Most people would agree that cell phones are a necessary element of daily life. A convicted man, who was released from jail after serving about a year of a five-year sentence for wire fraud, impersonating a federal officer, and stalking a woman with whom he was having an affair, was... Read More »
Alex Geiger was a police officer in the canine unit of the City of Exeter, California’s Police Department beginning in 2014. When he decided to change jobs in 2016, he purchased a trained police attack dog named Neo with whom he had worked and kept him as a pet. One... Read More »
California’s Penal Code permits its courts to grant pretrial diversion to defendants who have been diagnosed with certain mental disorders. Jeanette Sarmiento was arrested in conjunction with an attempted liquor store robbery, and because she had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), additional mental health problems and complications from methamphetamine use, she... Read More »
A 17-year-old man committed suicide by jumping off the roof of a parking structure at a shopping center in Glendale, California. The young man struck and injured plaintiff Yuan Xiao when he fell on him before he hit the ground. Xiao sued the shopping center for premises liability under a... Read More »
In 1939, Lilly Neubauer escaped the Nazis by fleeing to England. She was not allowed to take an 1897 painting by the French Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, which she had received as a gift from her husband in 1900, with her. She was forced to sell Rue Saint Honoré, dans... Read More »
Douglas Whitman was convicted of insider trading from Whitman Capital, the hedge fund he created in 2012. His conviction carried criminal fines of $250,000 and an order to forfeit $935,000, which he later paid in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Two months after his conviction, his... Read More »
Tyshawn Michael Lewis is dying of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a motor neuron condition commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Lewis is currently serving 75 years to life in a California state prison for first-degree murder. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) requested he be given compassionate release.... Read More »
Melvin Garner worked for the BNSF Railway Company for over 40 years, during which he was constantly exposed to toxic levels of diesel exhaust and other harmful chemicals. After his death from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, his son Gary sued BNSF for his father’s wrongful death. BNSF... Read More »
The pandemic may be over, but the legal cases deciding what business losses must be covered by insurance policies linger on. Unfortunately for plaintiffs across the board, no matter what creative arguments they come up with, their cases nearly always fail due to express exclusions in the policy. One of... Read More »
Drones are changing the way police respond to 911 calls, but like all new technologies, courts are being challenged by how to respond to their use. The city of Chula Vista, California, is conducting a first-in-the-nation pilot program that uses drones as first responders to emergency calls for help. The... Read More »
Under California law, parties engaged in litigation are not liable for communications made during “planned or pending court actions.” However, a State appellate court has ruled that comments on defendant’s blog and Yelp are “akin to press releases,’ and therefore not immunized by California’s litigation privilege. Vanessa Hamilton, the defendant,... Read More »
The rights of sperm donors in child custody cases have prompted many states to create laws that seek to clarify who has the right to raise the child. In 2022, California enacted Family Code §7613 (b)(1) that says, “The donor of semen…is treated in law as if the donor is... Read More »
A series of personal squabbles between a firefighter and his supervisor led to a $5 million-plus payout because of the severe due process violations that occurred during his firing. The defendant, the county fire protection district, tried to argue that the plaintiff was not entitled to damages because he failed... Read More »
When Spencer Elden was just four months old, the “grunge rock band” Nirvana used a nude picture of him, which prominently showed his genitals, on the cover of their 1991 album Nevermind. The album went platinum, sold 30 million copies, and generated a host of album cover copies on merchandise... Read More »
The judge in the “second degree implied malice murder” trial of an inebriated man, who hit and killed a six-year-old girl, did not have to instruct the jury to consider a lesser related offense such as “gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated.” The driver was convicted and sentenced to 15 years... Read More »
