Eugene M. Premo

In Ajaxo Inc. v. E*Trade Financial Corp., Ajaxo sued E*Trade for willfully and maliciously misappropriating its trade secrets under California's Uniform Trade Secrets Act after E*Trade used the information to develop wireless trading technology with another company. Following a prior trial establishing liability, the second trial focused on damages, where the jury found that E*Trade had not been unjustly enriched and instead suffered losses exceeding $2 million. The trial court denied Ajaxo's request for reasonable royalties, reasoning that unjust enrichment was provable even if the net amount was zero. The appellate court reversed, holding that since the jury determined no enrichment occurred, it was not proved for purposes of the statute, allowing the court to award a reasonable royalty instead.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

The case involved the appropriate residential placement for Michael K., a gravely disabled adult with developmental disabilities who had lived at Agnews State Hospital since 1986 and whose parents served as coconservators. After the state planned to close Agnews, the regional center proposed placement in a Senate Bill No. 962 Home, but the parents objected and an administrative law judge ordered placement at Sonoma Developmental Center instead. The public defender then filed a habeas corpus petition under In re Hop seeking the 962 Home placement; the trial court granted the petition, but the Court of Appeal reversed, ruling that the trial court had failed to defer to the administrative decision and that the public defender lacked standing given the existence of competent conservators.

civil rightsprocedurefamily law

The case involved the City of San Jose condemning roadway easements across Union Pacific Railroad property to widen Oakland Road, with the parties stipulating to the taking and litigating only the compensation owed. The trial court awarded nominal compensation for the portions of the easements within the 20-foot Necessary Track Clearance Width around the tracks and fair-market-value compensation for the portions outside that corridor. Union Pacific appealed the nominal award, arguing for full fair-market value throughout, while the City cross-appealed seeking nominal compensation everywhere; the appellate court affirmed the judgment. It held that the 1925 precedent City of Oakland v. Schenck controlled because the taking within the track corridor did not interfere with railroad operations and was consistent with continued railroad use, warranting only nominal damages, while areas outside the corridor received market-value treatment.

property

The case involved defendant Jason Hopkins, who pleaded no contest to possessing drug paraphernalia in prison under Penal Code section 4573.6 and was sentenced to two years consecutive to other terms. Hopkins appealed the trial court's denial of additional presentence custody credits, arguing he was held past his May 12, 2008 parole date solely due to the new charges until July 26, 2008, and that an amendment to section 4019 allowing day-for-day conduct credits should apply retroactively to his case. The Court of Appeal held that Hopkins was entitled to 75 additional days of custody credit under section 2900.5 because his extended incarceration was attributable only to the pending charges, reversing the trial court's order and directing modification of the judgment accordingly. However, the court rejected retroactive application of the section 4019 amendment, finding it did not apply to cases not yet final on the amendment's effective date. The judgment was affirmed as modified.

criminal lawprocedure

In this juvenile delinquency case, a 14-year-old minor admitted to felony vandalism by graffiti and was granted deferred entry of judgment with a condition to pay $516 in restitution to the City of San Jose for cleanup costs. After failing to pay, the minor moved under Welfare and Institutions Code section 742.16 to reconsider the order based on inability to pay, but the juvenile court held that the statute did not apply in the deferred entry of judgment context and declined to reach the motion's merits. The Court of Appeal granted a writ of mandate, concluding that section 742.16 applies to deferred entry of judgment cases because the statute's ability-to-pay requirement is consistent with the juvenile court's discretionary authority to impose and revisit restitution conditions during the deferral period. The court directed the juvenile court to hear and decide the motion on its merits, noting that ability to pay is relevant both at the outset and during the deferral to avoid impossible conditions and ensure victim compensation where no judgment will result.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, the Board of Parole Hearings denied parole suitability to Arthur Sam Criscione, who was serving a 15-to-life sentence for the 1979 second-degree murder of his girlfriend, after reviewing his commitment offense, institutional record, and psychological evaluations at his 14th parole hearing. The superior court granted Criscione's habeas corpus petition and ordered remand for a new hearing under the standards clarified in In re Lawrence (2008). The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the Board's decision satisfied Lawrence because it relied on more than immutable factors from the crime and connected its concerns—particularly the 2007 psychological report's limited assessment of Criscione's risk of violence against intimate partners—to its conclusion that he posed an unreasonable risk to public safety if released. The court noted that explicit recitation of a "rational nexus" was not required where the Board's reasoning was evident from the record.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a mother's appeal from a juvenile court judgment terminating her parental rights to three children and selecting adoption as the permanent plan, after the children had been removed from her custody due to her drug addiction, criminal history, and abuse. The mother challenged the sufficiency of evidence that her son was likely to be adopted, argued that the parental relationship exception to termination applied based on her visitation, and claimed deficiencies in notices under the Indian Child Welfare Act. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, holding that substantial evidence supported the finding of likelihood of adoption for all children, that the exception did not apply, and that the ICWA notices were adequate or substantially compliant without prejudicial error.

family lawprocedure

The case involved residents of a mobile home park suing Monterey County for failing to notify them or ensure notification about dangerously high fluoride levels in their drinking water, which had been reported in submissions from 1995 to 2002. The plaintiffs claimed the county breached mandatory duties under the California Safe Drinking Water Act and its regulations by not reviewing the reports and directing the water system operator to inform consumers. The court held that the regulations imposed an express mandatory duty on the county to conduct monthly reviews of water quality data to detect violations, and this duty was intended to protect people like the plaintiffs from harm. Therefore, the county could be liable under Government Code section 815.6 for negligence, with no applicable immunity, leading the court to reverse the trial court's sustaining of the demurrer and allow the claim to proceed.

environmenttorts & liability

The case involved defendant Clifford Lamar Jackson, Jr., who was charged with two counts of making criminal threats under Penal Code section 422 after an incident at a rental property where he made statements about blowing off or chopping off the heads of the property owners and others present. A jury acquitted him of the charged offenses but convicted him of the lesser included offenses of attempted criminal threats. On appeal, the court reversed the convictions, concluding that the trial court's jury instructions failed to adequately inform the jury of all required elements of attempted criminal threats. Specifically, the instructions omitted the requirement that the threats would reasonably have caused the victims to experience sustained fear for their safety, as set forth in People v. Toledo.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a contract dispute between DVD Copy Control Association, Inc. (DVDCCA), the licensor of the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to protect copyrighted DVD content from unauthorized copying, and Kaleidescape, Inc., a licensee that developed a home entertainment system capable of storing and playing back DVD content without reinserting the physical discs. DVDCCA sued for breach of contract and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing, alleging that Kaleidescape's system violated the CSS General Specifications by permitting persistent copies of rented or borrowed DVDs. The trial court entered judgment for Kaleidescape, ruling that the General Specifications were not incorporated into the license agreement and that any relevant terms were too indefinite to support the requested equitable relief. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the license agreement expressly required Kaleidescape to comply with specifications later provided by DVDCCA, that the General Specifications formed part of that obligation, and that the agreement's stipulation on irreparable harm should guide the remedy analysis; the court remanded for a determination of breach and appropriate relief.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In People v. Miller, a jury convicted defendant Thomas Miller, an inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison, of assault with a deadly weapon by a person serving a life term and attempted murder based on an incident in which he allegedly stabbed another inmate 26 times during a yard fight. The court found the evidence insufficient to support the life-term element of count 1 and held that the trial court abused its discretion by ordering the defendant shackled during trial without any record showing of manifest need, such as violence or escape risk. This shackling error was deemed prejudicial because it could have affected the jury's perception and the defendant's ability to participate, particularly given the contested identification evidence and the acquittal on the premeditated attempted murder charge. The judgment was reversed and the case remanded for retrial, with count 1 limited to the lesser offense of assault with a deadly weapon.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involves Arthur Criscione, who was convicted in 1979 of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life; after the Board of Parole Hearings denied him parole at his 2007 hearing, the superior court granted his habeas corpus petition and ordered a new hearing. The Warden appealed that order. The Court of Appeal remanded the matter to the Board for a new parole decision, directing it to apply the clarified 'some evidence' standard from In re Lawrence (2008), which requires a rational nexus between the Board's factual findings and a conclusion that the inmate poses a current danger to public safety. The court further directed that Criscione's parole plans could not support a denial of parole absent new evidence, while expressing no view on his ultimate suitability for release.

criminal lawprocedure

In Barron v. Superior Court, the case concerned a participant in California's CalWORKs welfare program who had a child support order against the father of her children; after the county substituted itself to enforce arrears, the trial court ordered the mother to obtain full-time employment and comply with a seek-work order, explicitly stating that compliance with her CalWORKs welfare-to-work plan (including school attendance) would not suffice. The mother appealed, arguing the order conflicted with state welfare law. The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's February 2008 order as an abuse of discretion, holding that requiring a CalWORKs recipient to prioritize full-time work over her approved welfare-to-work activities created an untenable conflict with legislatively established program requirements.

family lawlabor & employment

In this consolidated appeal from five habeas corpus proceedings, the superior court found that a regulation governing parole suitability determinations (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 2402, subd. (c)) was unconstitutionally vague as applied by the Board of Parole Hearings and that the Board violated separation of powers by exercising unfettered discretion over parole decisions; it therefore ordered the Board to develop a court-approved training program for its commissioners. The Board appealed, and the Court of Appeal stayed the orders pending review. The appellate court reversed, holding that the superior court erred because the regulation is not vague as applied and the Board's exercise of its statutory parole authority does not violate separation of powers.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involved a divorced couple's dispute over post-judgment modifications to child and spousal support obligations under their marital settlement agreement (MSA). The wife appealed the trial court's reduction in child support, arguing that the MSA's clause making child support "absolutely non-modifiable downward" should be enforced, while the husband cross-appealed the consideration of his mother's recurring $6,000 monthly gifts as income for support calculations. The court held that family courts retain authority to modify child support orders upward or downward regardless of private agreements, and that trial courts have discretion under the statewide guidelines to treat recurring gifts as income. However, it found that the trial court had misread the MSA when adjusting spousal support and reversed that portion of the order for reconsideration on remand.

family law

The case concerned whether a school district's nonreelection of a probationary teacher, alleged to be retaliation for the teacher's union activities, could be resolved through binding arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement. The district challenged the arbitrator's authority to order reinstatement, citing Education Code provisions granting districts discretion over probationary teacher reelection and prior precedent. The superior court vacated the reinstatement portion of the arbitration award. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that alleged violations of the Educational Employment Relations Act must be brought before the Public Employment Relations Board rather than through contractual arbitration procedures. The decision relied on the principle that the PERB has exclusive initial jurisdiction over such unfair practice claims.

labor & employmentprocedure

In Arcadia Development Co. v. City of Morgan Hill, a property developer sued the City after voters passed a 2004 measure extending until 2020 a growth-control ordinance's density restriction that limited development on certain annexed parcels to one unit per 20 acres. The trial court dismissed the equal-protection and takings claims as time-barred under the 90-day statute of limitations in Government Code section 65009, ruling that any cause of action had accrued when the original 1990 measure was enacted. The Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that the 2004 extension created a new cause of action because it freshly imposed the restriction for an additional decade, so the suit was timely.

propertybusiness & regulatoryprocedure

In 1987, Philander Lewis was convicted of voluntary oral copulation with a minor under Penal Code section 288a(b)(1) and ordered to register as a sex offender for life under section 290. After the California Supreme Court's 2006 decision in People v. Hofsheier held that mandatory registration for this offense violated equal protection because it did not apply to similar convictions for sexual intercourse with a minor, Lewis moved in 2007 to lift the registration requirement. The superior court denied the motion, finding discretionary registration under section 290.006 appropriate based on the offense and Lewis's later record. Treating the appeal as a petition for writ of mandate, the Court of Appeal concluded that Hofsheier applied directly to eliminate mandatory registration and that the record did not support discretionary registration. It therefore directed the superior court to vacate the registration order.

criminal lawcivil rightsprocedure

Thomas Wade sued the Schraders and other defendants for breach of fiduciary duty and conversion after his stock in Enterprise Broadcasting Corporation was revoked, alleging the shares were worth over $40 million. Wade reached good-faith settlements totaling $170,000 with some defendants before submitting his claims against the Schraders to binding arbitration, where the arbitrator awarded him about $75,500 plus interest and costs, a sum less than the prior settlements. After the award was entered as a judgment, the Schraders moved to compel partial satisfaction of the judgment based on the settlement credit under Code of Civil Procedure section 877. The superior court granted the motion in part, offsetting all but the costs portion of the judgment. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that the settlement credit arose by operation of law and that a motion to compel acknowledgment of satisfaction was a proper method to enforce it without improperly modifying the arbitration award.

torts & liabilityprocedurebusiness & regulatory

The case involved California residents who sued a Florida car dealership in California court for fraud and violations of consumer protection laws after purchasing a vehicle that did not meet expectations, with the complaint specifying that Florida substantive law would govern. The trial court granted the defendant's motion to quash service for lack of personal jurisdiction and later awarded the defendant attorney fees under the California Consumers Legal Remedies Act and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Plaintiffs appealed, arguing that the court lacked jurisdiction to award fees after quashing service and that fees were not available under the statutes. The appellate court held that a court retains jurisdiction to decide collateral matters such as attorney fees motions even after granting a motion to quash, and that the Florida fee statute applied because it was substantive rather than procedural. The court affirmed the fee award orders.

procedurebusiness & regulatorytorts & liability