California Legal Brief

The Rule of Stoker v. Blue Origin is that an arbitration agreement containing multiple unconscionable provisions — including overbroad scope beyond employment, lack of mutuality favoring employer, predispute jury trial waiver, and blanket representative action waiver — cannot be enforced and severance is inappropriate where the defects indicate systematic effort to secure an unfairly advantageous forum, under circumstances where the employer imposed the adhesive agreement as a condition of employment.

The Rule of Dawadi v. Adhikari is that check memo line annotations do not constitute sufficient written acknowledgment to revive a time-barred debt, under circumstances where the debtor explicitly refused to guarantee the debt, denied borrowing the money, and the annotations merely identify a payee for accounting purposes without constituting an unqualified admission of a subsisting obligation.

The Rule of Gonzalez v. Community Mortuary is that the affirmative defense of impracticability of performance is an equitable defense that must be decided by a judge, not a jury, under circumstances where a party seeks excuse from contract performance due to events making performance impracticable through no fault of their own.

The Rule of **Santana v. Studebaker Health Care Center** is that ambiguities in multiple arbitration-related documents signed simultaneously do not negate a valid agreement to arbitrate employment disputes where the parties' intent to arbitrate is clear from the overall terms, under circumstances where the documents contain minor conflicts regarding procedural matters like arbitrator selection but consistently reflect mutual agreement to resolve employment-related disputes through binding arbitration.

The Rule of In re Marriage of Charles and Julie Ann Bowman is that trial courts retain discretion to consider Family Code factors including the losing party's ability to pay when determining the amount of attorney's fees under a prevailing party clause in a marital settlement agreement, under circumstances where the MSA contains a general attorney's fees provision without specific limitations on the court's consideration of equitable factors.

The Rule of Aerni is that section 1940.1 does not require individualized proof that each class member used the hotel as their primary residence; rather, whether a hotel is "residential" is a hotel-wide inquiry based on the character and intended/actual use of the hotel as a whole, under circumstances where plaintiffs seek class certification for claims alleging the "28-day shuffle" practice at residential hotels.

The Rule of O'Leary v. Jones is that a party who obtains dismissal of a petition to confirm arbitration award on personal jurisdiction grounds is not a prevailing party under Civil Code section 1717 where the dismissal does not finally resolve the enforceability of the arbitration award and leaves the underlying contract dispute unresolved, under circumstances where the court expressly declines to rule on vacation of the award and the substantive claims may be pursued in another forum.

The Rule of Jacobs v. Papez is that an attorney may bring a single declaratory relief action against both the clients and a competing attorney lien claimant to enforce an attorney lien claim on settlement or judgment proceeds, under circumstances where the attorney obtained a recovery for clients and seeks to resolve competing lien claims without having to wait for other attorneys to first establish their liens in separate actions.

The Rule of Los Angeles County Professional Peace Officers Association v. County of Los Angeles is that a union's waiver of its right to meet and confer over an employer's outsourcing decision must be "clear and unmistakable," and vague management rights language stating the employer has "no obligation to negotiate the decision of any reorganization" does not satisfy this standard, under circumstances where the MOU discusses outsourcing procedures but does not expressly waive bargaining rights regarding the outsourcing decision itself.

The Rule of Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts is that collecting and maintaining individuals' ALPR information without implementing and making public the statutorily required policy harms these individuals by violating their right to know, under the California Automated License Plate Recognition Law (Civil Code sections 1798.90.5-1798.90.551).

The Rule of Jazmin Ayala-Ventura v. The Superior Court of Fresno County is that an employment arbitration agreement with potentially broad scope and indefinite duration is not substantively unconscionable when the employer's limited business operations restrict the realistic range of non-employment claims that could arise, under circumstances where the agreement provides mutual arbitration obligations, neutral arbitration procedures, and accessible dispute resolution terms.

The Rule of Diaz v. Thor Motor Coach is that forum selection clauses in motorhome warranties are unenforceable as unconscionable when they are part of warranty agreements containing other illegal provisions that violate California's Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, even when the manufacturer offers to stipulate not to enforce the illegal provisions in the out-of-state forum.

The Rule of In re Marriage of Danielle and Lewis Allen is that parents are precluded from contractually waiving or forgiving past due child support arrearages even after the child has reached the age of majority and there is no longer a current support order in place, under circumstances where the obligor seeks to enforce an accord and satisfaction agreement for less than the full arrearage amount.

The Rule of Findlay Grant et al. v. Chapman University is that a university's statements about class locations, campus facilities, and "face-to-face contact" requirements do not constitute sufficiently "specific" promises to create an enforceable implied contract for in-person education, under circumstances where the statements are general expectations rather than binding commitments and facilities descriptions contain express disclaimers.

The Rule of Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. is that a contract's format and illegibility generally do not support substantive unconscionability, but courts must closely scrutinize difficult-to-read contracts for unfair or one-sided terms when high procedural unconscionability exists, under circumstances where an employment arbitration agreement is presented in nearly illegible tiny print with minimal time for review.

The Rule of Navellier v. Putnam is that parties to an appeal must promptly notify the appellate court of any bankruptcy filing that "could cause or impose a stay" of proceedings, even if they believe the stay does not apply, under Local Rule 21's mandatory disclosure requirements.

The Rule of Navellier v. Putnam is that appellate counsel must promptly notify the court of any party's bankruptcy that could potentially cause a stay under Local Rule 21, regardless of counsel's belief about whether the stay actually applies, under circumstances where the attorney knows about the bankruptcy filing.

The Rule of Hatlevig v. General Motors LLC is that a motion for attorney fees must be served within 180 days of when a case is voluntarily dismissed pursuant to court order, even when no formal dismissal order is filed until a later date, under circumstances where the case was deemed dismissed by operation of court rules after settlement.

The Rule of Ashirwad, LLC v. Michael S. Bradbury et al. is that Civil Code section 1945's presumption of month-to-month tenancy renewal can be rebutted by objective evidence that parties did not mutually agree to continue the lease, even without proof of a new or different agreement, under circumstances where the parties' objective acts and words demonstrate lack of mutual assent despite payment and acceptance of rent.

The Rule of Sorokunov v. NetApp is that an arbitration award finding that a plaintiff did not suffer individual Labor Code violations can preclude the same plaintiff from claiming standing as an "aggrieved employee" in a PAGA action based on the identical violations, under circumstances where the plaintiff fully litigated the Labor Code violations in arbitration with a final award against them.

The Rule of Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan is that a contractual exclusion limiting evidence use only applies to valuations "under" the specific regulatory provision cited, and does not preclude use of the same evidence in quantum meruit valuations which are separate and distinct from regulatory determinations, under circumstances where the exclusion clause specifically references only determinations made pursuant to a particular regulation subsection.

The Rule of Wright v. WellQuest Elk Grove, LLC is that an arbitration agreement clause stating "an arbitrator will decide any question about whether a claim or dispute must be arbitrated" does not clearly and unmistakably delegate threshold arbitrability issues (including unconscionability and enforceability) to the arbitrator, under circumstances where the language is silent as to interpretation and enforceability issues and lacks specificity about applicable arbitration rules.

The Rule of Melissa I. Aerni et al. v. RR San Dimas, L.P., et al. is that Civil Code section 1940.1 does not require individualized proof that each plaintiff used a residential hotel as their own primary residence, under circumstances where plaintiffs seek class certification for violations of the statute's prohibition against the "28-day shuffle."

The Rule of The Merchant of Tennis is that when putative class members rescind individual settlement agreements obtained through fraud or duress to join a class action lawsuit, they must be notified in the curative notice that they could be responsible for repayment of settlement consideration at the conclusion of litigation pursuant to Civil Code sections 1689, 1691, and 1693, under circumstances where an employer has obtained nearly 1,000 individual settlement agreements from employees during pending class certification proceedings through misrepresentations about the litigation.

The Rule of Nishida v. Kamoda is that a civil fraud action alleging misrepresentations during family law property settlement negotiations may be transferred to family law court rather than dismissed for jurisdictional reasons, and the action remains timely under Family Code section 2122 if filed within one year of discovering the fraud, under circumstances where the plaintiff files in civil court but the case is properly transferred to family law court.

The Rule of Robert Toothman v. Redwood Toxicology Laboratory, Inc. is that a nonsignatory employer cannot compel arbitration under a temporary employment agency's arbitration agreement when the employee's claims arise exclusively from direct employment with the nonsignatory employer that occurred after the agency employment ended, under circumstances where the arbitration agreement defines "Company" to include only the agency and its affiliates, subsidiaries and parent companies, and the claims do not arise out of or relate to employment with the temporary agency.