In McCourtney v. Cory, surviving spouses of deceased judges sued the California State Controller seeking a declaratory judgment that their retirement allowances under the Judges’ Retirement Law should continue for life rather than terminate upon remarriage, arguing that differing statutory provisions for other surviving spouses created an unconstitutional restraint on marriage and violated equal protection and due process. The trial court ruled in the plaintiffs’ favor, but the Court of Appeal reversed. The court held that the remarriage-termination clauses did not impose a genuine barrier to marriage and that the Legislature had a rational basis for distinguishing among categories of surviving spouses—such as those of judges dying before eligibility for retirement benefits or those under deferred retirement—based on differing needs and benefit structures. It concluded that any resulting classifications were permissible under the state and federal constitutions and that challenges to benefit disparities should be directed to the Legislature.
The case involved a class action by bank customers challenging Security Pacific National Bank's practice of imposing a service charge (initially $3, later $4) for processing checks written on accounts with insufficient funds, whether the bank paid or returned the check. Plaintiffs argued that the charge was an unlawful penalty or liquidated damages under former Civil Code section 1670, based on an alleged implied covenant in the account agreement not to write NSF checks. The trial court granted a nonsuit and directed verdict for the bank after finding no such covenant existed, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. The court reasoned that signature cards and incorporated statutes treated overdrafts as requests for credit rather than breaches of contract, and plaintiffs failed to prove any industry custom or agreement prohibiting NSF checks, so no penalty analysis under the statute was needed.
In Kinsler v. Superior Court, a wife challenged trial court orders in a marital dissolution proceeding after her husband died following entry of judgments dissolving the marriage status but before resolution of reserved property division and support issues. The trial court had concluded that the death abated the action and vacated its prior interim orders on property and support. The Court of Appeal treated the appeal as a writ petition and held that the husband's death did not deprive the court of jurisdiction over the remaining issues because a final judgment on marital status had already been entered with jurisdiction expressly reserved, requiring substitution of the husband's estate as a party to proceed on those matters.
The case concerned whether the City of Los Angeles could offset a police officer's nonservice-connected disability pension payments by the amount of a later workers' compensation award for a back injury. Donald Wesley, retired in 1972 with a pension paid from the city's general fund, received a $3,780 workers' compensation award in 1978 for a 1971 service-connected injury; the city then suspended pension payments until the offset was satisfied. Wesley petitioned for a writ of mandate, arguing that the city charter's offset provision conflicted with Labor Code section 3751 and applied only to awards for the same injury. The court affirmed the denial of the petition, holding that the offset was permissible because the pension fund consisted solely of city contributions (not employee deductions) and the charter language allowed offsets against all nonservice pensions regardless of whether the injuries matched.
In Reyes v. Municipal Court, the petitioner was charged under Penal Code section 647(b) with soliciting prostitution from an undercover officer and sought extensive pretrial discovery after a hung jury, including names and addresses of other arrestees from the same night and complaints or personnel records regarding the officer's conduct to support an entrapment defense. The municipal court granted limited discovery of information tied directly to the petitioner's arrest, such as his own statements, officer identities, and percipient witnesses, but denied the broader requests. The Court of Appeal upheld this ruling, finding the additional discovery requests speculative and lacking plausible justification, with privacy interests of third parties outweighing any potential benefit, and deeming the complaints against the officer an irrelevant fishing expedition. The court emphasized that discovery motions require timeliness, specificity, and a showing that the information would promote a fair trial without undue burden.
The case concerned whether contractors who built an electrical transmission line for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation owed California sales and use taxes on materials purchased for the project. The State Board of Equalization initially advised that no tax was due on above-ground components because they qualified as tax-exempt sales of personal property to the United States, but after courts ruled that permanently installed transmission lines are improvements to real property, the Board assessed $212,000 in tax plus $179,000 in interest. The court upheld collection of the tax itself, reasoning that the lines were real property under applicable law and that contractors with the United States received no unconstitutional discrimination, but it ordered refund of the interest because the taxpayers had reasonably relied on the Board's earlier erroneous administrative ruling.