An employee who endured several alleged episodes of sexual harassment from a supervisor received a renewed opportunity to pursue her employer for the illegal conduct. The California Court of Appeal recently concluded that, although the harassment occurred outside the time period for filing a claim stated in the employee’s job…
A family whose elderly relative may have died horrifically inside a Southern California hospital received a reprieve in their legal action against the hospital. A California appellate court concluded that the family did not wait too long to accuse the hospital of wrongful death for erroneously placing the woman in…
An auto manufacturer, beset by multiple claims and investigations regarding a defect in its vehicles that caused them to accelerate uncontrollably, has settled with the federal government to end a criminal investigation into its practices, FOX 5 San Diego reported. The investigation, initially triggered by a multiple-fatality accident in Southern…
Often, one of the more powerful tools an employee has in an employment discrimination case is raising the prospect of taking an employer to court and bringing about unwanted negative publicity. This is has never been more true than in today’s digital age of social media, where anyone can broadcast…
A nurse, fired after reporting sexual harassment he received at the hands of one of his supervisors, saw his nearly quarter-million damages award evaporate when the California Court of Appeal awarded his employer a new trial. In order to succeed on a claim of illegal retaliation, the law requires the…
A brake part manufacturer’s liability to a repairman and his family for injuries the man suffered sadly evolved, after the man’s death, into a second case to determine the amount of damages the manufacturer owed the family for the worker’s wrongful death. In a January 2014 trial, an Alameda County…
One of several “bellwether” cases in a massive federal action against the maker of a transvaginal mesh device cleared an important hurdle when a judge refused to dismiss a California patient’s claim. Although the woman had her device implanted nearly three years before she sued, the evidence was conflicting regarding…
Succeeding in personal injury cases involves more than just having strong evidence about the injury itself. In a recent case, a mother’s wrongful death suit against an energy company failed, not as a result of a lack of proof regarding her son’s accident, but because California law prevented her from…
A union member’s past criminal conviction proved to be the undoing of his racial discrimination claim, even though his union did not know about the conviction when it rejected him for an organizer position. The California Court of Appeal recently concluded in Horne v. International Union of Painters and Allied…
A recent ruling reiterated the rule that an employer may assert both trade secret and non-trade secret related claims, as long as the employer establishes separate bases for each. In Angelica Textile Services, Inc. v. Park, the California Court of Appeal allowed an employer to pursue its multi-claim action against…