Judge Sunshine Sykes denied remand of a Chevrolet Silverado lemon-law case where GM documented $67,065.58 in actual damages and plaintiff specifically alleged willfulness based on eight unsuccessful repair attempts, allowing civil penalties to push the amount in controversy to about $128,833 — well
Judge Sunshine Sykes denied remand of a Wayfair wrongful-termination suit, counting $32,302 in past lost wages plus 1:1 ratios for emotional-distress and punitive damages to reach roughly $96,908 — well above the $75,000 diversity threshold. Plaintiff’s mitigation argument was rejected because
Judge David O. Carter sua sponte remanded a Walgreens wrongful-termination case after refusing to credit speculative emotional-distress, punitive, and attorneys’ fees damages — leaving only $24,327 in past lost wages, well below the $75,000 threshold. He used the opinion to call on Congress to
Judge Christina Snyder allowed negligence and unjust enrichment claims to proceed in a $75,000 stolen-bicycle case against Kitzuma and BikeExchange, holding that Carmack Amendment preemption could not be resolved at the motion-to-dismiss stage because the operative pleading did not clearly character
Judge Hernán D. Vera remanded a janitor’s FEHA discrimination and wage-and-hour suit to state court, rejecting the employer’s argument that the plaintiff’s possible undocumented status and the IRCA/Hoffman back-pay defense created federal-question jurisdiction under Grable. The cou
Magistrate Judge Pedro V. Castillo denied remand of a 2021 GMC Yukon lemon-law case, holding GM had no duty to investigate beyond the complaint and the documented $78,776 in actual damages plus civil penalties (twice actual damages, supported by at least five repair attempts) brought the amount in c
Magistrate Judge Pedro V. Castillo denied remand of a 2019 Chevy Silverado lemon-law case, holding documented actual damages of $54,232 plus civil penalties (twice actual damages, supported by at least ten repair attempts) brought the amount in controversy to roughly $162,698 — well over the $75,000
Magistrate Judge Pedro V. Castillo denied remand of a 2022 Chevy Silverado lemon-law suit where actual damages were modest ($34,932) after the mileage offset, but specific willfulness allegations and six repair attempts justified including civil penalties (twice actual damages), bringing the amount
Magistrate Judge Maria Audero reversed an SSI denial for a claimant with schizoaffective disorder and depression, holding the ALJ failed to provide specific, clear, and convincing reasons to discount his subjective symptom testimony — and warned that ALJs cannot rely on isolated periods of improveme
Judge Fernando Aenlle-Rocha dismissed with prejudice a § 1983 suit against a Los Angeles court reporter who allegedly delayed producing family-law transcripts, holding that plaintiff could not show actual prejudice because his underlying state-court cases were barred by the California litigation pri
Judge Stephen V. Wilson remanded a Ford lemon-law case back to state court, joining the consensus of California district courts that the economic loss rule and the California Supreme Court’s Rattagan v. Uber decision do not categorically bar negligent-repair claims against dealerships.
Judge Michelle Williams Court denied remand of a personal-injury case against Costco that was removed more than one year after filing, finding plaintiff’s eight-month service delay and five-month discovery delay constituted bad faith under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(c)(1).
Judge Sunshine Sykes remanded a FedEx age- and disability-discrimination suit, holding the in-state supervisor was not fraudulently joined: California law excepts discrimination and retaliation from Workers’ Comp Act preemption, and the supervisor’s alleged conduct could plausibly suppor
Magistrate Judge Autumn Spaeth reversed a Social Security disability denial because the ALJ summarized medical evidence without identifying which testimony she found not credible or explaining what evidence contradicted that testimony, failing the clear-and-convincing standard required by Brown-Hunt
Judge Stephen V. Wilson remanded a Chevrolet Colorado lemon-law case, holding GM could not show even the $50,000 Magnuson-Moss amount-in-controversy threshold because actual damages were measured by payments actually made ($37,410.95), the conclusory willfulness allegation did not support adding civ
Judge Stephen V. Wilson remanded a Chevrolet Volt lemon-law case after applying the Song-Beverly mileage offset (86,841 miles before first repair) to reduce damages from $42,682 to $11,794, leaving the case below both the $50,000 MMWA and $75,000 diversity thresholds.
Judge Sunshine Sykes dismissed with prejudice a pro se mother’s § 1983 suit against an Orange County family-court judge, prosecutors, and the County over child-custody proceedings, citing judicial and prosecutorial immunity, Younger abstention, Rooker-Feldman, Eleventh Amendment, and failure t
Judge Cynthia Valenzuela sua sponte remanded an unlawful detainer case removed by the tenant on federal-question grounds, holding that unlawful detainer actions do not arise under federal law and federal defenses cannot support removal under Caterpillar v. Williams.
Judge John A. Kronstadt ordered serial ADA plaintiff German Perez — who had filed more than ten construction-related accessibility cases in the prior year — to show cause why the court should not decline supplemental jurisdiction over his state-law Unruh Act claim, channeling it back to California s
Judge Anne Hwang granted plaintiff’s motion to remand a foreclosure suit to Ventura County Superior Court after he amended his complaint to drop federal claims, rejecting the defendants’ fraudulent-joinder argument as not meeting the Ninth Circuit’s heavy burden under Grancare.
Judge Christina Snyder granted summary judgment for VMG Partners and other investors on a Defend Trade Secrets Act claim because plaintiff Vitamin Friends LLC could not show it owned the supplier trade secrets — its affiliate Better Nutritionals did. Repeat fraud, RICO, and breach-of-fiduciary-duty