Litigation

When Is That Notice of Appeal Due? Hmm, Hard to Say

Posted on February 03, 2009
I understand there is one thing California has in common with many jurisdictions: the rule on when notice may be given of an appeal is strict and pretty inflexible. Under California Rules of Court Rule 8.104(a), the Court of Appeal...

Want A Great Big Verdict Against The State of Califoria? Go to Nevada

Posted on February 02, 2009
I don't know how I missed this. But Lawyers USA reports that the largest verdict in Nevada last year was against . . . the California Franchise Tax Board. Under California law, the state and its agencies are immune from...

Finz Podcast #3

Posted on January 30, 2009
In this week's installment, Professor Finz talks about two product liability cases from November. The first, Conte v. Weyeth, was the subject of a number of blog posts, including my two, here and here. The second is Sarti v. Salt...

This Just In: Supreme Court Rules Statute Means What It Says

Posted on January 29, 2009
On my long-term list of projects is a white paper on the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, Civil Code section 1750 and following. This set of statutes, one of the broadest consumer protection schemes in California, outlaws a host of practices...

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Court of Appeal to Hear Proposition 65 Tuna Case

Posted on January 26, 2009
In May, 2006, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Robert Dondero ruled against the Attorney General's office in its Proposition 65 enforcement action against the three primary sellers of canned tuna. The AG had sought Proposition 65 warnings because of the...

Finz Podcast #2

Posted on January 23, 2009
California Law: Product Liability Preemption

Plaintiffs Lose Takada Seatbelt Buckle Case

Posted on January 23, 2009
In the mid-1990's, the National Highway Transportation Agency and many of the automobile manufactures undertook a voluntary recall involving seat belt buckles manufactured by Takata, Japan's largest manufacturer of safety equipment. As I recall, the recall involved the TK-52 buckle,...

Trial Court Reduces Punitive Award Against San Diego Gas & Electric

Posted on January 22, 2009
Last September, CalBizLit blogged about a fairly shocking verdict against San Diego Gas and Electric. In this wrongful death case, the families of four Camp Pendleton marines were awarded $14.2 million in compensatory damages and $40.4 million in punitive damages...

Anatomy of A California Product Defense Case, Part IV

Posted on January 18, 2009
This is the fourth and final post on the nuts and bolts of defending a product liability case in California. Some of the guidelines that have appeared in these posts are not limited to California, and some of them aren?t...

CalBizLit Presents The First Finz PodCast

Posted on January 16, 2009
Here goes nuthin'. When you click this link, it SHOULD take you to the very first CalBizLit Media presentation -- an excerpt from Professor Finz's most recent Civil Procedure, Discovery and Evidence audio presentation. I'm pretty sure the streaming audio...

CalBizLit Media Presents: Professor Finz's Advance Tapes Podcast

Posted on January 12, 2009
Good morning! I'm very excited to announce the first production of CalBizLit Media. Starting later this week, we'll be presenting weekly podcasts by Professor Steven Finz. Professor Finz runs www.advancecollege.org, where he produces monthly audio summaries of the latest developments...

Anatomy of A California Product Defense Case, Part III

Posted on January 10, 2009
Starting last month, I blogged here and here on the nuts and bolts of defending a product liability case in California. Some of the steps I discussed are hardly exclusive to California, but there is a California twist to everything,...

Another Proposition 65 Defense Idea That Doesn't Work

Posted on January 09, 2009
So, this is kind of inside baseball, but it's incredibly important in the world of Proposition 65 defense, and pretty important particularly in the world of phthalates. For those of you who are novices in this strange and wondrous area,...

Runaway Verdicts Just Aren't What They Used To Be

Posted on January 09, 2009
Boomberg reports that "the billion dollar verdict has disappeared from U.S. courtrooms." Biggest reason seems to be State Farm v. Cambpell and its progeny. Says Bloomberg "For the second time in the past three years, juries in 2008 issued no...

Trial Court To Boeing: Take It To The Court of Appeal

Posted on January 08, 2009
CalBizLit blogged late last year on ICO's $630 million thumping of Boeing from a Los Angeles Superior Court jury last Halloween. All this in a contract dispute. Yesterday, Forbes reported that things didn't get any better in the post-trial motions....

Attorney General Brown Touts Consumer Settlement With H & R Block

Posted on January 07, 2009
Edmund Gerald "Jerry" Brown, Jr. attorney general of California, former governor, son of former governor, would-be future governor (unless Senator Feinstein throws her hat in the ring), former three-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, former mayor of CalBizLIt's beleaguered...

Anatomy of A California Product Liability Case, Part II

Posted on January 05, 2009
Back before CalBizLit went on hiatus, I had started what was intended to be a three or four part blawg post outlining the protocol for defending a small to mid-size, non-bet the company, non-class-action, non-mass litigation, non-unique garden variety product...

Happy New Year From CalBizLit

Posted on January 05, 2009
Yes, the holidays and the son's wedding are over, and CalBizLit is back from hiatus. So Happy New Year. As I indicated late last year, there will be a number of changes coming up here. I'm going to try to...

CalBizLit Going on Hiatus

Posted on December 21, 2008
CalBizLit is quite overwhelmed right now with the holidays, a whole ton of work, and our elder son's New Years Eve nuptials (yay!). So we're throwing in the towel and going on hiatus, probably until right after New Years. We've...

We're Number 6! We're Number 6!

Posted on December 17, 2008
In 2007, when The American Tort Reform Association published it's last report on Judicial Hellholes, I sarcastically lamented that California didn't even make the cut (although Los Angeles Superior Court made the watch list.) Well, worry no more. The new...

Los Angeles Jury Awards Piddling $7.5 Million For Punitive Damages In Employment Case Against Kaiser

Posted on December 15, 2008
I've been following with interest the case of Radiologist Dr. Martin Martinucci, who contended that Kaiser Hospital forced him to quit because he complained about the quality of its care. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, Martinucci was hired...

Go Ahead, Guess What the Regulation Means . . .

Posted on December 12, 2008
Years ago, during the first George Bush years, I was sitting on an airplane next to a very talkative fellow who turned out to be a consultant on disability rights. I think I had a very vague notion about the...

California: It Really Could Be Worse

Posted on December 09, 2008
In an e-mail this morning, a client referred to California as "the strangest state in the union." I often think that in many ways that's true, and that's one of the themes of this blawg. On the other hand, in...

Anatomy of a California Product Liability Defense Case

Posted on December 08, 2008
As I mentioned in the self-agrandizing "Happy Birthday to Me" post above, one of my goals for the future of CalBizLit is to increase the number of in-depth, substantive posts. These are posts that are less topical and more intended...

Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday to Me, Happy Birthday CalBizLit. . . .

Posted on December 08, 2008
Well my goodness, it was two years ago today that I launched CalBizLit, passwording the blog for a month or so to see if I was really going to stick with this, then releasing it to the world to see...

Summary Judgment Motions: Strict Enforcement of Time Limits

Posted on December 05, 2008
I'm on record any number of places over the years as having said that California law and California culture both effectively make summary judgment a disfavored motion, and a new case provides further evidence. Code of Civil Procedure section 437c,...

Will California Finally Have An E-Discovery Law?

Posted on December 04, 2008
In a post almost two years ago --during the very first month of CalBizLit -- I posted here on the absence of any real e-discovery law in California. So far, that hasn't changed. Earlier this year, both houses of the...

California Mediator's Blog

Posted on December 03, 2008
Welcome to the blawgosphere to Brad Bostick. Brad is an excellent California mediator, now blogging at Time To Mediate. I've added him to CalBizLit's list of approved blogs. And there's a good post there now on mediation tactics -- specifically,...

And What Documents Did You Review? And Where Are They?

Posted on December 01, 2008
While the rest of us, including CalBizLit, were suffering post-turkey dinner tryptophan fatigue (or were flat-out worn out for other reasons not related to the bird), Dan Hull was blogging away at What About Clients, where he reminded readers about...

CalBizLit On The Analyst's Couch

Posted on November 26, 2008
Thanks to LegalBlogWatch, I now know about Typealizer, which uses a "Myers Briggs" analysis to characterize blogs. I suspect that the results of these will be popping up all over the blogosphere in the next couple of days, so below...

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