In The News

County Settled With Sheriff’s Widow For $253,000, With Fee Award Greatly Eclipsing The Compensatory Compromise.              As reported by The Modesto Bee and NALFA’s New Blog recently, Dennis Wallace was a sheriff’s deputy in Stanislaus County who was idled two years without pay. He sued Stanislaus County on discrimination claims, even though the suit had […]

District Judge Appointed Special Master Because She Was Not Impressed That 53 Law Firms Were Involved.             Obviously, the Anthem data breach generated a lot of news as well as a class action filed in the Northern District of California federal court, assigned to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh.  A tentative settlement for $115 million

Dispute Related To Long-Standing CEQA Dispute Resulting In Favorable California Supreme Court Decision To Conservancy.             We received an email from John McClendon, a principal with Irvine’s Leibold McClendon & Mann, who was lead counsel in environmental group Banning Ranch Conservancy’s CEQA dispute with the City of Newport Beach and Newport Banning Ranch LLC over

Some Local Media Buzz Aroused By This Bill.             Our Mission Statement on this blog starts this way: “As one appellate jurist wisely observed, ‘All too often attorney fees become the tail that wags the dog in litigation.’  Deane Gardenhome Assn. v. Dentkas, 13 Cal.App.4th 1394, 1399 (1993).”  Although this observation occurred in an HOA –

Unsuccessful Fraud Suit Arose Out of Beats’ $3.2 Billion Sale To Apple.             This post actually is an update to the result reached in Monster, LLC v. Superior Court, 12 Cal.App.5th 1214 (2d Dist., Div. 7 June 21, 2017) [our No. 14 Top Decision of 2017, discussed in our recent December 24, 2017 post].            

This Is The Third Time California Was So Ranked Since 2012.             According to an Editorial in the October 8, 2017 edition of The Orange County Register, California ranked 47th out of the 50 states in terms of overall fairness and reasonableness of its liability system based on a survey by the U.S. Chamber Institute

Combined Fees/Costs In 2.0 And 3.0 Liter Class Actions Total $300 Million.             On Friday, July 21, 2017, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of the N.D. of California federal district court approved an award of attorney’s fee and expenses to class counsel as part of the Volkswagen 3.0-liter excess emissions class action settlement.  The

Tax Revenues Likely Insufficient And Insurance Coverage Looks Like It Will Be Disputed/Might Be Insufficient To Cover Total Loss.             Joe Duggan who works in the Lincoln, Nebraska bureau of The World-Herald, wrote a recent post about a $28 million jury verdict which a Gage County, Nebraska federal jury awarded to the Beatrice Six and

Ames & Gough Did The Survey.             Ames & Gough, a specialty insurance broker, has issued the results of its 2017 survey on legal malpractice claims with nine leading lawyers’ professional insurers.  Here are the highlights: Insurers saw claims level off in 2016, but costs of defense continue to rise—eight insurers indicate the average costs