Justia Injury Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, consisting of the estate of decedent Edward William Kuntz (decedent), his wife, and his three children, sued, among others, the Kaiser Foundation Hospital and the Permanente Medical Group, Inc. (collectively Kaiser), asserting causes of action sounding in elder abuse, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful death. Kaiser filed a petition to stay the action and compel arbitration. The trial court granted the petition as to the elder abuse cause of action, staying the other causes of action. Ultimately, the trial court entered judgment in favor of Kaiser. Plaintiffs appealed, arguing: (1) Kaiser failed to satisfy its burden of producing a valid agreement to arbitrate; and (2) Kaiser failed to comply with the mandatory requirements of Health and Safety Code section 1363.1 concerning the disclosure of arbitration requirements. Finding no reversible error, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "Kuntz v. Kaiser Foundation Hospital" on Justia Law

Defendant Daniel Clapp plead no contest to concealing the true extent of his physical activities and abilities from his employer, the Department of the California Highway Patrol (CHP), and the State Compensation Insurance Fund (SCIF). Consistent with a resolution negotiated by the parties, the trial court granted defendant three years’ probation, and as a condition of probation, ordered him to pay restitution. Following a hearing, defendant was ordered to pay $30,095.68 to SCIF for temporary disability benefits and $81,768.01 to CHP for benefits wrongfully obtained. He was also ordered to pay $1,350 and $70,159 to SCIF and CHP respectively for investigative costs. Defendant appealed the restitution award as to investigation costs contending that, as public investigative agencies, neither SCIF nor CHP was entitled to reimbursement for the costs of investigating his claim. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded that as direct victims of defendant’s fraud, both CHP and SCIF were indeed entitled to restitution for investigative costs incurred in an effort to justify discontinuance of payments and recoup money defendant fraudulently obtained. View "California v. Clapp" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the City, alleging negligence and a dangerous condition of public property under Government Code section 835. Plaintiff alleged that her husband, an LAPD officer, contracted typhus from unsanitary conditions in and around the Central Community Police Station where he worked. Plaintiff alleged that she also contracted typhus as a result of sharing a living space with her husband. The trial court overruled the City's demurrer, and the City filed a petition for writ of mandate.The Court of Appeal issued an alternative writ and granted the City's petition, The court held that a public entity's liability must be based on statute, and section 835 does not extend liability to members of the public whose alleged injuries do not arise from use of the property at issue or any adjacent property. Therefore, plaintiff has failed to allege a cognizable duty by the City because she never visited the property at issue and has not alleged exposure to any condition of the subject property. Furthermore, even if the City had a duty to plaintiff, it was nevertheless immune from liability under section 855.4, which bars liability for decisions affecting public health. View "City of Los Angeles v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County" on Justia Law

California law establishes the general duty of each person to exercise reasonable care for the safety of others. The Court of Appeal declined to recognize an exception to this fundamental principle for employers and supervisors of healthcare aides working in homes where firearms are present. The court explained that it is foreseeable that an accidental shooting might occur in a home containing unsecured, loaded firearms, and policy considerations favor a duty to use reasonable care when one knows firearms are present.In this case, defendant and her family hired two healthcare aides to work in their elderly parents' home. A jury found that defendant was liable for negligence after one of the aides removed an oxygen tank from a closet which caused a loaded rifle to fall and discharge, striking and injuring the other aide. The court concluded that defendant owed the aide a duty of care. The court also held that substantial evidence supports the jury's finding that defendant's negligence was a substantial factor in causing the aide's harm. In this case, despite defendant's knowledge that her father kept firearms in the house and that the aides' job duties required them to work throughout much of the residence, defendant neither secured the firearms nor warned the aids of their presence. Finally, the court concluded that there was no error in the jury instructions. View "Hernandez v. Jensen" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's judgment in favor of plaintiff in an action brought against defendants, the owners and operators of an outdoor swap meet, where plaintiff and her husband rented two vendor spaces. When plaintiff and her husband were setting up their booth, a 28-foot metal pole holding their advertising banner touched an overhead power line. Plaintiff and her husband were electrocuted, and he died. A jury found that defendants were 77.5 percent at fault and plaintiff's damages totaled $12.25 million. Defendants contend that they owe no duty of care to plaintiff because the danger presented by the overhead power line was open and obvious.The court concluded that the evidence presented in this case did not establish as a matter of law that the danger was open and obvious. The court explained that it was not obvious that the line was uninsulated, that it was energized, or that the amount of electricity being transmitted was lethal. Therefore, a warning would not have been superfluous; it would have provided information that was not obvious. The court also concluded that, because no workers' compensation insurance covered the injuries to plaintiff and her husband, the Privette doctrine should not be extended to the landlord-tenant relationship that existed in this case. View "Zuniga v. Cherry Avenue Auction, Inc." on Justia Law

After Norris Morgan was diagnosed with mesothelioma in December 2017, he and his wife filed suit against J-MM and others. The jury concluded that Morgan was exposed to asbestos from products that J-MM sold, and that J-MM was partly responsible for Morgan’s mesothelioma; awarded compensatory damages; and concluded that J-MM had acted with malice, oppression, or fraud, and awarded an additional $15,000,000 as punitive damages. Based on the jury's apportionment of fault, the trial court entered judgment for plaintiff and his wife against J-MM for $22,213,704.39. The trial court subsequently denied J-MM's motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict and new trial.The Court of Appeal concluded that the record contains evidence from which the jury could reasonably have concluded that Morgan was exposed to asbestos from pipe supplied by J-MM; the trial court was not required to give J-MM's requested jury instruction that J-MM was not liable for the conduct of another company; and the jury's punitive damage award is not supported by substantial evidence. Accordingly, the court reversed the award of punitive damages and affirmed in all other respects. View "Morgan v. J-M Manufacturing Co., Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-Respondent David Collins suffered serious injuries following his arrest by San Diego County Sheriff's Deputies for public intoxication. After a three-week trial, a jury found in favor of Collins on his negligence claims against the two deputies involved in the arrest and two nurses employed by the County of San Diego (County) who attended to Collins while in jail. On appeal from the subsequent judgment and the denial of its motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), the County raised five claims of error: (1) the jury’s finding that the deputies had a reasonable basis to arrest Collins foreclosed his claim of negligence against the deputies; (2) the court erred by instructing the jury it could find the deputies liable for injuries caused by private physicians who treated Collins after he was released from custody; (3) the court erred by failing to instruct the jury it could not hold defendants liable for an injury Collins sustained while in jail; (4) governmental immunity requires reversal of the judgment against one of the nurse defendants; and (5) the court erred in its calculation of the amount of setoff the defendants were entitled to based on Collins’s prior settlement with the private physicians and their employer. The Court of Appeal rejected these arguments and affirmed the judgment. View "Collins v. County of San Diego" on Justia Law

The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's order denying defendant's special motion to strike plaintiff's complaint as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), Code Civ. Proc., 425.16. Plaintiff filed suit against defendant for defamation and other torts, alleging causes of action arising from an article about him that defendant had written in Vietnamese.The court concluded that the trial court erroneously determined that defendant had failed to satisfy the first prong of the anti-SLAPP statute, i.e., defendant had not made a threshold showing that plaintiff's action arose from protected activity in connection with an issue of public interest. In this case, the article concerned a matter of public interest because plaintiff was "in the public eye" in the Vietnamese community. Furthermore, plaintiff is collaterally estopped from claiming that the article did not concern an issue of public interest because this issue was decided against him in the prior BBC proceeding. The court also concluded that the trial court erroneously determined that plaintiff had satisfied the statute's second prong, i.e., plaintiff had demonstrated a probability of prevailing on his claims. The court explained that plaintiff has failed to carry his burden of establishing a probability that he can show by clear and convincing evidence that defendant acted with actual malice. Finally, the court concluded that plaintiff cannot establish a probability of prevailing on his second cause of action for violation of the common law of publicity and his third cause of action for civil conspiracy. View "Kieu Hoang v. Phong Minh Tran" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against the city after her son was killed in a collision with a turning truck while riding his bike. Plaintiff alleged a dangerous condition of public property under Government Code section 835. The trial court granted the city's motion for summary judgment, concluding that the city had proved entitlement to design immunity as a matter of law under section 830.6.The court concluded that design immunity shields the city from liability for the absence of a bicycle lane. However, following the state Supreme Court's binding precedent Cameron v. State of California (1972) 7 Cal.3d 318, 327, the court held that even where design immunity covers a dangerous condition, it does not categorically preclude liability for failure to warn about that dangerous condition. In this case, the city's entitlement to design immunity for its failure to include a bicycle lane at the site of the accident does not, as a matter of law, necessarily preclude its liability under a theory of failure to warn. The court remanded for the trial court to consider the failure to warn theory in the first instance. The court affirmed in part and vacated in part. View "Tansavatdi v. City of Rancho Palos Verdes" on Justia Law

After a surgeon competently performed a gastric re-sleeving surgery on plaintiff, she filed suit against him for negligence in recommending gastric re-sleeve surgery as a viable course of treatment and in not obtaining her informed consent to the surgery.The Court of Appeal held that a physician may be liable for negligently recommending a course of treatment if (1) that course stems from a misdiagnosis of the patient's underlying medical condition, or (2) all reasonable physicians in the relevant medical community would agree that the probable risks of that treatment outweigh its probable benefits. The court also held that a patient's informed consent to a negligently recommended course of treatment does not negate the physician's liability for his negligence in recommending it. In this case, although the trial court erred by instructing the jury that plaintiff's informed consent negated any liability for the surgeon's recommendation, the court concluded that this error did not prejudice her case because her negligent recommendation theory should never have gone to the jury in the first place. In this case, the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, does not support the conclusion that the surgeon was negligent in recommending that plaintiff undergo the gastric re-sleeve surgery where she suffered from morbid obesity. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Flores v. Liu" on Justia Law