Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

San Bernardino County Children and Family Services (CFS) removed K.T. (K. or child) from his mother when he was about nine months old. At that time, a nurse noticed that he had an enlarged head. He was placed with distant relatives, Mr. and Ms. B., who were already caring for his older half-brother. Further testing showed that K. had a subdural hematoma. Meanwhile, the B.’s began refusing to communicate with K.’s social worker or her “friends” in the same office, claiming that she had discriminated against them and insulted them. CFS detained K., placed him in a special health care needs foster home, and filed a petition to remove K from the B.'s custody. The B.'s in turn, filed a "changed circumstances" petition for return of the child. The trial court denied the B.'s petition, finding they had not show they were qualified as a special health care needs foster home. It then granted CFS' petition, finding that communication between the B.'s and CFS has broken down. The B.'s appealed; CFS contended the B.’s lacked standing to appeal the trial court's orders, citing In re Miguel E., 120 Cal.App.4th 521 (2004). The Court of Appeal agreed with Miguel E. that, in general, a person from whom a child has been removed under Welfare & Institutions Code section 387 lacked standing to challenge the removal. However, when that person is a relative, the Court disagreed with Miguel E., because under Welfare & Institutions Code section 361.3, a relative has standing to appeal from a refusal to place a child with him or her (an argument that Miguel E. did not consider). Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal rejected the B.'s contentions of error and affirmed the trial court's orders. View "In re K.T." on Justia Law

Kennith Evans was pulled over for driving with his off-road-only lights illuminated while on a "highway." After exhibiting signs of intoxication, Evans consented to a chemical breath test. Evans was notified his license was being suspended for driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent or more. The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) upheld the suspension after conducting an administrative hearing. Evans filed a petition for a writ of administrative mandate challenging the DMV's decision. Evans the appealed the superior court's denial of his writ petition. In his petition, Evans argued his suspension was not supported by substantial evidence: he contended he was allowed to use off-road lights inasmuch as the road he was on was not a "highway" as defined by section 24411 of the Vehicle Code. In addition, he claimed substantial evidence did not support the finding he was driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.08 percent or more because the time entries on the notice indicate the arresting officer administered two chemical breath tests before he had had the opportunity to observe Evans for 15 minutes, as required by Title 17 of the California Code of Regulations. After review, the Court of Appeal determined Evans’ initial stop was lawful, the DMV and superior court properly considered the dispatch log and breath test results, and substantial evidence supported the superior court’s findings. View "Evans v. Shiomoto" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs claimed that the California Secretary of State misinterpreted and failed to properly enforce, Elections Code section 14201, which requires the posting and availability of facsimile ballot materials printed in languages other than English at certain polling places. The court of appeal concluded the Secretary properly assessed the need for language assistance on a precinct, rather than county-wide, basis. The Secretary acted within his discretion in looking to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10101) to inform his interpretation of “single language minority,” terminology used in both section 14201 and the Voting Rights Act. However, in tying his language assistance determinations to the list of jurisdictions determined by the Director of the Census and Attorney General to be subject to the requirements of the Voting Rights Act, the Secretary erroneously imported into state law the federal Act’s higher percentage threshold of voting-age citizens who are members of a single language minority group (five percent, rather than three percent as specified by state law). View "Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles v. Padilla" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was 43 years old when she began working for Defendants. She worked for approximately 15 years before retiring at age 58 due to rheumatoid arthritis. In 2000, Plaintiff successfully applied for disability retirement. Years later, Plaintiff brought a putative class action lawsuit, alleging that Defendants discriminate on the basis of age in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) (Gov. Code, 12900) by providing reduced disability retirement benefits to older employees who took disability retirement after working for the City for less than 22.22 years. Plaintiff alleged that she became aware her retirement benefits were based on her age after seeing an advertisement on or about July 20, 2017, more than 17 years after her retirement. The court dismissed on the ground that Plaintiff did not file a complaint with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing within one year of the date the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred. The court of appeal reversed. The disparate treatment and disparate impact claims were timely with respect to the allegedly discriminatory disability retirement payments that Plaintiff received within one year of the date on which she filed her DFEH complaint. View "Carroll v. City and County of San Francisco" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order reappointing the public guardian of the county as conservator of D.P. under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, because D.P. was gravely disabled as a result of a mental disorder. In the published portion of the opinion, the court held that the trial court properly instructed the jury using the applicable statutory definition of gravely disabled. View "Conservatorship of D.P." on Justia Law

Defendant California Community College Athletic Association (Athletic Association) administered intercollegiate athletics for the California community college system. The parties agreed that, as a condition of participating in the intercollegiate football league, plaintiff Bakersfield College (the College) agreed to be bound by the Athletic Association’s bylaws and constitution, including a provision requiring the College to resolve any sanctions and penalty disputes by binding arbitration. Instead of proceeding through binding arbitration to challenge the sanctions and penalty decisions issued by the Athletic Association and codefendant the Southern California Football Association (the Football Association) against the College, the College and coplaintiffs Jeffrey Chudy and the Kern Community College District elected to file civil litigation. Plaintiffs argued they were excused from pursuing binding arbitration because the arbitration provision was unconscionable. The trial court said the “issue [wa]s close,” but ultimately, after severing the one-sided attorney fees subsections, found the arbitration provision was not unconscionable. The trial court, therefore, found plaintiffs’ litigation was barred by the failure to exhaust their administrative remedies. The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial court that this was a close case but concluded the arbitration provision was unconscionable. Accordingly, it reversed. View "Bakersfield College v. Cal. Community College Athletic Assn." on Justia Law

Real parties in interest Thomas and Helen Austin (the Austins) filed an action to recover development impact fees under the Mitigation Fee Act for the failure of petitioners County of El Dorado and its Community Development Agency (collectively “County”) to make prescribed findings to justify the continuing need for 11 fees assessed by the County and its special districts. The trial court denied a second demurrer that renewed the County’s previous claim that the limitations period for the Austins’ action expired. On the County’s petition for a writ of mandate to overturn this ruling, the Court of Appeal issued an alternative writ or order to show cause and issued a stay of proceedings. On plenary review, the Court of Appeal vacated the stay and denied the County's petition for a writ of mandate. While the Court agreed with the County that a one-year limitations period applied, if not made within one year of the deadline for findings, the Court surmised the plaintiff has only a limited remedy for the subsequent payments made within one year before filing a refund action, not the entire corpus existing at the time of the deadline. The County’s liability for failure to comply with its statutory duty is accordingly limited. The Court determined the trial court thus correctly overruled the demurrer, because there is at least some portion of the Austins’ cause of action for a refund that is timely. "Whether this merits further litigation of this matter is for the Austins to determine." View "County of El Dorado v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

Defendant County of Placer sold plaintiff Patrick Hodges’s real property at a tax sale. The County later paid plaintiff the excess proceeds remaining from the sale less payments made to others. Plaintiff contended the County, its board of supervisors, and its treasurer breached a fiduciary duty they owed him, and converted his personal property, when they did not audit a payment made from the proceeds to others and did not pay him interest or earnings on its investment of the proceeds while it held them in trust. The trial court sustained the County’s demurrer to plaintiff’s second amended complaint without leave to amend and entered a judgment of dismissal. The trial court determined plaintiff could not state a claim for breach of a fiduciary relationship because no such relationship existed between him and the County. Even if a fiduciary relationship existed, plaintiff did not allege any breach or any damages arising from a breach. The court also found plaintiff could not state a claim for conversion. He did not allege the County committed a wrongful act in withholding the excess proceeds or that it interfered with his possession of the proceeds. After the Court of Appeal concurred with the trial court and affirmed its judgment. View "Hodges v. County of Placer" on Justia Law

Federal law requires that California must pay the counties and their clinics one hundred percent of the cost of a defined list of services for providing Medicare beneficiaries. Furthermore, California's Medi-Cal statute is consistent with the federal requirement. The Clinic filed suit against the State, seeking the full amount the clinic paid to a contractor. The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's grant of the Clinic's petition seeking to require the state to pay one hundred percent of the amount the Clinic paid the contractor. View "Tulare Pediatric Health Care Center v. State Department of Health Care Services" on Justia Law

In July 2013, the California State Board of Pharmacy (the Board) filed an accusation against pharmacist Solomon Oduyale, citing 20 charges for discipline and seeking revocation of his pharmacist license. By August 2016, Oduyale had successfully challenged all but nine of the charges for discipline against him. The Board then ordered Oduyale's pharmacist license revoked. Oduyale challenged the Board's decision in court by filing a petition for writ of mandate. In his petition, Oduyale argued the Board lacked justification for revoking his license, and suggested it could have imposed stringent conditions on probation instead. The superior court did not comment on the propriety of the revocation decision, but concluded that because the Board's decision did not include an explicit discussion of each possible level of discipline with an explanation for why each would have been inappropriate in Oduyale's case, the Board abused its discretion. The Board appealed to the Court of Appeal, challenging the trial court's requirement that it discuss every possible form of discipline short of revocation in its written decision, and also asked for consideration of whether it acted within its discretion to revoke Oduyale's pharmacist license based on the nine causes for discipline. Oduyale cross-appealed, contending the trial court erred by remanding the matter for further consideration by the Board and arguing the court should have directed the Board to impose a penalty short of revocation. The Court of Appeal agreed with the Board: the trial court erred by directing it to provide in writing its reasoning for not imposing each penalty short of revocation. Furthermore, the Court concluded the Board acted within its discretion to revoke Oduyale's pharmacist license. Accordingly, the trial court's judgment was reversed. View "Oduyale v. California State Board of Pharmacy" on Justia Law