Here are a few cases I did not have time to write up but seemed either important or irritating enough to mention:
🗯️Watch what you say in your appellate briefing extension. Attorneys commonly explain that they need an extension because the case is “very complex.” But if your appeal is arguing that the fee award is too high because the case isn’t all that complex, then you’ve got a problem. Which is why the $338k award in Currency Corp. v. Wertheim, LLC. (2D5d Nov. 5, 2024 No. B326827) was affirmed.
📝Delete jury-waivers from your contracts. They’re void as against public policy. True, most of the time the court will just ignore them without further violence to your contract. But in Comedy Store v. Moss Adams LP (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 14, 2024), the court also held the Washington venue clause void, because the court wanted to be sure that, once in a new venue, the defendant would not try to resurrect the jury waiver. Under a less bold approach, drafting parties “would have little incentive to take the jury waiver out of the agreements.”
😕SLAPP fee orders are not appealable: True, the SLAPP order itself (partial grant, partial denial) is appealable. But the subsequent fee order is not. Ali v. Dignity Health. (2D5d. Dec. 31, 2024 No. B331058). (nonpub. opn.).
🗓️Remember, limited civil appeal deadlines are halved. Including for attorneys’ fees. The city found out the hard way in Mendoza v. City of Duarte (LASC App Div. Dec. 30, 2024) No. 24APCL00050. On the other hand, the city’s motion was filed 66 days after the clerk’s notice of the file-stamped order, so it was late even under the unlimited civil deadline.
(Artwork by Randall Holbrook, RNDL.DESIGN.)
