First District holds that the discharge of an earlier CEQA writ necessarily decided the adequacy of Caltrans’s revised analysis of impacts on Richardson Grove redwoods, barring petitioners from relitigating those impacts in a third writ proceeding.
First District holds that a plaintiff who recovers attorney fees from a tortfeasor under the tort of another doctrine cannot also recover the fees incurred in prosecuting the tort of another action itself.
First District grants writ requiring West Contra Costa Unified School District to comply with statutory teacher hiring procedures before invoking impossibility to defend its use of rolling and unauthorized substitutes.
First District holds that the DMV’s revised hearing structure satisfies due process and rejects the broader ‘appearance of bias’ approach used in Romane v. DMV (now before the California Supreme Court).
First District extends its warning about AI-generated fake citations to self-represented litigants and reverses a child support order for failing to include the obligor’s bonus and restricted stock unit income.
First District holds that a default dissolution judgment must be vacated under Code of Civil Procedure section 580 when the petition listed assets only as ‘to be determined’ and the responding spouse lacked notice of the actual property division being sought.
First District holds that a trial court had no sua sponte duty to give a circumstantial evidence instruction in a felon-in-possession case where direct evidence linked the defendant to the cabin containing the guns and ammunition.
First District reverses a juvenile court order transferring a 16-year-old murder defendant to adult court because the court did not apply the heightened amenability standards required by AB 2361 and SB 545.
On remand from the California Supreme Court, the First District again upholds the Public Utilities Commission’s NEM 3.0 successor tariff for rooftop solar exports, applying the Yamaha standard of deference.
First District holds that an Oakland voter initiative funding the Oakland Zoo violated the California Constitution by naming a private operator, but the offending references can be severed and the measure passed with the required simple majority.