Free Legal Help in California

All Angels Preschool/Daycare v. County of Merced, (2011) 197 Cal. App. 4th 394, 128 Cal. Rptr. 3d 349

Penal Code § 11167(d)(1) imposes a mandatory duty that the identity of a person reporting suspected child abuse or neglect remain confidential — disclosable only to the agencies and persons enumerated in the statute, on the reporter's waiver, or by court order — and a violation of that confidentiality is a misdemeanor under Penal Code § 11167.5(a). However, the provision was enacted to encourage reporting rather than to protect reporters from harm, so its breach will not support damages liability against the county under Government Code § 815.6.

Cited on: Reporting a Parent for Cutting Off a Household's Water

Bailey v. San Francisco District Attorney's Office, 16 Cal. 5th 611 (2024)

An isolated act of harassment may be actionable under FEHA if it is sufficiently severe in light of the totality of the circumstances, and a COWORKER's single use of an unambiguous racial epithet such as the N-word may be found to suffice; repeated conduct is not always required. The Court also held that a course of conduct effectively withdrawing an employee's means of reporting racial harassment can be an adverse employment action for retaliation purposes.

Cited on: Racial Harassment and Discrimination Claims Against a Warehouse Employer

Bonivert v. City of Clarkston, 883 F.3d 865 (9th Cir. 2018)

The Ninth Circuit refused to extend the emergency-aid exception to an officer's 'inflexible assumption' rather than a reasonable belief, holding the record showed at least triable issues of fact as to whether violence was imminent and whether the warrantless home entry was justified, and concluding that 'the officers are not entitled to qualified immunity under the emergency aid exception.' A warrantless entry into a home requires an objectively reasonable basis to believe there is an immediate need to protect someone from serious harm, judged on the circumstances known to the officers.

Cited on: Suing Police for a Home Search Triggered by a False 911 Call

Borsuk v. Appellate Division of Superior Court, 242 Cal. App. 4th 607, 195 Cal. Rptr. 3d 581

A motion to quash service of summons in an unlawful detainer is confined to personal jurisdiction over the defendant, i.e., defects in service of the SUMMONS itself. A tenant may not use a motion to quash to challenge the landlord's allegedly defective service of the three-day notice to pay rent or quit — that notice is an element of the unlawful detainer cause of action, and a factual challenge to its service must be raised by demurrer, motion to strike, summary judgment, answer, or at trial.

Cited on: Whether an Unlawful Detainer Was Properly Served on the Tenant

Halajian v. D & B Towing, 209 Cal. App. 4th 1, 146 Cal. Rptr. 3d 646 (2012)

Whether a warrantless impound is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment's community-caretaking exception is analyzed under the factors of Miranda v. City of Cornelius (9th Cir. 2005) 429 F.3d 858: whether the vehicle was safely and securely parked, whether its registration was valid, and whether an owner with a valid driver's license was available to take it. Halajian upheld the impound precisely BECAUSE 'none of these three factors is present in this case' — so where all three are present, the community-caretaking justification is at its weakest.

Cited on: Challenging an Allegedly Unlawful Vehicle Impound During an Arrest

In re A.R., 11 Cal. 5th 234 (2021)

Where a parent in a juvenile dependency case timely instructed appointed trial counsel to appeal a termination of parental rights and counsel filed the notice of appeal late (or not at all), the parent is not irrevocably deprived of the appeal: she may seek relief on a claim that counsel failed to provide competent representation, raised by petition for writ of habeas corpus. Relief turns on the parent's own promptness and diligence in pursuing the appeal. The Court expressly DECLINED to extend the criminal 'constructive filing' doctrine of In re Benoit to the dependency context.

Cited on: Appealing a Juvenile Dependency Termination of Parental Rights

Jackson v. Mayweather, 10 Cal. App. 5th 1240, 217 Cal. Rptr. 3d 234

California distinguishes between an ex-partner's verbal disclosures about a relationship and his publication of the underlying private material itself. Mayweather's statements that Jackson had an abortion and his comments about her cosmetic surgery concerned an issue of public interest and were not actionable, so the anti-SLAPP motion was granted as to defamation, false light, and the portion of the public-disclosure claim resting on those statements. But Jackson made a prima facie showing that Mayweather's posting of the actual sonogram image and summary medical report was a 'morbid and sensational' prying into her private life; to that limited extent the denial of the anti-SLAPP motion was affirmed and her public-disclosure-of-private-facts claim proceeds.

Cited on: Removing a Nonconsensually Posted Video and Your Legal Options

Pacific Bell Telephone Co. v. Southern California Edison Co., 208 Cal.App.4th 1400, 146 Cal.Rptr.3d 568 (2012)

The court held that Edison, a privately owned utility, 'may be liable for inverse condemnation' and affirmed the judgment, reasoning that a property owner damaged by utility operations 'suffers a disproportionate share of the cost of the public improvement regardless of whether the utility is governmentally or privately owned.' The court further rejected Edison's argument that a reasonableness standard borrowed from the flood-control cases should apply, agreeing with the trial court that a STRICT liability standard governs a privately owned utility's inverse-condemnation liability.

Cited on: Legal Claims and Deadlines for Palisades Wildfire Losses

People v. Bollaert, 248 Cal.App.4th 699, 203 Cal.Rptr.3d 814 (2016)

The Court of Appeal upheld extortion convictions against the operator of UGotPosted.com, who solicited and posted victims' nonconsensual intimate images together with their personal identifying information and ran a linked site charging victims a fee to have the content removed. The court held there was ample evidence the scheme obtained money by wrongful use of fear — the threat, under § 519, being that continued display would 'impute disgrace' and cause further humiliation and reputational damage unless the victims paid. It rejected the argument that merely responding to victims' pleas rather than initiating contact defeated the threat element, and held alternatively that the images and identifying information constituted a 'secret' for extortion purposes notwithstanding that they had been posted online and seen by some people.

Cited on: Legal Remedies When Someone Threatens to Release Private Photos

People v. DelRio, (2020) 54 Cal. App. 5th 47

Evidence Code § 1103(a)(1) — the 'violent victim rule' — lets a criminal defendant introduce a complaining witness's prior acts of violence as circumstantial evidence of how the victim acted at the scene; the trial court errs as a matter of law if it requires the defendant to have known of those prior acts beforehand.

Cited on: Self-Defense Evidence and Choosing Counsel After a Strangulation Charge

People v. Guzman, (2019) 8 Cal. 5th 673

Penal Code § 632(d) makes a recording of a confidential communication made without the consent of all parties inadmissible, but "to the extent section 632(d) demanded the suppression of relevant evidence in a criminal proceeding, it was abrogated when the voters approved Proposition 8." The exclusionary remedy therefore no longer applies in criminal proceedings, though the criminal penalty for making the recording under § 632(a) is unaffected.

Cited on: Reporting a Parent for Cutting Off a Household's Water

People v. Hodges, 213 Cal. App. 4th 531, 152 Cal. Rptr. 3d 621

Where a defendant relinquishes or abandons the disputed property before using force against the person who had it, that supports a theft charge rather than robbery, because robbery's taking element requires that the force be what accomplishes or maintains the taking — a jury must be instructed on this abandonment-before-force theory when the facts raise it.

Cited on: Robbery Versus Assault or Battery Over a Pizza Payment Dispute

People v. Richardson, 171 Cal. App. 4th 479 (2009) — California Court of Appeal

When a defendant seeks to discharge his appointed counsel and substitute another attorney, and asserts inadequate representation, the trial court must permit the defendant to explain the basis of his contention

Cited on: Requesting a Marsden Hearing Over Ineffective Counsel

People v. Thomas, 29 Cal. App. 5th 1107, 241 Cal. Rptr. 3d 87 (2018)

Officers lacked reasonable suspicion to detain and patsearch a man charged with possession of a dirk or dagger where they responded to a vague 'harassment' call over two hours late, the report described no crime, threat, or weapon, and the only added facts were bulky clothing on a warm day, presence in a high-crime area, and his refusal to identify himself and attempt to walk away. Refusing to give one's name and walking away do not supply reasonable suspicion. The suppression motion should have been granted and the judgment was reversed.

Cited on: Weapon Charge Arising From a Theft Investigation Stop

Ram v. OneWest Bank, FSB, 234 Cal. App. 4th 1, 183 Cal. Rptr. 3d 638 (2015)

Sets out the three elements of wrongful foreclosure (illegal/fraudulent/willfully oppressive sale, prejudice, and tender or excuse from tender) and holds that where the defect is not substantial the sale is voidable rather than void, so a borrower in default must plead tender and prejudice to set it aside.

Cited on: Wrongful Reverse-Mortgage Foreclosure and Destroyed Family Belongings

Sciarratta v. U.S. Bank National Ass'n, 247 Cal. App. 4th 552, 201 Cal. Rptr. 3d 218 (2016)

Holds that a homeowner foreclosed upon by an entity with no right to do so — e.g., pursuant to a void assignment — suffers, by those facts alone, the prejudice or harm required to state a cause of action for wrongful foreclosure; no separate showing that the wrongful act interfered with the ability to pay is required.

Cited on: Wrongful Reverse-Mortgage Foreclosure and Destroyed Family Belongings

Shaghoian v. Aghajani, 228 F. Supp. 2d 1107 (C.D. Cal. 2002)

Under the federal Odometer Act, a transferor who lacks actual knowledge that a mileage disclosure is false "only because he displays a reckless disregard for the truth" can still be found to have acted with the "intent to defraud" required for civil liability under 49 U.S.C. § 32710 — a fact finder may infer intent where the transferor "clos[ed] his eyes to the truth." Whether that intent exists is ordinarily a triable question of fact rather than something resolved on summary judgment.

Cited on: Suing a Dealership for Odometer Fraud on a Used Car

Simple Avo Paradise Ranch, LLC v. Southern Cal. Edison Co., 102 Cal.App.5th 281, 321 Cal.Rptr.3d 305 (Ct. App., 2d Dist., Div. 7, May 23, 2024) (No. B320948)

Arising from the 2017 Thomas Fire, the court affirmed that Southern California Edison — an investor-owned, privately held utility — may be held liable in inverse condemnation, rejecting SCE's argument that inverse-condemnation liability reaches only government-owned entities. A privately owned utility operating under an exclusive state-granted franchise can be treated as a public entity for inverse-condemnation purposes, meaning a property owner need not prove ordinary negligence to recover for fire damage caused by the utility's equipment.

Cited on: Legal Claims and Deadlines for Palisades Wildfire Losses

United States v. Carmen Denise Heredia, 483 F.3d 913 (2007) — Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

A willfully blind defendant is one who took deliberate actions to avoid confirming suspicions of criminality.

Cited on: Potential Liability for Mailing a Package With Unknown Contents

United States v. James Evans, 786 F.3d 779 (9th Cir. 2015)

Once a traffic stop's mission is complete or its tasks are underway, an officer may not detour into unrelated investigation — including an ex-felon registration check or a dog sniff — in a way that adds time to the stop, absent independent reasonable suspicion; doing so violates the Fourth Amendment and can support suppression of what the ensuing search turns up.

Cited on: Suppressing Evidence From a K9 Search During a Traffic Stop

White Mountains Reinsurance Co. of America v. Borton Petrini, LLP, 221 Cal. App. 4th 890, 164 Cal. Rptr. 3d 912

California generally bars the assignment of a cause of action for legal malpractice, but such a claim IS transferable where the assignment is only a small, incidental part of a larger commercial transfer of assets, rights, obligations and liabilities between insurance companies that does not treat the claim as a distinct commodity, is not made to a former adversary, arose from the attorney's retention to defend an insured, and involved communications through a third-party claims administrator. On those facts the claim passed to the successor without ever being separately identified — it rode along on a general cession of 'all gross direct obligations and liabilities and rights' relating to the transferred book of business.

Cited on: Right to a Settlement Check After Selling a Business