David George Sills

The case involved Bahram Nazeri, who was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder for stabbing his wife and mother-in-law to death. On appeal, the sole issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support findings of deliberation and premeditation for first-degree murder. The court affirmed the convictions, reasoning that the evidence allowed a reasonable inference that Nazeri, motivated by suspicions of his wife's infidelity, feelings of mockery from his mother-in-law, and fears of a plot against him, retrieved an ornamental knife and descended the stairs with the specific intent to kill both women.

criminal law

In this medical malpractice case, the Montgomerys sued physician Mark Knight over injuries from liposuction performed on Laura Montgomery, designating plastic surgeon John Shamoun as their expert on standard of care and causation. Knight's counsel, who had represented Shamoun in a prior malpractice case ten years earlier, moved to disqualify Shamoun as an expert to avoid any conflict arising from confidential information, and the trial court granted the motion. The appellate court granted the Montgomerys' petition for relief, holding that the disqualification was unnecessary because the matter involved successive representation focused on confidentiality rather than loyalty, and Shamoun could provide an unqualified informed waiver of the attorney-client privilege to allow counsel to proceed without restriction. The court directed the trial court to vacate the order and permit the waiver if properly executed.

proceduretorts & liabilityhealthcare

This shareholder derivative suit alleged that directors of VitroTech, a company formed through a reverse merger involving assets from Hi-Tech and a public shell company Star, engaged in self-dealing by transferring company assets to their private entities and imposing unfavorable obligations from related mining and IP companies. The trial court dismissed the second amended complaint after requiring allegations under Nevada law, reasoning that no fiduciary violations occurred during the plaintiff's stock ownership. The appellate court reversed the dismissal, holding that the trial court erred both in mandating Nevada law and in finding the allegations insufficient, as the complaint described ongoing self-dealing into the period of plaintiff's ownership. Plaintiff was granted leave to amend to plead claims under California law, which the court determined applied based on the company's contacts. Neither state's law permits such director self-dealing.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case concerns whether a lender complied with Civil Code section 2923.5 (the Perata Mortgage Relief Act), which requires contact with a borrower before filing a notice of default to assess the borrower's finances and explore foreclosure-avoidance options. Homeowners Terry and Michael Mabry challenged Aurora Loan Services' foreclosure proceedings on their refinanced home, claiming no such contact occurred, while the lender asserted multiple attempts were made. The court held that the statute creates a private right of action limited to postponing a foreclosure sale for compliance, does not require the borrower to tender the full debt, is not preempted by federal law given the narrow remedy, and does not demand a penalty-of-perjury declaration or custom drafting in notices of default. It further ruled that prior foreclosure sales cannot be undone for noncompliance and that class actions are inappropriate due to fact-specific inquiries. The matter was remanded to resolve conflicting factual accounts of the lender's efforts, as the trial court had ruled solely on legal grounds.

propertybusiness & regulatoryprocedure

The case arose from a lawsuit by a Dutch law firm against Boyajian, Ordoubadi, and Showrai for unpaid fees after the firm was deceived into pursuing a fraudulent claim before the Hague Tribunal. Boyajian and Ordoubadi filed cross-claims against each other for equitable indemnity. Ordoubadi had obtained a bankruptcy discharge in 1994, and the trial court ruled that this discharge barred Boyajian's prepetition indemnity claim. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that bankruptcy law discharges contingent claims, including unliquidated equitable indemnity claims that exist before the exact amount of liability is determined.

proceduretorts & liability

The case involved a class action lawsuit by Maria Lourdes Gutierrez against G & M Oil Company alleging violations of wage and hour laws regarding unpaid time for cashiers and missed meal breaks. After the company's vice president and general counsel, Michael Gray, failed to respond to the complaint, resulting in a default judgment, the trial court granted relief from default under Code of Civil Procedure section 473 based on Gray's affidavit of neglect. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that in-house attorneys qualify for mandatory relief under section 473 even if they hold corporate officer titles, as the statute's text makes no distinction and Gray was acting solely in his legal capacity by concealing the litigation. The decision relied on prior Supreme Court precedents treating in-house counsel as attorneys for purposes of fee awards and retaliatory discharge claims, without creating an implied exception for dual-role counsel when only legal services were involved.

procedurelabor & employmentbusiness & regulatory

The case involved plaintiff Alex Wald, who alleged an oral agreement to locate used Porsches for defendant TruSpeed Motorcars in exchange for finder's fees totaling about $40,000 for 11 vehicles; TruSpeed refused payment after obtaining the cars. The trial court sustained TruSpeed's demurrer without leave to amend on four of five causes of action, ruling that Vehicle Code section 11711.3 barred recovery because Wald lacked a dealer's license. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the complaint alleged facts showing Wald acted only as a finder whose compensation depended on the dealer's purchase, not as a dealer himself, and that section 11711.3's prohibition on unlicensed dealers recovering car-sale proceeds did not apply to his claims for services rendered. The court noted the licensing statutes' purpose is to protect car buyers from unscrupulous dealers, not to shield dealers from paying agreed compensation to their finders.

business & regulatoryprocedurelabor & employment

The case involved a defamation claim by plaintiff Hung Tan Phan against defendant Lang Van Pham, who had forwarded an email containing accusations that Phan was disciplined by the Republic of Vietnam Navy for abusive behavior. Pham added his own introductory paragraph inviting others to read the comments but did not alter the original message. The court held that Pham was immune from liability under section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act, as interpreted in Barrett v. Rosenthal. The core reasoning was that Pham's actions did not cross the line into active involvement or material contribution to the defamatory content, unlike cases where a defendant creates or designs content that promotes illegality, such as in Fair Housing Council v. Roommates.com; merely forwarding with a neutral introduction does not remove the statutory protection.

free speechtorts & liability

This case involves the dissolution of the marriage between Teresa and Thomas MacManus, where Thomas appealed the trial court's handling of support payments following incidents of domestic violence that led to his convictions and incarcerations. The trial court deducted certain child support arrearages for a period when the couple reconciled and lived together, awarded future child support based on Thomas's income, found no additional credits or charges for business assets or settlement proceeds due to both parties' actions, and declined to award spousal support to either party after considering factors under Family Code section 4320 including the history of domestic violence. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, holding that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in reallocating back child support to spousal support arrears without further need-and-ability analysis given the statutory framework and evidence presented. The opinion emphasizes the rebuttable presumption against spousal support for an abusive spouse under section 4325 and the broad discretion afforded in family law support determinations.

family lawcriminal law

The case involved a dispute among equal stockholders in Newland Pharmacy, a California corporation, over the sale of shares by Tien Le and Dieu-Hoa Le. The corporate bylaws required written notice of any intent to sell and granted Lieu Pham a right of first refusal, with any transfer violating those terms deemed null and void. The Les sold their 50 percent stake to third parties on terms more favorable than those offered to Pham, prompting Pham to file a cross-complaint alleging breach of fiduciary duty. The trial court found the transfer invalid under the bylaws but ruled that Pham had not proven her fiduciary-duty claim. The Court of Appeal held that attempting to sell shares in violation of the right of first refusal constitutes a breach of fiduciary duty and remanded the case for determination of damages to Pham and the corporation.

business & regulatory

In Barbosa v. Impco Technologies, Inc., an hourly employee who supervised others was terminated after he claimed, based on coworkers' statements, that he and his team were owed two hours of overtime pay due to a possible timeclock error; the employer investigated, determined the claim was unfounded using gate entry records, and fired him for falsifying time records. The trial court granted the employer's motion for nonsuit on the wrongful termination claim, ruling that no public policy protected a good-faith but mistaken overtime demand by an at-will employee. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that the public policy requiring employers to pay overtime wages shields employees from retaliation for asserting such claims in reasonable good faith, even if later shown to be incorrect, and that sufficient evidence existed for a jury to decide the issues of good faith and the employer's true motive. The court reasoned that requiring proof of an actual legal violation would chill employees' exercise of statutory rights, drawing on precedents involving reports of suspected illegal activity or safety violations.

labor & employment

In this family law case, a trial court modified a spousal support order to prevent it from stepping down to zero, citing the termination of a companion child support order 17 months earlier as a change in circumstances under Family Code section 4326. The supporting spouse appealed, arguing that the statute did not authorize the modification because the child support order was no longer in effect. The Court of Appeal reversed the modification order, holding that section 4326 requires the child support order to be in effect at the time of the request for modification, and that a delay of 17 months exceeded any reasonable contemporaneousness with the termination of child support. The court reasoned that the statute's use of the present tense "is in effect" could not be stretched to cover such a long passage of time, and no other basis for modification was presented.

family law

The case involved a challenge by the National Paint & Coatings Association to amendments by the South Coast Air Quality Management District limiting volatile organic compounds in various paints and coatings under the district's air pollution rules. The court upheld the limits for most categories, such as floor coatings and primers, because substantial evidence showed that compliant products were both available and achievable. For quick-dry enamels and rust preventative coatings, however, the record showed no existing compliant products, so the court directed a conditional writ allowing the district to demonstrate current technology compliance or requiring rollback to prior limits. The reasoning centered on statutory requirements in Health and Safety Code sections 40440 and 40406 that emission limits must be based on available and achievable technology rather than speculation about future developments.

environmentbusiness & regulatory

This case involved Quang Minh Tran, a member of a Vietnamese gang, who attempted to murder a rival gang member and fatally shot an innocent bystander he mistook for a rival during a gang-related confrontation in an apartment complex parking lot. Tran was convicted of murder, attempted murder, street terrorism, and related charges, with firearm and gang enhancements, leading to a sentence including 54 years to life plus life with the possibility of parole, all terms running consecutively. On appeal, the court affirmed the murder and attempted murder convictions along with most sentencing decisions, rejecting challenges to evidence of prior gang extortions, a witness's outburst, alleged juror misconduct, and upper-term sentencing based on adult priors. However, the court stayed the three-year sentence for street terrorism under Penal Code section 654, reasoning that the jury instructions limited the street terrorism charge to the same shootings that formed the basis of the murder and attempted murder convictions, meaning they involved a single objective and could not be separately punished.

criminal law

The case involved a groundwater pumping company suing its liability insurer for breach of contract and bad faith after the insurer refused to defend a lawsuit stemming from a sewage overflow claim under a CGL policy that included a pollution exclusion. The insured relied on both the written policy and an alleged oral promise made at a meeting to cover future sewage claims, resulting in a jury award of about $10 million in damages (mostly attorney fees) plus punitive damages. The appellate court held that the oral promise theory could not support recovery because it was never pleaded in the complaint or amended into it. The court further concluded that the trial judge's in limine ruling finding an unreasonable breach of the written policy as a matter of law was erroneous under precedents like Buss v. Superior Court and Morris v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co., which address the scope of the duty to defend mixed actions and an insurer's right to reimbursement for uncovered claims.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

The case involved Yuki Kobayashi, who had been declared a vexatious litigant subject to a prefiling order in a Los Angeles Superior Court action and sought to file a notice of appeal in a separate Orange County case without obtaining the required prefiling permission by claiming he was a different person with the same name. The court denied his application to file the notice of appeal. The core reasoning was that the address Kobayashi provided matched the address on the Judicial Council record for the vexatious litigant, making his mistaken-identity claim false and showing he had not demonstrated an arguable issue on appeal, which concerned his own identity; the opinion also explained the statutory framework under Code of Civil Procedure section 391.7 for maintaining and using the vexatious litigant list to allow clerks to verify identity via non-public addresses.

procedure

The case involved a dispute among members of an LLC formed to develop property, where one side invoked a buyout clause in the operating agreement after an offer to purchase the company's asset and proceeded directly to arbitration under a clause incorporating AAA rules existing at the time of any arbitration. The arbitrators issued an award in favor of the invoking parties after determining they had jurisdiction to decide arbitrability, but the trial court denied confirmation of the award, holding that the arbitrators lacked authority to rule on their own jurisdiction and that the buyout issue fell within an express exception for matters in the members' discretion. The appellate court affirmed, reasoning that a contract's reference to AAA rules did not clearly and unmistakably delegate jurisdiction questions to arbitrators when no such AAA rule existed at the time of contracting, even if later rules might provide for it, and that the dispute was therefore for the court to resolve.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a worker, Eliazar Zaragoza, who was hired by an unlicensed contractor to perform remodeling work on homeowner Maria Ibarra's property and was injured when a ladder he was using slipped while he was prying a nail. Zaragoza sued Ibarra for negligence after his injury, but the trial court granted summary judgment in Ibarra's favor, and the appellate court affirmed. The court reasoned that workers' compensation laws did not apply because Zaragoza had worked fewer than the required 52 hours in the prior 90 days, leaving him to pursue a tort claim, but undisputed facts showed no negligence by Ibarra and that the injury resulted solely from Zaragoza's own actions in setting up and using the ladder. The decision emphasized that the homeowner took ordinary care and bore no liability under the circumstances.

labor & employmenttorts & liability

The case concerned whether a Japanese manufacturer, Yamaha-Japan, could be validly served with process in a California product liability lawsuit by serving its wholly owned American subsidiary, Yamaha-America, which acted as the exclusive importer, distributor, and warranty provider for Yamaha vehicles in the U.S. The trial court denied Yamaha-Japan's motion to quash service, finding Yamaha-America qualified as its general manager in the state. On review, the Court of Appeal held that service on the subsidiary was valid under California Corporations Code section 2110, as established by the non-overruled Supreme Court precedent in Cosper v. Smith & Wesson Arms Co. (1959), which treats such a subsidiary as a general manager for service purposes when it performs substantial business functions for the parent. The court further concluded that, under the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Schlunk (1988), valid service under state law on the domestic subsidiary eliminates any requirement to follow Hague Service Convention procedures.

procedure

The case concerns a father's writ petition challenging two pretrial orders in an ongoing child custody proceeding following reversal of a prior custody order: a $9,000 attorney fee award to the mother and a reduction of the father's appellate costs award from about $6,000 to under $3,000 payable in $150 monthly installments. The court granted the petition and vacated both orders. It held that the fee award failed to reflect consideration of all mandatory factors under Family Code sections 2030 and 2032, including the father's negative cash flow, the parties' assets and support obligations, new-partner contributions, and the necessity of the mother's incurred fees. It further held that the cost order was legally erroneous because postappeal costs create a money judgment that a trial court lacks authority to alter into installment payments. The reasoning centered on ensuring both parties can obtain sufficient resources to litigate adequately under the statutory scheme.

family lawprocedure