California Legal Brief

The Rule of Pechkis v. Trustees of the California State University is that an anti-SLAPP motion to strike entire causes of action fails when the defendant does not identify with specificity how each claim underlying the causes of action arises from protected activity, under circumstances where the causes of action contain both protected and unprotected conduct.

The Rule of Nichols v. Alghannam is that treating a patient without valid hospital staff privileges constitutes "professional negligence" subject to the 3-year medical malpractice statute of limitations under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.5, under circumstances where the physician provided pain management services within the scope of his license but allegedly violated hospital privilege requirements.

The Rule of Benjamin Woodhouse v. The State Bar of California et al. is that trial courts have inherent authority to dismiss complaints that assert fantastic, delusional, or fanciful scenarios that have no arguable basis in law or fact, and may declare such plaintiffs vexatious litigants, under circumstances where the complaint presents allegations that no reasonable person would classify as within the realm of possibility.

The Rule of Fix the City, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles is that a charter city may enact an ordinance establishing a local housing and/or homelessness emergency that confers mayoral powers to address conditions within the city's territory, under circumstances where the ordinance defines different types of emergencies and powers than those provided in the California Emergency Services Act and does not conflict with CESA's coordination and mutual aid framework.

The Rule of Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts is that collecting and maintaining individuals' ALPR information without implementing and making public the statutorily required policy harms these individuals by violating their right to know, under the California Automated License Plate Recognition Law (Civil Code sections 1798.90.5-1798.90.551).

The Rule of Nichols v. Alghannam is that the MICRA statute of limitations (Code Civ.

The Rule of Bartholomew v. Parking Concepts, Inc. is that collecting and using license plate information through an automated system without implementing and making publicly available the statutorily required usage and privacy policy constitutes "harm" under the ALPR Law sufficient to state a cause of action, under circumstances where an entity operates cameras and computer algorithms to automatically read and convert license plate images into computer-readable data.

The Rule of Halperin v. Halperin is that a plaintiff cannot maintain a civil tort claim for intentional interference with expected inheritance (IIEI) when she has an adequate remedy available in probate, under circumstances where the plaintiff has standing in probate and the ability to seek relief based on the same factual allegations underlying the tort claim.

The Rule of City of Riverside v. RLI Insurance Company is that an additional insured has standing to sue both the named insured and the insurer in the same action for breach of contract and bad faith claims, under circumstances where the plaintiff is a first-party additional insured with privity of contract rather than a third-party tort claimant.

The Rule of Albarghouti is that the California False Claims Act creates a 60-day default sealing period, after which the seal lifts automatically absent the government's request for an extension, under circumstances where a qui tam plaintiff files the complaint in camera, serves the Attorney General by certified mail, and the government neither requests a seal extension nor provides notice of its intervention decision within 60 days.