed his defamatory messages at Yue in California, and intended to, and did, cause harm there.The trial court granted a motion to quash, finding that there was no basis for general jurisdiction over Yang. The court of appeal reversed. Yang purposefully availed himself of forum benefits, targeting his conduct at California through a website operated by a California resident that had a California audience, with a California focus. Yang’s defamatory posts on Yeyeclub injured Yue’s business and his reputation in California. Yang has not met his burden of presenting a compelling case that jurisdiction would be unreasonable under all of the circumstances. View "Yue v. Yang" on Justia Law

Tenants sued for breach of contract and bad faith retention of $4,800 from a security deposit; they subsequently moved to compel responses to requests for admission and interrogatories and requested sanctions ($3,060). Orders granting the sanctions were filed on March 20. On April 15, Tenants sought dismissal without prejudice and Landlord sought reconsideration or to set aside the sanctions, asserting that counsel was representing Tenants “pro bono,” so they incurred no legal fees, contrary to Tenants’ attorney’s representation. The clerk entered the dismissal on April 18. On May 6, Tenants filed “objections” to Landlord's motion, arguing that the court had no jurisdiction to reconsider the sanctions because Tenants dismissed their case. On May 28, the trial court granted Landlord’s motion and set aside the sanctions orders. A June 21 order states: “This matter was continued solely for the purpose of addressing the referral of Plaintiff’s counsel to the Bar. The Court determines that ... there was no intentional misrepresentation. The Court will not refer this matter to the Bar.”The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting Tenants’ argument that because they filed a voluntary dismissal, the court lacked jurisdiction to reconsider and set aside the sanctions orders. Disallowing reconsideration when sanctions were based on misrepresentations would violate a reasonable sense of justice and fair play View "Manhan v. Gallagher" on Justia Law

The identity of plaintiff's nontestifying expert is not entitled to absolute work product protection because it is not "a writing" that would reveal his "impressions, conclusions, opinions, or legal research or theories." However, if an attorney can show that disclosure of the identity of a nontestifying expert would result in opposing counsel taking undue advantage of the attorney's industry or efforts or impair the attorney's ability to prepare and investigate a case, the identity may be entitled to protection under the qualified work product privilege. In that case, the identity is only discoverable if the party seeking discovery can establish that "denial of discovery will unfairly prejudice the party seeking discovery in preparing that party's claim or defense or will result in an injustice."Plaintiff, an attorney and third-party witness in the underlying action, appeals from an order granting the motion of the California Employment Lawyers Association (CELA) to compel him to provide deposition testimony identifying a nontestifying expert whom plaintiff consulted in prior litigation. In the underlying action, CELA alleges an unknown CELA member (Doe 1) sent plaintiff, a non-member, information received from a members-only email distribution list in violation of a confidentiality agreement.The Court of Appeal concluded that the identity of Doe 1 is entitled to at most qualified attorney work product protection, and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding CELA met its burden to demonstrate denial of disclosure would unfairly prejudice CELA in prosecuting the action and only minimally disadvantage plaintiff. The court agreed with CELA that plaintiff has appealed from a nonappealable discovery order, but the court treated plaintiff's appeal as a petition for writ of mandate. Therefore, the court dismissed the appeal and denied the petition. View "Curtis v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County" on Justia Law

The Contractors’ State License Law (Bus. & Prof. Code 7031), allows any person who utilizes the services of unlicensed building contractors to sue for disgorgement of all compensation paid for the performance of any act or contract, even when the work performed is free of defects. CDC brought a section 7031(b) claim for disgorgement against Obayashi in 2017, more than eight years after the completion of construction of the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco. The issue of licensure came to light during litigation concerning construction defects.The trial court dismissed, citing Code of Civil Procedure 340(a), the one-year limitations period for statutory forfeiture or penalty causes of action. The court of appeal affirmed. The one-year statute of limitations applies to disgorgement claims brought under section 7031, and the discovery rule and other equitable doctrines do not. Even if such doctrines applied to statutory disgorgement claims, they would not apply under the circumstances presented under the pleadings. The court also upheld the trial court’s award of $231,834 in contractual attorney fees; the parties’ agreement contemplated the recovery of attorney fees for non-contractual causes of action that are initiated because of an alleged breach of the parties’ contract. View "San Francisco CDC LLC v. Webcor Construction L.P." on Justia Law

The issue presented for the Court of Appeal in this case centered on whether Alicia Clark exhausted her administrative remedies under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prior to filing suit against her former employer, Arthroscopic & Laser Surgery Center of San Diego, L.P. (ALSC). Clark filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) alleging ALSC committed various acts of employment discrimination against her. While Clark’s DFEH Complaint contained an inaccuracy as to ALSC’s legal name, it clearly and unequivocally reflected Clark’s intent to name ALSC as a respondent. Specifically, Clark’s DFEH Complaint named, as respondents, “Oasis Surgery Center LLC,” and “Oasis Surgery Center, LP,” which are variants of ALSC’s registered business name, “Oasis Surgery Center.” In addition, Clark’s DFEH Complaint referenced the names of her managers, supervisors, and coworkers. The same day that Clark filed her DFEH Complaint, the DFEH issued a right-to-sue notice and Clark filed this action against “Oasis Surgery Center LLC,” and “Oasis Surgery Center, LP.” One week after filing her DFEH Complaint and the initial complaint in this action, Clark filed an amended complaint in this action, properly naming ALSC as a defendant. Notwithstanding that Clark’s DFEH Complaint clearly identified her former employer as the intended respondent, the trial court granted ALSC’s motion for summary judgment as to all of Clark’s FEHA claims brought against it because Clark “named the wrong entity in her DFEH [C]omplaint, and . . . never corrected that omission.” Clark then filed a petition for writ of mandate to the Court of Appeal, requesting that it vacate the trial court’s order granting ALSC’s motion for summary judgment. After considering the text and purpose of the relevant statutory exhaustion requirement, administrative regulations, and applicable case law, the Court of Appeal concluded Clark exhausted her administrative remedies against ALSC. "This is particularly true in a case such as this, in which the plaintiff’s error could not possibly have hampered any administrative investigation or prejudiced the defendant in any judicial proceedings." Accordingly, Clark’s writ petition was granted and the trial court directed to vacate its order granting ALSC’s motion for summary judgment. View "Clark v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Rosario Contreras-Velazquez (Velazquez) sued her former employer, Family Health Centers of San Diego, Inc. (Family Health), alleging disability discrimination and related causes of action after she suffered a work-related injury and Family Health terminated her employment. A jury found Family Health not liable, but the trial court ordered a new trial as to three of Velazquez’s causes of action after finding the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict—a ruling, the Court of Appeal affirmed in a prior appeal. After retrial, a jury found in favor of Velazquez. The jury awarded her $915,645 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages. However, the trial court granted in part a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) and reduced the punitive damages award to $1,831,290 (a 2:1 ratio of punitive to compensatory damages). The court reasoned a punitive damages award equal to twice the compensatory damages award was the maximum amount permissible under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Family Health appealed, contending certain special verdict findings returned by the first jury estopped Velazquez from prevailing at the retrial under the issue preclusion doctrine. Family Health also appealed the JNOV order on the basis that the reduced punitive damages award remained grossly excessive in violation of Family Health’s due process rights. The Court of Appeal concluded the first jury’s special verdict findings did not constitute a final adjudication of any issue and, therefore, the trial court correctly ruled that the issue preclusion doctrine did not require entry of judgment in Family Health’s favor. Further, the Court concluded the trial court properly reduced the punitive damages award to an amount equal to twice the compensatory damages award—and no further. Therefore, both the judgment and the JNOV order were affirmed. View "Contreras-Velazquez v. Family Health Centers of San Diego, Inc." on Justia Law

Vendor Surveillance Corporation (VSC) appealed an adverse judgment in its action seeking refund unemployment insurance taxes assessed by the California Employment Development Department (EDD). The outcome turned on whether project specialists hired by VSC between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2013 (the audit years) were classified as employees or independent contractors. The issue presented by this appeal was one of first impression: whether in making that determination, the trial court should apply (1) the ABC test announced in Dynamex Operations W. v. Superior Court, 4 Cal.5th 903, (2018); or instead (2) the Borello factors (S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, 48 Cal.3d 341 (1989). "With little case law for guidance and an eye on appeal," the trial court analyzed the evidence alternatively under each standard and determined that project specialists were VSC’s employees. The Court of Appeal held that Borello provided the applicable standard in assessing unemployment insurance taxes during the audit years. Because the court’s findings under that standard were supported by substantial evidence and its qualitative weighing of the Borello factors was an appropriate exercise of the court’s discretion, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "Vendor Surveillance Corporation v. Henning" on Justia Law

Rio Vista Officer Collondrez responded to a hit-and-run accident. According to an internal affairs investigation, Collondrez falsified his report, arrested a suspect without probable cause, used excessive force, applied a carotid control hold on the suspect, and failed to request medical assistance. After hearings, the city agreed to pay Collondrez $35,000. Collondrez resigned. The agreement provides that Collondrez's disciplinary reports will only be released as required by law or upon legal process issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, after written notice to Collondrez. Penal Code section 832.71 was subsequently amended to require the disclosure of police officer personnel records concerning sustained findings of dishonesty or making false reports. The city responded to media requests under the Public Records Act for records, giving Collondrez prior notice of only some of the disclosures. Media outlets reported the misconduct allegations. His then-employer, Uber, fired Collondrez. Collondrez sued.The trial court partially granted the city’s to strike the complaint under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, Code of Civil Procedure 425.16, finding that Collondrez had shown a probability of prevailing on his claims for breach of contract and invasion of privacy but not on claims for interference with prospective economic advantage and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The court of appeal reversed in part, in favor of the city. The complaint arises from speech protected by the anti-SLAPP statute, but the trial court erred in finding Collondrez established a likelihood of prevailing two counts. View "Collondrez v. City of Rio Vista" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against two hospitals before the first hospital issued a final decision in the peer review proceeding addressing his reapplication. Plaintiff alleged multiple claims, including retaliation in violation of Health and Safety Code section 1278.5, a whistleblower provision that protects healthcare workers who advocate for medically appropriate care of a patient. The trial court sustained the demurrer filed by the first hospital, the hospital where plaintiff's reapplication privileges was pending.The Court of Appeal affirmed and concluded that plaintiff's claims against that hospital for unfair competition and conspiring with the second hospital to violate section 1278.5 failed to allege facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The court explained that, in this case, the hospital had yet to take any adverse action against plaintiff and his reapplication for privileges. Furthermore, the medical staff is a separate legal entity and, thus, its recommendation to deny plaintiff's reapplication is not an act of wrongdoing by the hospital. Therefore, the cause of action against the hospital had not yet accrued. View "Bichai v. Dignity Health" on Justia Law