Justia California Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Defendant had twice been convicted and sentenced to death for robbing and murdering the two managers of an apartment where he had lived. On his automatic appeal, the court addressed defendant's numerous claims of error. The court rejected defendant's claims and held that in those few instances in which the court found error or assumed the existence of error, the court concluded that any error was harmless. The court also held that, in combination, these errors did not compel the conclusion that defendant was denied a fair trial. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions and sentence of death. View "People v. Moore" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued a truck driver, the truck driver's employer, and a second driver after plaintiff sustained severe, permanent injuries from an automobile accident. At issue was whether plaintiff, who asserted both theories of respondeat superior and negligent entrustment against the employer and the employer admitted vicarious liability for any negligent driving by its employee, could still pursue the negligent entrustment claim. The court affirmed its holding in Armenta v. Churchill that an employer's admission of vicarious liability for an employee's negligent driving in the course of employment barred a plaintiff from pursuing a claim for negligent entrustment. Therefore, the trial court erred in not applying that holding to this case. The court held that, had the trial court not made the error, it was reasonably probable that the jury would have reached a result more favorable to defendants. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and directed that court to reverse the trial court's judgment and remand the case for a complete retrial. View "Diaz v. Carcamo, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an attorney, was previously declared a vexatious litigant and was subject to a prefiling order issued under Code. Civ. Proc. 391, barring him "from filing any new litigation" in propria persona in a California court without leave of the court's presiding judge. The litigation stemmed from a fee-splitting dispute with another attorney. Plaintiff filed the present litigation through counsel, but lost his representation while the action was pending. On defendants' motions, the trial court dismissed plaintiff's complaint on the ground he had not complied with section 391.7 and the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that section 391.7 applied only to actions filed in propria persona be vexatious litigants. The court affirmed the Court of Appeals and held that, by its unambiguous terms, section 391.7, subdivision (a) authorized only a "prefiling" order prohibiting a vexatious litigant from "filing" new litigation without prior permission, and only when the litigant was unrepresented by counsel. Subdivision (c) of the section provided that the court clerk shall not "file" any such litigation without an order from the presiding judge permitting the "filing," and if the court clerk mistakenly "files" the litigation without such an order, the litigation was to be dismissed. Therefore, section 391.7's dismissal provision did not apply here because plaintiff was not in propria persona when he filed the litigation. View "Shalant v. Girardi, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant filed a motion to suppress evidence, a spiny lobster, obtained by a game warden on the ground that the warden had engaged in an unconstitutional search and seizure in stopping defendant's car a few blocks from a pier where the warden had observed, through a spotting telescope, defendant fishing with a handline. At issue was whether a game warden, who reasonably believed that a person had recently been fishing or hunting, but lacked reasonable suspicion that the person had violated an applicable fish or game statute or regulation, could stop a vehicle in which the person was riding to demand that the person display all fish or game the person had caught or taken. The court held that when, as in this case, the vehicle stop was made reasonably close in time and location to the fishing or hunting activity, the encroachment upon an angler's or hunter's reasonable expectation of privacy resulting from a brief vehicle stop and demand was nonetheless rather modest, and no more intrusive than other actions by game wardens that have been upheld in past California cases. In weighing the special need of the state to stop persons who choose to fish or hunt in the state and to demand such persons display all fish or game that had been taken against the intrusion upon such persons' reasonable expectation of privacy entailed by such a stop and demand, the court held that the vehicle stop and demand at issue constituted a reasonable procedure under the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals upholding the suppression of evidence obtained by the game warden and subsequent dismissal of the charges against defendant. View "People v. Maikhio" on Justia Law

In this case, the court addressed the remedies available to a patient when a debt collector, acting on behalf of a medical professional, was asserted to have illegally disclosed confidential patient information to various consumer reporting agencies in the course of a dispute over an alleged medical debt. At issue was whether all state law claims arising from the furnishing of information to consumer reporting agencies were preempted by the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"), 15 U.S.C. 1681t(b)(1)(F). The court concluded that, because of the dual state and federal responses to the protection of an individual's privacy and accuracy interests, when the interests overlap, as in this case, the question of what remedies were available was a federalism problem. The court subsequently held that Congress did not intend for the state remedies to be preempted. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Brown v. Mortensen" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted, among other things, of murder and attempted murder in association with a criminal street gang pursuant to the California Street Terrorism Enforcement and Prevention Act ("STEP"), Pen. Code, 186.20 et seq. The court explicitly held that the STEP Act allowed a predicate offense to be established by proof of an offense defendant committed on a separate occasion. Therefore, at issue was whether, even if the STEP Act allowed a predicate offense to be established by evidence of a defendant's offense on a separate occasion, the inherent prejudice in such evidence generally required its exclusion under Evidence Code section 352. The court held that the admission of evidence of defendant's conviction of extortion and related activities in 1993 and 1994 was a proper exercise of the trial court's discretion under section 352 where the evidence was highly probative on several issues and not unduly prejudicial because the evidence tended to establish elements of the prosecution's case. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "The People v. Tran" on Justia Law

Real party in interest, as personal representative of his son's estate, filed a complaint in 2006 seeking a refund of state personal income taxes for the years 2000 and 2001, alleging that the estate had paid over $15 million as part of a tax amnesty program, reserving the right to seek a refund, and demanding a jury trial. At issue was whether a taxpayer had the right to a jury trial in an action for a refund of state income taxes. The court held that article I, section 16 of the California Constitution did not require a jury trial in a statutory action for a state income tax refund where the statutory cause of action for a tax refund was a purely legislative creation with no foundation in contract and where such statutory right of action occupied a different class from the common law form of action in which a jury trial was available. View "Franchise Tax Board v. The Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco" on Justia Law

Defendants, minors, committed arson by setting off a firecracker on a brush-covered hillside in Pasadena, causing a fire that burned five acres of forest land. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to establish the requisite mental state of malice, as defined in the arson statutes, because defendants lit and threw the firecracker without intent to cause a fire or any other harm. The court held that, under the circumstances of the case, defendants' acts of intentionally igniting and throwing a firecracker amidst dry brush on a hillside, although done without intent to cause a fire or other harm, were sufficient to establish the requisite malice for arson. View "In re V.V.; In re J.H" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of murdering her 4-year-old niece where the jury found as special circumstances that the murder was intentional and involved the infliction of torture and occurred while defendant was engaged in the commission and attempted commission of mayhem. Defendant was sentenced to death and alleged numerous errors on appeal. The court discussed and reviewed the cumulative impact of the guilt phase errors and held that there was no reasonable doubt that they had any significant impact on defendant's conviction and there was no reasonable possibility that they affected the penalty determination. The court also held that the court's error in failing to curtail unduly inflammatory passages in the prosecutor's closing argument was harmless "under the most exacting standard of review." The court further held when the circumstances were balanced against the evidence in mitigation, it could not say that it was an especially close case at the penalty phase. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment and jury's verdict. View "People v. Gonzales" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of first degree felony murder with the special circumstance of killing during the course of a robbery and receipt of stolen property. At issue was whether the trial court erred by failing to provide a sua sponte instruction on accident as a defense to the crime of robbery, thus requiring reversal not only of his robbery conviction, but also of his conviction of first degree felony murder and the special circumstance. The court affirmed the judgment and held that the intent element of robbery did not include an intent to apply force against the victim or to cause the victim to feel fear; rather, it was when defendant committed a forcible act against the victim motivated by the intent to steal, even if defendant did not also intend for the victim to experience force or fear. The court also held that a trial court had no obligation to provide a sua sponte instruction on accident where, as here, defendant's theory of accident was an attempt to negate the intent element of the charged crime. View "People v. Anderson" on Justia Law