California Legal Brief

The Rule of Guardian Storage Centers, LLC is that attorneys must comply with State Fund obligations when they receive attorney-client privileged materials that were impermissibly taken from the privilege holder without authorization, even when the materials were originally sent to the disclosing person in their corporate capacity, under circumstances where the person later provides the materials to their attorney in their individual capacity against the privilege holder.

The Rule of Torres v. Munoz is that a court abuses its discretion by citing and relying on fictitious case authorities in its order, but a party forfeits the right to challenge such error when the party's own counsel drafted and submitted the order containing the fabricated citations without objecting or alerting the court to the fictitious nature of the authorities, under circumstances where the party had opportunity to verify citations and speak up before the court signed the order.

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 Jogani v. Jogani is that an expert's undisclosed opinion regarding lost profits cannot be admitted at trial without prior disclosure, under circumstances where the opinion concerns a specific damages calculation ($1.98 billion in alleged lost investment profits) that was never disclosed in discovery.

The Rule of Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts, Inc. is that collecting and using license plate information through an automated system without implementing and making publicly available the statutorily required usage and privacy policy constitutes "harm" under the ALPR Law sufficient to state a cause of action, under circumstances where an entity operates cameras and computer algorithms to automatically read and convert license plate images into computer-readable data.

The Rule of Maynard Matthews et al. v. Patrick Ryan is that a section 998 settlement offer conditioned on consent by the defendant's insurance carrier is valid, under circumstances where the defendant is defended by an insurer whose consent is necessarily required for any settlement regardless of whether such consent is expressly stated in the offer.

The Rule of In re Lynex is that to obtain appointed counsel under the California Racial Justice Act, an indigent habeas petitioner need only plead a "plausible allegation" of a violation of Penal Code section 745(a), which is an "extremely low" and "minimal pleading requirement" that does not require a prima facie showing of entitlement to relief, under circumstances where the petitioner seeks counsel to prosecute racial bias claims in criminal proceedings.

The Rule of Microsoft Corporation v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County is that a trial court may issue a nondisclosure order prohibiting an electronic service provider from notifying its enterprise customer of a search warrant's existence, under circumstances where the court has reviewed a sealed affidavit and found that disclosure could cause adverse results enumerated in CalECPA, even when the provider proposes to notify only a "trusted contact" at the customer organization who is not the target of the investigation.

The Rule of Spring Oaks Capital SPV, LLC v. Fowler is that a party who fails to properly disclose witness names and addresses in response to a Code of Civil Procedure section 96 request cannot call that undisclosed witness at trial, under circumstances where the responding party only provided the witness's role without specific name identification and the requesting party properly objected.

The Rule of Chapman v. Avon Products is that expert testimony about asbestos testing methodology is admissible when the witness demonstrates sufficient knowledge, skill, experience, or training to interpret test results relevant to their field of expertise, under circumstances where the expert relies on established scientific principles even if using older or modified techniques.

The Rule of In re Marriage of Hoch is that a family court abuses its discretion under Family Code section 271 by imposing sanctions against a party for refusing to stipulate to permit the opposing party to amend a petition from legal separation to dissolution of marriage, under circumstances where the refusal is based on conscientiously held religious beliefs and the moving party could have avoided the costs by initially filing a dissolution petition.

The Rule of City of Riverside v. RLI Insurance Company is that an additional insured has standing to sue both the named insured and the insurer in the same action for breach of contract and bad faith claims, under circumstances where the plaintiff is a first-party additional insured with privity of contract rather than a third-party tort claimant.

The Rule of Albarghouti is that the California False Claims Act creates a 60-day default sealing period, after which the seal lifts automatically absent the government's request for an extension, under circumstances where a qui tam plaintiff files the complaint in camera, serves the Attorney General by certified mail, and the government neither requests a seal extension nor provides notice of its intervention decision within 60 days.