Litigation

Punitive Damage Award Reversed Based on Erroneous Admission of Other Dissimilar Instances

Posted on March 05, 2008
Interesting application of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Campbell (2003) 538 U.S. 408 in the California context in yesterday's decision in Holdgrafer v. Unocal Corp. (2008) ___ Cal.App. 4th ___ (2d Civil No. B175953). Unocal (now owned by...

Wrongful Termination Case Based on Labor Code Section 232.5 is Preempted by NLRA

Posted on February 18, 2008
California has two statutes, Labor Code sections 232 and 232.5, that protect the rights of employees to disclose information about their compensation or working conditions. The first, Labor Code section 232, was enacted in 1984, provides: No employer may do...

Reid v. Google: Evidentiary Objections in Summary Judgment Motions

Posted on February 01, 2008
In practice areas where practitioners make heavy use of motions for summary judgment, there's been an ongoing controversy over how the courts treat evidentiary objections. Biljac Associates v. First Interstate Bank (1990) 218 Cal.App.3d 1410 held that a trial court...

How Not to Give References

Posted on January 29, 2008
Most employer's attorneys advise their clients that when an inquiry is made about a former employee, the employer should limit the response to confirming the former employee's dates of employment and job title. There are two reasons for this: avoiding...

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Not Such A Good Way to Defend A Prop 65 Case

Posted on January 25, 2008
Under Proposition 65 (Health and Safety Code Section 25249.5 and following), a private party enforcer (or bounty hunter) can sue any employer of ten or more persons who has exposed persons to carcinogens or reproductive toxicants on the governor?s lists...

Attorneys' Fees in Motions to Compel Arbitration

Posted on January 23, 2008
California's appellate courts have issued many decisions in the past several years on binding arbitration provisions in consumer and employment contexts, which are typically non-negotiated contracts of adhesion. But here's a commercial arbitration case (involving negotiated contracts and equal and...

How Not to Write An Employee Handbook

Posted on January 21, 2008
The Peters Law Group in Southern California is a small firm representing employees in discrimination, harassment and other litigation. They also publish the often excellent California Employee Rights Blog. Over the weekend, they published an amazing post on Tribune Co...

California -- Not a Judicial Hell Hole?

Posted on December 20, 2007
In April, the Chamber of Commerce published its list of judicial hellholes, giving California sixth place for the worst in the country, as I reported here. At year end, here comes the judicial hellhole listing from the American Tort Reform...

Mandatory Arbitration in Employment Contracts

Posted on December 18, 2007
Today's guest blawger is Michael Sachs, who practices employment law with our firm. Today's Wall Street Journal discusses the increasing use of arbitration provisions in employment agreements. The WSJ estimates as many as 20% of all businesses require employees to...

Pro-Defense Lockheed Gatekeeper Decision -- Gone for Good

Posted on December 14, 2007
I blogged a couple of times (here and here) and in a white paper about the Court of Appeals' decision in Lockheed Litigation Cases, where, despite the fact that Daubert has never been adopted in this state, the Court suggested...

Coupon Settlement in Ford Explorer Class Action

Posted on December 04, 2007
For months, I wanted to write a post on the Ford Explorer UCL litigation pending in Sacramento Superior Court, (Ford Explorer Cases, JCCP Nos. 4266 and 4270), but I never got around to it. The cases -- discussed at some...

Breaking News: Big Win for Automobile Dealers in Lease Documents Cases

Posted on November 29, 2007
For at least seven years, plaintiffs' counsel have tenaciously prosecuted In re Vehicle Lease Documents Cases (Trygar) in Los Angeles Superior Court. This Unfair Competition Law case was brought by Ed Masry (of Erin Brockovich fame) on behalf of Louis...

Defense Verdict in JDS Uniphase Trial

Posted on November 27, 2007
There is probably no jury verdict more likely to strike fear in the hearts of board members and officers everywhere than a securities trial verdict. The amounts at stake are nearly always mind-boggling, the cases involve concepts not exactly familiar...

Why Corporate Defendants Like the Federal Courts

Posted on November 21, 2007
I blogged not long ago (and there's also a discussion in my product liability white paper) on Lockheed Litigation Cases, a Court of Appeal decision upholding a California trial judge for performing something that looked a lot like Daubert gate-keeping...

Staples Wage and Hour Settlement

Posted on November 20, 2007
The focus of this blog is not employment law, and there are other blogs (Storm on the employer side, Wage Law on the employee side) whose authors do an excellent job in this field. But anybody who conducts any kind...

Another Boomer Verdict From the Electronics World

Posted on November 18, 2007
Verdict Search California (subs. req.) reports on the September, 2007 verdict for UniRamTechnology, Inc. against Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC). UniRam shared some proprietary semiconductor design information with TSMC under an NDA, while they explored having TSMC manufacture the semiconductors...

The Real Reasons for Litigation Delay

Posted on November 15, 2007
Say what you will about California. Sometimes we have a sense of humor, and sometimes we have manners. Sometimes we have both. Tentative ruling from Judge Barbara Zuniga from Contra Costa Superior Court (one of the nicer people on the...

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