In the recent case of Newland v. County of Los Angeles (2018) WL 3017203, the 2nd District of the California Court of Appeal considered the “Vehicle use exception” to the “going and coming” rule of employees commuting to work. An employee’s commute to and from work is generally not considered to be within the course…
In a case decided Monday, June 4, 2018, the California Supreme Court held that an insured employer that is sued for negligent hiring, retention, or supervision of an employee is entitled to coverage even when the alleged damage is caused by the intentional act of an employee.
In a recent case, the Forth District Court of Appeal held that a complaint that fails to state an amount of damages or states that it will be an amount “to be proved” is void not just voidable. In Airs Aromatics v. CBL Data Recovery Technologies 2018 DJDAR 5045, the Court set aside a $3…
In a recent California Court of Appeals case, the Court considered a matter of first impression: Can a Landlord be held liable to a commercial tenant for damage to a tenants property, resulting from an alleged sewage backup, when the tenant (who had a month to month tenancy after its lease had expired) had stopped…
In a recent California Supreme Court case, the Court resolved a split between Appellate Courts about whether a contractor can withhold payments to a subcontractor based on the “good faith dispute “ exception to the State’s prepayment laws if the dispute concerns any dispute between the parties or if the dispute must be directly relevant…
In a recent case, Baker Marquat LLP v. Kantor 2018 DJDAR 3685, (April 25, 2018), the California Court of Appeal held that in a binding fee arbitration, the submission and consideration of a confidential brief that contained claims not included in the arbitration demand was an ex parte communication. The Appellate Court found that the…
Whether a worker is classified as an independent contractor or an employee is of critical importance to businesses. By way of example, if a worker is classified as an employee, she is given the protection of the California Wage Orders and is entitled to regular meal and rest breaks as well as overtime compensation. If…
A California Appellate Court has held that in lawsuits involving multiple parties there may be more than one prevailing party entitled to contractual attorney’s fees. In the underlying case, the plaintiff sued a company for breach of contract and also named the company’s managing partner as an individual defendant, based on an alter ego allegation.…
A required element of a malicious prosecution action is for the plaintiff to prove that an underlying action was successfully terminated in its favor on the merits. In a recent case the California Court of Appeal held that if a plaintiff prevails on a single cause of action in a multi cause of action complaint,…
Apparently, a monkey took a selfie of himself and the picture went viral. PETA then sued the photographer who published the picture claiming that the monkey’s copyright privileges were infringed. The District Court granted the photographer’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that PETA did not have standing to sue for the monkey.