Recent Articles

Today we have a fun case to discuss. It involves two seemingly unrelated laws you should know about. Public agencies are liable if they maintain a dangerous condition on their (public) property, while, on the other hand, public agencies are not liable for injuries caused while the public is using its trails, the Trail Immunity [...]

Actress Olivia de Havilland is a 101 year old living legend now residing in Paris. FX Network is the creator and producer of the television miniseries Feud:  Bette and Joan, a docudrama about film stars and close friends Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. 2017 DOCUDRAMA In March 2017, FX began airing the 8-part docudrama portraying [...]

TRUMP UNIVERSITY A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld a $25M settlement to students of the now-defunct Trump University. They claimed they were charged up to $35,000 and promised Trump’s secrets of real estate success, but were not given those secrets and instead got sales pitches to buy more Trump products. Their products included, [...]

How many times have you been involved in an accident or seen an accident where the design of the roadway or intersection or the condition of the road appears to be a factor causing the crash. Is Caltrans or are other public agencies ever responsible? LOS BANOS CAR CRASH Erik Rodriguez was a passenger in [...]

Is there anyone in the world who likes unsolicited telemarketing calls, especially at home?  I dare say no one.  Yet we all receive them all the time. TELEMARKETING CALLS Royal Administration Services sells vehicle service contracts, essentially extended warranties. Royal sells these extended warranties through automobile dealers and through what it calls “marketing vendors,” who [...]

In January 2012, hackers breached the servers of online retailer Zappos.com and allegedly stole the names, account numbers, passwords, email addresses, billing and shipping addresses, telephone numbers, and credit and debit information of more than 24 million Zappos’ customers. ZAPPOS/ZAPATOS For those of you not fluent in Spanish, like me, Zappos is a corruption of [...]

In 2016, there were approximately 2,245,404 marriages in the United States and 827,261 divorces. That’s discouraging. A MARRIAGE A marriage in California requires consent of the parties and issuance of a license and solemnization. The Family Code recites:  “To solemnize the marriage, the parties shall declare, in the physical presence of the person solemnizing the [...]

Police dogs are trained to “bite and hold.” What happens if they bite and hold the wrong person – like an innocent person sleeping on a couch? Ask Sara Lowry who now has three stitches on her lip and is lucky to have a face. BURGLARY IN PROGRESS A burglar alarm was triggered in a [...]

Congress adopted the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990 guaranteeing access for everyone to facilities open to the public, i.e. businesses and public buildings. We’ve written positively about the Act over the years. Interestingly, if someone claims a violation of federal ADA law, the remedy is to sue to force compliance, e.g. make the entrance [...]