Sean Thomas Lobb has Tips Learned While Clerking in Orange County in the November OC Lawyer magazine. Some takeaways: DO: Cite well-reasoned decisions from the same federal district court – even UN-published decisions! DON'T: Use legalese. It's like biting into the frozen center of a microwave burrito. DO: Make focused, targeted arguments to tentative rulings....
I have a new short video up explaining what an appellate attorney is, and why you should bring an appellate attorney on to your litigation team. Related Posts: Lawyer Lighting Rod Question: Do you use the "(cleaned up)" citation parenthetical in briefs? Legal writing tip for the week Confusing Sentences Have No Readers: Judge Bacharach on...
Do not take the common-interest privilege for granted if you represent a client in multiple-party litigation. In Finjan, Inc. v. SonicWall, Inc., Case No. 17-cv-04467-BLF (VKD), 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 128725, at *3-4 (N.D. Cal. July 7, 2020), Finjan held board meetings attended by a representative of Cisco, an investor who had a contractual right to...
The president of a multibillion-dollar gas company, Mark Hazelwood, was accused of participating in a manual-rebate scheme by shorting customers of purchased diesel fuel and cooking the books to avoid detection. The government had a key piece of evidence. It had an audio recording of Hazelwood. The government's recording of Hazelwood didn't contain anything that...
You will get a sense of the First District's frustration over this SLAPP appeal just by its disposition. The case is Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal LLC v. City of Oakland (D1d2 Sept 17, 2020) A157330. The Court does not merely affirm the order denying, without prejudice, the City of Oakland's SLAPP motion. No, the Court reverses...
TVA appellate attorney Tim Kowal and co-host Jeff Lewis discuss family law appeals in the latest episode of the California Appellate Law Podcast. In addition to some nuts-and-bolts procedure, we discuss: Hiding Bitcoin from your spouse is a righteously bad idea, and claiming you don't have to deliver her half of the Bitcoin because it...
An event operator may be liable when an event attendee dies after engaging in foreseeable illegal activity at the event -- overdosing on illegal drugs. So holds the Second Appellate District in Dix v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc. (D2d7 Oct. 26, 2020) B289596. Live Nation hosted a large "electronic music" festival at the Pomona Fairplex with 65,000 attendees. It...
In Zazueta v. Imperial Heights Healthcare & Wellness Centre, LLC (Oct. 26, 2020) D075879 (D4d1), the trial court compelled the case to aribtration. But defendant "failed to engage and participate" in arbitration. So plaintiff went back to trial court and filed a "motion to restore" the case to the civil active list, which the trial court...
If you have ever held a redacted document up to the light to see the redacted text, you know other attorneys are doing the same. In a redacted PDF, you might be able to copy and paste the obscured text. I've also seen redactions made with black boxes that could simply be moved aside. Here's...
Governor Newsom recently signed SB 1146, which among other provides new Code Civ. Proc., § 599, which extends "any deadlines that have not already passed as of March 19, 2020" upon continuance or postponement of trial. That includes discovery, expert discovery, and summary judgment motions. It also provides at Code Civ. Proc., § 2035.310 that...
Oral argument on appeal is often seen as the main event, especially through the client's eyes. But when you get a cold bench with few questions asked by the appellate judges, there is little to report back to the client. This new analysis gives you something to say. Appellate attorney Kirk Jenkins has an analysis...
-- The rate of reversal in 2019 was up to 18% in civil cases, from 16% in 2018. -- About 4% of appeals are dismissed. (This should make you think about appealability and timeliness issues!) -- Last year saw the most depublished opinions in a decade. Not by a lot. But I find it noteworthy...
A holdout juror in a murder case talked to an attorney about being badgered by the other jury members. The attorney appears in court to inform the judge about the conflict. The judge removes the juror. An alternate juror is seated, and the jury returns a guilty verdict within 90 minutes. A Sixth Amendment violation?...
The Prior Ruling Doctrine is yet another appellate trap for trial attorneys to consider when filing a motion for reconsideration. In Kerns v. CSE Insurance Group (2003) 106 Cal.App.4th 368, the First District reversed an order granting reconsideration of a prior judge's ruling, even though the motion was procedurally invalid. The court traced a split...
Great news, you won your trial! Bad news, you only used half of your trial exhibits, so your client can't recover costs for the unused exhibits. That could change. The California Supreme Court has granted review in Segal v. ASICS America Corp. for the limited purpose to resolve the split in authority over whether the...
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Every practitioner in California state courts knows you may not cite to unpublished opinions. (CRC 8.1115.) This is often frustrating when there are unpublished opinions favorable to your case. Still more frustrating is that you cannot prevent judges from reading unpublished decisions that are unfavorable to your case, or from relying on those opinions. A...
At the OCBA's Appellate Section event last week, the Presiding Justices from each of the three divisions of the Fourth Appellate District provided some inside baseball on their respective divisions: Justice Judith McConnell from Division One (San Diego), Justice Manuel Ramirez from Division Two (Riverside), and Justice Kathleen O'Leary from Division Three (Santa Ana). Some...
Should you include attorney fees in your 998 offer? Or stay silent on them? That question came up this week, and this recent case suggests it is probably coming up for a lot for many of attorneys -- particularly those of us who did not find the choice between law school and accountancy school a...
On Episode 5 of the Cal. Appellate Law Podcast, We Discuss Juror Peremptory Challenges and More SLAPP Orders My colleague Jeff Lewis and I started the California Appellate Law Podcast because many of our best clients are attorneys, and we wanted to create a resource to help these attorneys avoid falling into appellate traps before they...
TVA's Tim Kowal is a co-host of the California Appellate Law Podcast. In episode 5 we discuss California cases and procedures in impacting making and challenging peremptory challenges to jurors and motions for reconsideration. Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biographyAppellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biographySign up for Tim Kowal’s Weekly Legal Update Cases and Laws mentioned in...
TVA appellate attorney Tim Kowal publishes this weekly update of legal news for trial attorneys. You may subscribe by clicking here. If You Plan Ever to Make a Peremptory Challenge to a Juror Again, Read This Under AB 3070 now awaiting Gov. Newsom's signature, any peremptory challenge to a juror would be subject to objection...
TVA appellate attorney Tim Kowal publishes this weekly update of legal news for trial attorneys. You may subscribe by clicking here. Covid EXTENSIONS Have Expired, But Covid EXCUSES May Still Work The First Appellate District (Rowan v. Kirkpatrick, A160568) observes that while the Covid-related extended deadlines have passed, "Courts have long recognized the policy, based...
TVA appellate attorney Tim Kowal publishes this weekly update of legal news for trial attorneys. You may subscribe by clicking here. Beware Appealing Questions of Law on a Preliminary Injunction: Does New Jersey's ban on large capacity magazines violate the Second Amendment?Third Circuit: We already decided that it does not when we denied the plaintiffs'...
TVA appellate attorney Tim Kowal publishes this weekly update of legal news for trial attorneys. You may subscribe by clicking here. NOT the Schoolhouse Rock Version of Cal. Supreme Court Review.First, a chilling Third District decision says if a sheriff's deputy asks you to check on a neighbor, omits the fact the neighbor had whispered...
TVA's Tim Kowal is a co-host of the California Appellate Law Podcast. This episode discusses cases and procedures in appealing preliminary injunctions. Listen here. Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography.Appellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biography . Cases mentioned in this episode ABBA Rubber Co. v. Seaquist (1991) 235 Cal.App.3d 1 Abbott Laboratories v. The Superior Court (2018)...
TVA's Tim Kowal is a co-host of the California Appellate Law Podcast. To listen or subscribe, click here. This episode of California Appellate Law Podcast discusses cases, procedure and common pitfalls in appeals involving summary judgments. Listen here. Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography and background.Appellate Specialist Tim Kowal's biography and background. Cases mentioned in this...
TVA's Tim Kowal is a co-host of the California Appellate Law Podcast. To listen or subscribe, click here. This episode of California Appellate Law Podcast discusses cases finding that orders generally considered not appealable to be appealable, such as demurrer orders, summary judgment orders, and statements of decision. Listen here. Appellate Specialist Jeff Lewis' biography...
TVA's Tim Kowal is a co-host of the California Appellate Law Podcast. To listen or subscribe, click here. The inaugural episode of California Appellate Law Podcast discusses California's anti-SLAPP law, Code of Civil Procedure section 425.16 and several key decisions by the California Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court. In 1992, California enacted...
