B.P. is a professional dancer employed by the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team. The defendant, Andres Gutierrez, had been harassing her and sending her disturbing messages, photos, and gifts. She was scared, so she sought and received a restraining order in 2021. The trial court issued a temporary civil restraining... Read More »
The State Bar of California has ended the fake legal practice of a woman who misrepresented herself as an attorney who specialized in immigration and family law. As of October 1, Maria Leanos of El Cajon will no longer be permitted to have a law office or to represent herself... Read More »
May a service dog and a support person accompany brother and sister child sexual abuse victims when they testify, or would that allowance improperly boost their credibility? This issue and several others were raised on appeal in The People v. Jermaine Dawson, which Dawson lost on appeal to Division Five... Read More »
Edward Wayne Reid was charged with two violations of the California Penal Code after he grabbed and choked his “live-in girlfriend” Jane Doe for about 30 seconds. She saw spots, could barely swallow and felt dizzy. This case determined that the short time period during which she was choked was... Read More »
In the case of R.S. v. Orange County Social Services Agency, decided on September 20th by the California Court of Appeal, the plaintiff was placed in foster care at the licensed foster home of Howard and Ann Graubner in 1970 when he was eight years old. He remained there for... Read More »
When is an Uber driver on duty? The answer comes from a case involving an offline Uber driver, who dropped off a passenger and soon thereafter hit a pedestrian with his unoccupied vehicle. MacKenzie Young Jay Kim, a pedestrian, was hit by Uber driver Ralph Wilson III in West Los... Read More »
A new section to California’s Vehicle Code (CVC) added by AB 2773 in 2022, section §2806.5, became operative on January 1, 2024. It says that peace officers making traffic stops must state and document the reason for the stop before questioning a driver. The purpose of the new law, which... Read More »
Brian Hunt wanted to be a firefighter. Fortunately, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the City and County of Los Angeles offered a condensed four-week training course through the county’s Fire Fighting Training Academy. Hunt signed up and learned that during the training period, he and the other new recruits were required... Read More »
California Family Code § 3044 (a) creates a rebuttable presumption that granting sole or joint custody to a person who has committed domestic violence is “detrimental to the best interest of the child.” In April 2023, Cassaundra Campbell (C.C.) requested custody of her children and explained to the judge that... Read More »
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter N. Yaya went to an urgent care center in Valencia, California, seeking treatment for his deviated septum, a condition that occurs when the cartilage and bone that separate the nasal cavity are not centered. As a result, breathing problems, congestion and headaches... Read More »
The label says that germ-X “kills 99% of germs*. But does the asterisk that appears not only on the front label of the hand sanitizer but on the back label as well, adequately inform reasonable consumers that, in fact, the product is “effective at eliminating 99% of many common germs... Read More »
Michael Wilson, 32, was serving a two-week jail sentence in the San Diego Central Jail for violating his probation. At the time of his imprisonment, he had an enlarged heart, a serious condition that began when he was four to five months old. As a result, he needed four different... Read More »
After nine years of litigation and three trials, Virginia Simers, the widow of longtime Los Angeles Times sports columnist Thomas J. Simers (T.J.), won the right to collect attorney fees from the newspaper that employed her husband for over 20 years. He was fired from his job in 2013 and... Read More »
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 587 (AB 587) into law in September 2022. Often referred to as “a social media transparency bill,” the law requires social media companies that collect personally identifiable information from internet users to make their privacy policies available to consumers and submit semiannual “Terms... Read More »
Mya Hendrix was kidnapped when she was 19, and her captors demanded a $2,500 ransom payment for her release. When her mother called the police for help, a dispatcher for the San Diego police department convinced her mother that the kidnapping was a scam so she should not pay the... Read More »
