Cites Wing v. Western Pacific R. R. Co. — APPEAL from a judgment of nonsuit of the Superior Court of Alameda County. William S. Wells, Judge. Reversed.
The case involved Dr. Wesley Gardner Slocum, charged with grand theft and submitting false Medi-Cal claims by billing the state for unrendered services and misusing patient identification labels from his practice. Following a six-month trial, a jury convicted him on one count of grand theft and twenty-two counts of false claims, resulting in a state prison sentence after denial of various pretrial and trial motions. On appeal, Slocum raised issues including the informant's access to confidential attorney meetings, denial of mistrial motions after jurors learned of a prior unrelated charge, admission of seized evidence, and jury instructions on theft amounts. The court affirmed the convictions, holding that no Fourth, Sixth, or Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated, the trial court's rulings on motions, evidence, and instructions were proper, and the charges were correctly pursued under Medi-Cal procedures.
The case involved a production worker who suffered severe injuries when caught between a pipe and an oven door due to failures in a chain-drag conveyor system and oven mechanisms at a pipe manufacturing plant. The worker, after receiving workers' compensation, sued the oven supplier, conveyor supplier, and general contractor on theories of negligence, warranty, and strict products liability, with the employer's compensation carrier intervening to recover benefits. A jury awarded $350,000 against all defendants, with special findings on employer negligence and lack of assumption of risk. The court affirmed the judgment against the contractor based on sufficient evidence of negligence, affirmed the grant of new trials to the suppliers due to issues with their products, and denied motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict.
The case concerned founding shareholders of Documentor Sciences Corporation (DSC) who sued Electronic Memories and Magnetics Corporation (EMM) and related defendants over a 1969 financing agreement and subsequent asset sale that allegedly deprived the shareholders of ownership interests and rights under the agreement. The trial court granted judgment on the pleadings and dismissed the complaint with prejudice, ruling that the claims were derivative in nature and could only be brought on behalf of the corporation rather than individually by the plaintiffs. On appeal, the court reviewed the complaint's allegations under the standards applicable to judgments on the pleadings, assuming the facts pled to be true, and analyzed whether each cause of action asserted personal rights or corporate claims. The appellate court addressed issues including the character of the claims, third-party beneficiary status under the contract, and prematurity defenses, ultimately evaluating whether dismissal was proper based on those distinctions.
In Jarchow v. Transamerica Title Insurance, two married couples purchased property for commercial development after receiving a preliminary title report and title insurance policy from Transamerica that omitted any reference to a recorded easement for ingress and egress held by an adjacent landowner. The buyers sued the neighbor to quiet title and the title company for breach of contract and negligence after the company refused to address the easement; a trial court awarded damages for attorney's fees and loss of use, and a jury later awarded $200,000 in general damages for negligent infliction of emotional distress and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The appellate court affirmed the judgment, holding that a title insurer may be liable for compensatory damages, including emotional distress, when it negligently fails to discover or disclose a recorded encumbrance and unjustifiably refuses to take action to clear the title upon notification. The court reasoned that the insurer's conduct breached its duties under the policy and California law on good faith and fair dealing, even absent fraud or malice.
Earl Hale sued Universal Marketing Enterprises Co. and its president for breach of contract and fraud after paying $25,000 for 39 vending machines that were never delivered, and also brought claims for negligent misrepresentation against Welch Foods and Hormel based on Hormel's regional manager recommending Universal and Welch permitting use of its name in ads. The trial court granted summary judgment to Welch and Hormel, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. The court held that no material misrepresentations occurred because the statements by Hormel's manager were either true facts or non-actionable opinions, there was no close connection between the defendants' conduct and Hale's loss, and neither company was in the business of supplying information or had a duty to investigate Universal. The court further noted that imposing liability would place an unreasonable burden on national distributors to vet every potential customer.
The case involved a date picking machine's hydraulic cylinder that failed after repair by Dyna-Lift, causing injuries to two workers and damage to the machine owned by Codekas Brothers. Multiple lawsuits were consolidated and tried on theories including negligence and strict liability in tort, resulting in verdicts for the plaintiffs. Dyna-Lift appealed, arguing that strict liability does not apply to a mere repairer. The court affirmed the judgments, reasoning that since the case was tried on multiple theories with general verdicts returned and no special verdicts, it must be presumed that the jury's verdicts were supported by the negligence theory, as the limited record on appeal does not show error on its face.
