Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Ardon claimed that Los Angeles improperly collected a Telephone Users Tax (TUT). Ardon asserted that a 2007 amendment to the TUT was illegal because it expanded an excise tax that required approval by a majority of voters. In 2013 Ardon's counsel requested and received documents pertaining to the issue. Ardon's counsel later informed the city that she had obtained copies of two documents that appeared to be listed in a 2008 privilege log and a third document that appeared to have been prepared in response to other documents listed in the privilege log. The city responded that the documents had been inadvertently produced and demanded their return. Ardon's counsel declined, contending that the city had waived any claim of privilege. The trial court denied the city's motion to compel return of the documents and disqualify Arden’s counsel, concluding that production of the documents in response to the Public Records Act request waived any privilege. The court of appeal affirmed.View "Ardon v. City of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

In plaintiff-appellant Dagmar Hale's second appeal in a class action against Sharp Healthcare and Sharp Grossmont Hospital (collectively, Sharp), she argued Sharp unfairly charged her and other uninsured patients more for emergency services than the fees it accepted from patients covered by private insurance or governmental plans. In the first appeal, the Court of Appeal partially reversed a judgment of dismissal following a demurrer. The trial court thereafter certified the class. After engaging in discovery, Sharp moved to decertify the class arguing a class action was inappropriate based on lack of ascertainability and lack of predominantly common issues. The trial court considered the evidence presented and found there was no reasonable means to ascertain the members of class without individual inquiries of more than 120,000 patient records and continued class treatment was not appropriate because individualized issues, rather than common issues, predominate, particularly with respect to whether or not class members are entitled to recover damages. Finding no abuse of discretion, the Court of Appeal affirmed the order decertifying the class.View "Hale v. Sharp Healthcare" on Justia Law

Petitioner Safari Associates and real party in interest Alan Tarlov arbitrated a dispute pursuant to a written agreement. The arbitrator awarded Safari damages, attorney fees, and costs. Safari petitioned to confirm the arbitration award at the trial court. In response, Tarlov filed a motion to modify or correct the award on the ground that the arbitrator acted in excess of his powers in awarding Safari attorney fees. The trial court ruled that the arbitrator's decision to apply Civil Section section 1717 was subject to judicial review, and concluded that the arbitrator had erred in failing to apply the definition of "prevailing party" contained in the parties' agreement. The trial court corrected the award by ruling that the definition of prevailing party contained in the parties' agreement applied and remanding the matter to the arbitrator for further proceedings to apply the agreement's definition of prevailing party in determining whether to award attorney fees. Safari filed a petition for writ of mandate requesting that the Court of Appeal direct the trial court to vacate its order correcting the arbitrator's award. The Court found that the record unambiguously demonstrated that Safari and Tarlov extensively briefed this very issue in the arbitration. In addition, there was no provision in the parties' arbitration agreement that "explicitly and unambiguously limited" the arbitrator's power to determine the applicability of section 1717 in awarding attorney fees. Under these circumstances, the arbitrator acted within the scope of his powers in applying the definition of prevailing party found in section 1717, subdivision (b)(1) in awarding Safari attorney fees. Further, any error that the arbitrator may have committed would have constituted legal error, which was not subject to correction in the trial court. Accordingly, the Court granted Safari's petition and directed the trial court to vacate its order correcting the arbitration award, and to conduct further proceedings.View "Safari Associates v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

Defendant was charged with two felony counts of possessing cocaine for sale and the People filed a petition to forfeit the $2,709 in cash found in her possession. Defendant argued that the trial court lacked jurisdiction to enter the civil forfeiture order because the forfeiture action was "tried" more than two years after she entered her plea, in violation of the statutory mandate that the two actions be "tried in conjunction" with each other; and the trial court's grant of summary judgment violated her constitutional and statutory right to trial by jury. The court rejected defendant's arguments, holding that a civil action to forfeit less than $25,000 cash need not be tried or otherwise settled at the same time that the criminal defendant enters a plea on the "underlying or related" criminal drug charges. Further, defendant's right to a jury trial was not violated where, in this civil forfeiture action, defendant did not raise any procedural improprieties in the trial court's handling of the summary judgment motion, or its earlier order deeming admitted the People's requests for admission. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.View "People v. $2,709 U.S. Currency" on Justia Law

After the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) certified an environmental impact report (EIR) for its 2050 Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (transportation plan), CREED-2. The Affordable Housing Coalition of San Diego filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging the EIR's adequacy under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Cleveland National Forest Foundation and the Center for Biological Diversity filed a similar petition, in which Sierra Club and the State of California later joined. The superior court granted the petitions in part, finding the EIR failed to carry out its role as an informational document because it did not analyze the inconsistency between the state's policy goals reflected in Executive Order S-3-05 and the transportation plan's greenhouse gas emissions impacts after 2020. The court also found the EIR failed to adequately address mitigation measures for the transportation plan's greenhouse gas emissions impacts. Given these findings, the court declined to decide any of the other challenges raised in the petitions. SANDAG appealed, arguing the EIR complied with CEQA in both respects. Cleveland National Forest Foundation and Sierra Club (collectively, Cleveland) cross-appealed, arguing the EIR further violated CEQA by failing to analyze a reasonable range of project alternatives, failing to adequately analyze and mitigate the transportation plan's air quality impacts, and understating the transportation plan's impacts on agricultural lands. The State separately cross-appealed, arguing the EIR further violated CEQA by failing to adequately analyze and mitigate the transportation plan's impacts from particulate matter pollution. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded the EIR failed to comply with CEQA in all identified respects. The Court modified the judgment to incorporate its decision on the cross-appeals and affirmed.View "Cleveland Nat. Forest v. San Diego Assn. of Gov." on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from an underlying fraudulent real estate sale. Plaintiffs, purchasers of the property, obtained a judgment for $1,553,800, which included $850,000 in punitive damages. Plaintiffs unsuccessfully attempted to collect the judgment and moved for various postjudgment orders. The trial court granted these motions and issued orders enjoining defendants and their agents from selling, spending, transferring or dissipating any of their assets, which included money in any deposit account. When plaintiffs learned that defendants violated the orders, they filed a motion to dismiss the appeal under the doctrine of disentitlement. Defendants filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. The court concluded, based on the court's review of the motion and opposition papers, including a declaration from defendant Michael Weilert that did not deny any of the 47 transactions at issue, and argument by counsel, the court concluded that the balance of the equitable considerations relevant to the disentitlement doctrine favor dismissal. The court concluded that it would be unjust to allow defendants to seek the benefits of an appeal while willfully disobeying the trial court's valid orders and frustrating plaintiffs' legitimate efforts to enforce the judgment. Accordingly, the court granted plaintiffs' motion to dismiss.View "Gwartz v. Weilert" on Justia Law

Lender appealed from a judgment in favor of petitioner, as conservator of the person and estate of Louise E. Townsend, following a trial before a retired superior court judge appointed as a temporary judge. Petitioner moved to dismiss the appeal because Lender's notice of appeal was not filed within 60 days after service of notice of entry of judgment and Lender's motion to set aside and vacate the judgment submitted to the temporary judge did not extend the time within which to appeal because it was not timely filed with the superior court clerk as required under Cal. Rules of Court 2.400(b)(1), (2) and section 633(a), subdivision (a) of the Code of Civil Procedure. The court concluded that the time to extend the period to appeal is conditioned upon filing with the superior court clerk a valid notice of intent to move to vacate the judgment that satisfies all the statutory requirements. Submitting the motion to vacate to a temporary judge is not a valid motion because it does not comply with the Code of Civil Procedures and Rules of the Court. Consequently, the time to appeal was not extended. Accordingly, this appeal is untimely and the court dismissed the appeal.View "Conservatorship of the Person & Estate of Townsend" on Justia Law

Karton filed suit against its former client for unpaid fees and costs and obtained a default judgment, including an award of attorney fees under the parties' retainer agreement. The court reversed the trial court's determination that Karton is the prevailing party for purposes of an award of attorney fees and concluded that the client is the party prevailing on the contract within the meaning of Civil Code section 1717; reversed the trial court's determination that Karton is the prevailing party for purposes of an award of costs and concluded that the client is the party prevailing within the meaning of section 1032; and concluded that Sears v. Baccaglio provided no basis to affirm the awards of attorney fees and costs to Karton.View "David S. Karton v. Dougherty" on Justia Law

Parole agent Baron Earl was disciplined by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for conducting a purportedly unlawful search of a residence, and after an administrative hearing the discipline was upheld by the State Personnel Board. Earl appealed the trial court’s denial of his administrative mandamus petition, seeking to overturn the Board’s decision. On appeal to the Court of Appeal, Earl argued: (1) his motion to dismiss should have been granted due to lack of timely notice; and (2) no substantial evidence showed the search was unlawful, and that the level of discipline by the Department and later upheld by the Board reflected an abuse of discretion. The Court of Appeal agreed that notice was untimely. As such, the Court did not reach Earl’s remaining contention. The case was reversed and remanded with directions to issue a writ commanding the Board to grant Earl’s motion to dismiss.View "Earl v. State Personnel Bd." on Justia Law

Overstock.Com alleged that defendants intentionally depressed the price of Overstock stock by effecting “naked” short sales: sales of shares the brokerage houses and their clients never actually owned or borrowed to artificially increase the supply and short sales of the stock. The parties’ discovery demands were extensive, and, pursuant to a stipulation, the trial court issued a protective order that allowed the parties to designate Protected Material, and to further classify it as “Confidential” or “Highly Confidential.” The order required the parties to exercise good faith to restrict submissions to Confidential Information reasonably necessary for deliberations. Two years later, the court extended the order to confidential information pertaining to third parties. In 2011, the court allowed plaintiffs to propose a Fifth Amended Complaint. The publicly filed document and opposing documents were heavily redacted; un-redacted versions were conditionally lodged under seal. Defendants made10 motions to seal. Plaintiffs opposed five. The media also opposed sealing. The court then denied leave to file the proposed Fifth Amended Complaint, granted the motions to seal, and entered summary judgment for the defendants. The appeals court affirmed most of the sealing decisions, with exceptions for “irrelevant materials” that never should have burdened the court.View "Overstock.com, Inc. v. Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc." on Justia Law