The Fifth District holds that Penal Code section 1172.75(f) excludes from resentencing only inmates who were both convicted of a sexually violent offense and sentenced to death or LWOP — reopening SB 483 resentencing for many lifers.
The Ninth Circuit denied mandamus in the Super Micro Computer securities case and clarified that the standard for rebutting a presumptive lead plaintiff’s adequacy under the PSLRA is preponderance of the evidence, not the lower ‘genuine and serious doubt’ threshold.
The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, held that a Chapter 7 bankruptcy trustee who fails to preserve estate assets is not shielded by quasi-judicial immunity because property-management duties are administrative, not adjudicative.
Ninth Circuit affirms summary judgment for a Seattle SWAT officer who shot and killed an armed, fleeing father holding his infant daughter, holding that no clearly established law put the officer on notice that deadly force in those circumstances was unconstitutional.
The Ninth Circuit held that “first to market” advertising claims are not actionable as false advertising under the Lanham Act, ruling that such claims concern the origin of an idea rather than observable product characteristics.
The Fifth District holds that body-worn camera footage showing an officer left a DUI suspect alone in a patrol car during the required 15-minute observation period is sufficient to rebut the presumption that breath test procedures were properly followed.
First District holds that a direct employer cannot enforce an arbitration agreement the worker originally signed with a temporary staffing agency, where the worker’s claims arose entirely from the direct-employment period that started after the temp placement ended.
The Ninth Circuit publishes that the state-created danger doctrine reaches only bodily-integrity harm, not lost profits — but reverses dismissal of state-law nuisance claims to let businesses pursue equitable tolling under American Pipe.
California Court of Appeal holds that a railcar repairman doing stationary maintenance work in a Wilmington rail yard is not a ‘transportation worker’ exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, so his class action waiver is enforceable.
The Ninth Circuit denies en banc rehearing in a Nevada death-penalty habeas case, leaving in place a panel decision allowing the petitioner to invoke Martinez v. Ryan to revive long-defaulted trial-ineffective-assistance claims, over a forceful dissent from nine judges.