In Berkeley Cement, Inc. v. Regents of the Univ. of California (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1153, the court confirmed that a trial court may award mediation fees as costs, whether the mediation is court ordered or privately agreed to. In affirming the award of mediation fees...
Experienced Real Estate And Business Attorney
Year: 2019
No waiver of jury trial even if willfully disobey Court’s Order re jury trial preparation (Guo Zhang Chen v. Lin (Cal. App. Dep’t Super. Ct., Nov. 14, 2019, No. BV 033055)
Waiver of the right to a jury trial cannot be imposed as a sanction. In a Los Angeles unlawful detainer action, the pro per tenant (who was also pro per on appeal) appeared on the trial date without complying with a Los Angeles County Superior Court Civil Division...
Legal Writing Techniques: How to Emphasize or De-Emphasize for Affect
Attorneys primary tool is language. How you say something is critical. Attached here is a cheat sheet of how you can think about framing and focusing your argument. Click here: Emphasize facts or De-emphasize facts
Deadline to file copyright registration does not run if only published on a foreign website (Moberg v. 33T, LLC 666 F. Supp.2d 415)
I had a case where the issue was if the work had been previously published invalidating the US copyright. This case will be very useful for showing no publication occurred if the work was only posted on a foreign website. In Moberg v 33T LLC (D Del 2009) 666 F Supp...
US Border Police cannot search inside your cell phone or laptop to just fish around (U.S. v. Miguel Angel Cano 9th Cir. Aug. 16, 2019)
While the law still allows the U.S. CBP (Customs, Border Patrol) to conduct a limited search of a cell phone or laptop at the border without any suspicion whatsoever based upon the border search exception which is designed for customs inspections, the court...
It is illegal to charge more to pay by credit card than by check (but can give a discount for cash/check payments)
It pisses me off when companies want charge 3% or more to pay them by credit card. If you don’t want to take credit cards fine, but don’t profit from it! Elavon through Costco only charges 1.99% + 25 ¢ (for phone transactions) so don’t lie and try to make profit...
Online Services Cannot Discriminate by their Terms of Use (White v. Square, Inc. S249248 (August 12, 2019))
In White v. Square, Inc. S249248 (August 12, 2019), the California Supreme Court held that an online business violated the Unruh Act by discriminating based upon occupation (or other protected categories of people) and the discriminated person has standing to sue...
The Decline of Civilization (We are Fuct’d!) –Iancu v. Brunetti (June 24, 2019)
The U.S. Supreme Court just FUCT’d the Lanham Act. The Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)) prohibits the registration of “immoral[] or scandalous” trademarks. Respondent founded a clothing line that uses the trademark FUCT. The U.S. Patent and Trademark office decided...
Lawyer Civility Includes More Than a Pro Forma Attempt to be Civil” (LaSalle v. Vogel (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 127.)
The day after a responsive pleading was due, plaintiff’s lawyer sent defendant a letter and an email telling her that the time to respond was past due and threatening entry of default if a responsive pleading was not filed by the next business day. When a pleading was...