Gharraee v. Trader Joe's: When the Clerk Rejects Your E-Filed Notice of Appeal
A California Court of Appeal decision from August 2026 held that local rules barring e-filed notices of appeal conflict with California Rul…
Category
Case Law & Settlements
Appellate decisions, verdicts, and notable settlements from California courts.
Section 230 Dismissed: 2,200 Social-Media MDL Cases Clear for Trial
The Ninth Circuit's August 10 ruling in California et al. v. Meta Platforms (MDL 3047) dismissed Section 230 interlocutory appeals, clearin…
Dog-Bite Strict Liability: The Recent Appellate Clarifications on Section 3342
Civil Code 3342 reads like an open-and-shut strict liability rule, but the appellate record is full of exceptions that decide cases. Here i…
Social Media Algorithm Liability: Section 230, MDL 3047, and the Product Defect Theory
Courts are actively litigating whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act bars product liability claims against social media com…
Mallory v. Norfolk Southern at Three Years: Using Corporate Registration Jurisdiction in PI Forum Selection
The Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern upheld Pennsylvania's registration-based general jurisdiction statute, ope…
The Ninth-Fifth Circuit Split on FDA Vaping Authority and Its Product Liability Impact
The Ninth and Fifth Circuits reached opposite conclusions in August 2026 on whether the FDA can deny e-cigarette product applications using…
Government-Defendant Immunity: Where the Cracks Are Widening
Public-entity defendants still open with a wall of statutory immunities, but the California Supreme Court has spent recent terms trimming t…
Motions to Compel in Trucking Cases: ELD, Dispatch, and Prior-Incident Discovery
The fight in a trucking case is often won or lost before trial, in the order on a motion to compel. Electronic logging data, dispatch recor…
Premises Foreseeability After Castaneda: Landlord Duty on a Sliding Scale
California courts still decide landlord duty on the Rowland factors, but the real fight is over how much foreseeability the plaintiff must…
Bad-Faith Verdicts Are Reshaping First-Party UM/UIM Disputes
First-party UM/UIM bad-faith claims used to settle quietly for policy limits plus a nuisance premium. A run of recent verdicts and the way…
Daubert in California: The Expert-Challenge Cases Worth Knowing
California is not a Daubert state, but the gatekeeping is real. Sargon, the Kelly rule, and Sanchez each give you a different lever to excl…
California Motion in Limine Practice: What Survives and What Fails in 2026
The motion-in-limine docket is where most California PI trials are won or lost before the first juror sits. Here is what trial courts still…