Article

Sometimes, lawsuits involve allegations of embarrassing or even illegal conduct. And a prelitigation letter that references that conduct might be considered extortion. The trial court thought an attorney letter was extortion in *********************Flickinger v. Finwall (D2d8 Nov. 30, 2022) 85 Cal.App.5th 822. But the Court of Appeal disagreed, and published its opinion saying so. The...Read More >>

Question: What’s the difference between an arbitration ruling based on an interpretation of contract that is merely wrong, and one that is irrational? The answer in Hayday Farms, Inc. v. FeedX Holdings, Inc., No. 21-55650 (9th Cir. Dec. 19, 2022), an appeal from an arbitration award, is about $7 million. This is yet another cautionary...Read More >>

Preparing for an expert witness at trial? You probably are ready with the key cases of Sanchez (preventing experts from testifying about case-specific hearsay) and Sargon (prohibiting speculative opinions). Sargon has become the go-to objection for out-there expert opinions. The talcum-powder manufacturer defendants raised Sargon in the mesothelioma case of Bader v. Johnson & Johnson,...Read More >>

Ever file a motion only for the clerk to give you a hearing date after trial. Lot of good that does. That happened to the defendant in Cole v. Superior Court, No. D081299 (D4d1 Dec. 30, 2022). So he filed an ex parte to get a timely hearing or continue the trial. But the trial...Read More >>

Judges just don’t get your arguments sometimes, it seems, and that can be really frustrating. But don’t lose your cool. The Court of Appeal in  Shah v. Fidelity Nat’l Title Ins. Co. (D1d1 Dec. 27, 2022) 2022 WL 17959563 (nonpub. opn.) admonished counsel for impugning the trial court and opposing counsel in the appellate briefs....Read More >>

The holding in the published opinion in Blizzard Energy, Inc. v. Shaefers (D2d6 Nov. 29, 2022) 85 Cal.App.5th 802 is that a frivolous cross-complaint counts toward the five frivolous lawsuits an in pro per litigant may file under Code of Civil Procedure section 391 before being deemed a vexatious litigant. The trial court had refused...Read More >>

CEB has published my article, “SLAPP Fee Award Held Not Appealable If SLAPP Order Itself Is Not Appealed.” The article is about a recent appellate opinion, Ibbetson v. Grant (D4d3 Nov. 30, 2022) No. G060473 (nonpub. opn.), that holds that an order on an anti-SLAPP fee motion is not appealable. But there are conflicting cases...Read More >>

Many years ago, I kept a blog that ran a short series called “A Plague on Words,” in which I criticized certain expressions I thought confusing or unhelpful. My entry on the expression “yeoman’s work” became a top Google search result, and earned me a lot of hate mail. But 12 years later, I pretty...Read More >>

Have you ever felt the frustration of getting a stipulation from opposing counsel, only for the court to reject it? Well, when it comes to a briefing extension, the Supreme Court just ordered the Court of Appeal to give the full 60-day stipulated extension, and vacated the appellate court’s 46-day extension. In Aaronoff v. Olson,...Read More >>

Need to get attorney fees after winning your case? The deadline to file your motion is the same as the deadline to appeal, and here’s an example of the strange mysteries of the “triggering document” rules that trigger the 60-day deadline. After a trust beneficiary won her first appeal, on remand in Karamooz v. Karamooz...Read More >>

CEB has published my article, “Personal Jurisdiction Unnecessary to Issue Judgment on an Out-of-State Judgment, New Published CA Case Holds.” The article is about a surprising recent appellate opinion, WV 23 Jumpstart, LLC v. Mynarcik (D3 Nov. 21, 2022) No. C095046, that allowed a Nevada judgment debtor to domesticate a judgment in California—even though the...Read More >>

Having a court reporter can be critically important to create an oral record for an appeal, but it is not always necessary. Anti-SLAPP motions, for example, involve questions of law which are reviewed de novo on appeal, so a reporter's transcript is not strictly necessary. But what about on an appeal of an order of...Read More >>

We know that anti-SLAPP orders are appealable—it says so right in the anti-SLAPP statute. But what about orders on anti-SLAPP fees? Appealability of fee awards are not mentioned in the statute. So the courts have been all over the place, with some finding anti-SLAPP fee awards appealable, some finding them nonappealable, and some finding them...Read More >>

In one of those familiar scenarios where the costs make all the difference, the plaintiff in GI Excellence, Inc. v. Padda (D4d2 Nov. 7, 2022) No. E076843 (nonpub. opn.) won a modest $65,000 award after trial, but then sought over $755,000 in contractual attorney fees. When the trial court denied the fee motion in its...Read More >>

CEB has published my article, “Settlement Offer Under Section 998 Automatically Expires If Judge Grants Summary Judgment,” originally published here. The article may be cited as Tim Kowal, “Settlement Offer Under Section 998 Automatically Expires If Judge Grants Summary Judgment,” CEB (Nov. 15, 2022), available at http://bit.ly/3ATYO9Q A PDF of the article is here: Kowal_Section998.pdf...Read More >>

There are some interesting new postjudgment opportunities suggested in the published case of WV 23 Jumpstart, LLC v. Mynarcik (D3 Nov. 21, 2022) No. C095046. The court holds that an out-of-state money judgment may be domesticated in California, even though California lacks personal jurisdiction over the defendant. And then the domesticated judgment may be re-domesticated...Read More >>

Cynics have suggested that the “jurisdictional” deadline to file an appeal “’is only as jurisdictional as [the courts] want it to be.’” The Court of Appeal knows this—after all, that is a quote directly from a Supreme Court dissenting opinion. (Hollister Convalescent Hosp., Inc. v. Rico (1975) 15 Cal.3d 660, 677 [dis. opn. of Tobriner,...Read More >>

When a nonagenarian’s new 35-years-junior wife started liquidated his assets, his daughter, Lisa Royals, intervened. In her resulting lawsuit of Royals v. Lu (D1d4 Jul. 18, 2022) 81 Cal.App.5th 328., not only did Royals allege almost $1.1 million in financial elder abuse, she also sought a writ of attachment for three times that amount—apparently based...Read More >>

“NALA has published” Tim Kowal (Presenter), “Preparing the Excerpts of Record for Federal Appeals,” NALA (Mar. 24, 2022), This course provides an overview of designating the record and preparing the Appendix or Excerpts of Record for federal appeals. Preparing the record is critically important to success on appeal, but is often overlooked by attorneys, who...Read More >>

CEB has published my article, “MSJ Evidence Rulings Are Discretionary, California Appellate Court Holds in Split of Authority,” about the recent published opinion in Doe v. Software One, Inc. (D4d3 Oct. 12, 2022 no. G060554) 2022 WL 6901145 holding that evidentiary rulings in connection with summary judgment are reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion....Read More >>

“CEB has published” Tim Kowal, “Making Sense of the California Supreme Court's Publication Rules,” CEB (May 21, 2021), available at http://bit.ly/3Emu0AC. Attorneys are aware how important it is to confirm the precedential value of a recent published "smoking gun" decision on all fours with your case. One factor that can greatly disturb the citability of...Read More >>

“CEB has published” Tim Kowal, “Something You Didn't Know About 998 Offers,” CEB (Apr. 30, 2021), available at  http://bit.ly/3AbqAhI Plaintiff can still recover post-offer fees even if Plaintiff does not beat the 998 offer, according to Regueiro v. FCA US, LLC (2d Dist., Div. 1 Nov. 19, 2020) Case No. B301772 (unpublished). My original blog...Read More >>

In October 2022 the Court of Appeal issued its unpublished opinion in Doe v. Software One, Inc. (D4d3 Oct. 12, 2022 no. G060554) 2022 WL 6901145, covered here. On November 8, the court ordered the opinion be published. Doe v. Software One holds that evidentiary rulings in deciding a motion for summary judgment are reviewed...Read More >>

Unless there is a specific section of the Discovery Act authorizing it, an award of sanctions may not be imposed. So the $2.5 million in sanctions awarded for the City of Los Angeles’s “egregious” abuses in City of Los Angeles v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLC (D2d5 Oct. 20, 2022 No. B310118) ---- Cal.Rptr.3d ---- (2022 WL 12010415)...Read More >>

There are several odd things about Trujillo v. City of Los Angeles (D2d1 Oct. 27, 2022 No. B314042) -- Cal.Rptr.3d -- (2022 WL 15119812), a case about accepting a Code of Civil Procedure section 998 offer of compromise. The court held the acceptance was not valid because, even though it was within the statutory 30...Read More >>

CEB has published my article, “Don’t Seek Default Without Notifying Opposing Counsel,” available at  https://bit.ly/3WjAZ4m The PDF article is here: Tim Kowal_CEB has my article, “Don’t Seek Default Without Notifying Opposing Counsel”.pdf The article summarizes a recent case, Shapell Socal Rental Properties, LLC v. Chico’s Fas, Inc. (D4d3 Oct. 17, 2022 no. G060411) ___ Cal.Rptr.3d...Read More >>

Sometimes it is hard to pinpoint what actually caused a harm, like a medical injury. But we can use the process of elimination. An ophthalmologist expert offered an opinion based on the process of elimination—differential etiology, in medical jargon. But the trial court excluded it, and then granted the defendant hospital’s motion for nonsuit. That...Read More >>

A trial court hit Calvary Chapel with over $30,000 in sanctions for violating court injunctions that required the church to comply with local Covid restrictions. The church steadfastly refused to enforce the state and local rules that imposed capacity limitations on indoor gatherings, and that required face masks and the submission of a social-distancing protocol....Read More >>

If an attorney files a frivolous pleading, one of the remedies that should come to mind is a motion for sanctions. But the operative statute requires giving opposing counsel a 21-day warning first, known as a safe harbor. How long is the 21-day safe harbor? There is now a published decision to tell us. The...Read More >>

If you have served a summons and complaint and the defendant has not answered, don’t get too excited. Attorneys have a duty—an ethical duty, and a statutory duty—to warn opposing counsel before requesting default. (LaSalle v. Vogel (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 127, 137 (LaSalle).) But the plaintiff’s attorney in Shapell Socal Rental Properties, LLC v. Chico’s...Read More >>