Defendant/Appellant Christopher Esqueda was a felon who tried to sell methamphetamines (meth) and a loaded .22 caliber revolver from his Anaheim hotel room in January 2020. Unfortunately for him, the potential buyers were two undercover law enforcement agents, one from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and... Read More »
A recent Ninth Circuit opinion raises the question of whether California’s consumer protection laws should perhaps be renamed California’s “consumer unprotection laws.” In a case where a manufacturer replaced potentially harmful ingredients in its hair dye with “chemicals that are just as unsafe or worse” than those they replaced, the... Read More »
After Benjamin Kohn, a disabled attorney, failed the bar exam three times, he sued the State Bar of California for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act when it denied his desired test-taking accommodations. He claimed that the State Bar is not an “arm of the state” and therefore does not... Read More »
California has two levels of bench officers. Judges, who are on one level, are either elected or appointed by the governor, while commissioners, on another level, are hired by other judges and the court to assist with caseloads by performing judicial duties. There is one other key difference. Parties whose... Read More »
It will be up to a jury to decide whether a police officer used excessive force when he shot a suspect who he thought posed an immediate threat by reaching for his gun. The officer claimed qualified immunity, but the District Court disagreed when it denied the officer’s motion for... Read More »
Three minors. R.D. et. al. who attended the “LA’s Best” after-school program at Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) Arminta Street Elementary School in North Hollywood were sexually abused in 2014-2015 by John Salinas, one of six LA’s Best program coaches. The school argued that since it had no knowledge... Read More »
In a case that one legal journalist wrote is “likely destined for inclusion in law school casebooks,” an appellate court has reversed a trial court’s ruling that invalidated a two-page contract written in a coffee shop with a pen borrowed from a server. The opinion said that the restaurant text... Read More »
On November 16, a U.S. District Court for the District of Utah issued a consent decree against Evig, LLC and its president and Premium Production LLC and its manager for violating the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act by selling their “Balance of Nature” product that violated manufacturing practice regulations... Read More »
In a showdown between a religious ritual that involves the sacrificial killing of chickens and the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom, religion has triumphed. On the day before Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish year, some members of the Orthodox Jewish... Read More »
A group of gun-owning plaintiffs filed suit to challenge the constitutionality of several California laws and practices that require the State’s Department of Justice to gather and maintain records and personal information about gun and ammunition sellers and their potential transferees. In an effort to reduce gun violence, this information... Read More »
Prostitution is a criminal offense in California. Yet, a new ruling by a California appellate court mandates that the pimp and human trafficker who forced the plaintiff to engage in prostitution must give restitution for her illegal labor. H.B., the prostitute and petitioner in this case, met her pimp Lamar... Read More »
Defendant/Appellant Rohullah Hamidi passed a car that was stopped in an unmarked crosswalk at the intersection of El Cajon Boulevard and Altadena Street in San Diego. He then struck and killed a pedestrian who was running in a different lane than the one in which the car was stopped. A... Read More »
The herbicide/weed killer Roundup, which contains the active ingredient glyphosate, has been banned in several countries because the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARV) found glyphosate to be “probably carcinogenic to humans.” Concurrently, under California’s Proposition 65, also known as the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, Roundup... Read More »
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a district court’s ruling that a methamphetamine (meth) dealer properly received an enhanced prison sentence because he was found to be a “leader-or-organizer” of a drug distribution operation in Hawaii. Under the Aggravating and Mitigating Rule Adjustments Primer, which are Guidelines issued... Read More »
What constitutes a voluntary search of a car that is pulled over for a traffic violation? The answer to this question determines whether the evidence found during the search can be used by the prosecution or whether it must be suppressed. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Fourth... Read More »
