Source: http://thecomplexlitigator.com/post-data/category/In+Brief
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 12:57:18+00:00

Document:
in brief: Fees denied to prevailing defendant in Swearingen v. Haas Automation, Inc.
United States District Court Judge Barry Ted Moskowitz (Southern District of California) denied Defendants' motion for an award of attorney's fees after the Defendants obtained a dismissal of plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint. Swearingen v. Haas Automation, Inc., 2010 WL 1495204 (S.D.Cal. Apr 14, 2010). The Court held that changes to Penal Code section 502 removed a bilateral fee provision and a claim sounding in tort was outside the attorney fee provision of a lease agreement between the parties.
In United Steel, Paper & Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial & Service Workers International Union, AFL-CIO, CLC, et al. v. Shell Oil Company (9th Cir. Apr. 21, 2010) (say that three times fast), a putative class action alleging various wage & hour violations was removed to federal district court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2) (CAFA). Certification was eventually denied. The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction and remanded the matter to state court. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit joined the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits in holding that denial of class certification does not divest the federal district court of jurisdiction. The Court recognized the general principles that jurisdiction is evaluated at the time it is invoked, and subsequent developments do not destroy jurisdiction if it was properly invoked originally. All else equal, this decision should reduce the overall degree of hapiness experienced by district court judges. Now they can't put an unsuccessful, removed class action out of its misery with a remand bullet to the head. Thus, federal district courts will have the pleasure of overseeing more individual, state law-based actions.
In Roby v. McKesson Corporation, the second opinion issued today by the California Supreme Court, the Court held, among other things, that on the facts and circumstances presented, a 1-1 punitive damage to compensatory damage ratio was the constitutional ceiling. Justice Werdegar authored a dissenting opinion (to which Justice Moreno concurred) on the Court's punitive damage holding, concluding that the facts and circumstances of the case supported a 2-1 punitive damage to compensatory damage ratio. The case concerns allegations of wrongful discharge, discrimination and harassment.
While a more thorough analysis will follow, reader may be interested in taking a look at Morgan, et al. v. AT& T Wireless Services, Inc. (September 23, 2009). In Morgan, the Court of Appeal (Second Appellate District, Division Four) is called upon to address the sufficiency of allegations in a consumer class action alleging causes of action under the Unfair Competition Law (UCL) (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17200 et seq.), the False Advertising Law (FAL) (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 17500 et seq.), the Consumers Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) (Civ. Code, § 1750 et seq.), and for fraud and declaratory relief. You can wade through the decision yourself, or wait for the Executive Summary in the next day or so.
In Johnson v. Arvin-Edison Water Storage Dist. (June 3, 2009) the Court of Appeal (Fifth Appellate District) held that governmental entities are not subject to a wide array of wage & hour laws absent express legislation to the contrary. The water district defendant was determined to be a municipal entity, thus entitled to that broad grant of immunity.

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