People v. North River Ins. Co. (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 24, 2025)

Justice Wiley's brevity doesn't always work for me. But sometimes it lands exceptionally well. This opinion is an example of the latter.

The case was in the Court of Appeal, went up to the California Supreme Court, and is now back down. In the California Supremes, the majority opinion reversed and remanded, and Justice Kruger wrote a fairly detailed concurring opinion. So now the case is back in the Court of Appeal. Hence the current opinion.

Here's the first paragraph of the opinion that I really liked, especially the italicized word:

"The Supreme Court remanded the case to us. We adopt Justice Kruger’s concurring analysis. (North River, supra, 18 Cal.5th at pp. 23–32.) This analysis is not binding authority, because the majority of the high court did not speak to the issue she addressed. This analysis is, however, persuasive. It is highly persuasive. We remand the case to the trial court for the decisionmaking this analysis requires."

I smiled at that one.

The final substantive paragraph of Justice Wiley's opinion also gave me a chuckle. It reads (with, again, the italics in the original):

"The prosecution argues the majority did not share Justice Kruger’s analysis. That is not what the majority wrote. Rather, the high court acknowledged Justice Kruger’s concurrence and stated the “majority opinion expresses no views on those questions.” (North River, supra, 18 Cal.5th at p. 20, fn. 5, italics added.) We interpret this to mean the majority expressed no views on those questions."

Ho ho ho. Love it.

Deol v. California Vet. Med. Bd. (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 24, 2025)

Today in the Court of Appeal has been mostly a day for error correction. Three different opinions correct typos and other minor errors in previously published opinions: here, here and here. Clearing the slate before the Thanksgiving holiday, perhaps.

Meanwhile, here's a substantive opinion that involves an appeal from, of all places, the California Veterinary Board. I've seen a number of different appeals from the Medical Board, of course. But this is the first one I recall that revoked a veterinary license. And before reading today's opinion, I would have thought that you'd have to do a lot to get your veterinary license revoked. Apparently not. The petitioner here got his license revoked for "negligence, incompetence, and unprofessional conduct" because he administered the DA2PP and Bordetella vaccines to an eight year old cocker spaniel despite having a fever of 103.4 degrees. He didn't tell the dog's owners about the fever or that administering vaccines to a febrile dog could cause serious disease and death, and the dog subsequently died. There was apparently one other animal death in the past as well, and based on that, his license got revoked, and the Court of Appeal affirms (as well as reinstates an alternative charge).

Admittedly, I would not be psyched if my dog died to my veterinarian's incompetence, and I would instead be super upset. But until today, I wouldn't have thought that it was feasible that his license might be taken away for the thing.

Apparently, at least in some settings, that's definitely on the table.

Who knew?

OneTaste, Inc v. NetFlix, Inc. (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 20, 2025)

There you have it. As of today, the phrase "Orgasm Cult" has been officially introduced into the published opinions of the California Appellate Reports.

P.S. - For clarity, when people refer to going to the "O.C.", they're usually referring to Orange County.

Schlichter v. Kennedy (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 17, 2025)

I'm surprised -- very surprised, actually -- that the Court of Appeal only imposes $1,750 in sanctions against the attorney here. I would have imposed a greater penalty. As well as have been much meaner.

It's another one of these "AI hallucination" cases, where someone writes a brief in whole or part with artificial intelligence that contains made-up cases (or cases with made-up citations) that fail to support anything relevant. Once caught, what attorneys generally do in these settings is to deliver to the court a huge mea culpa -- sometimes combined with a "Oh but we try real hard to catch these things, so sorry we failed in this particular case" defense. They generally end up getting sanctioned, of course, but the court at least appreciates their candor. And, in most cases, anyway, their apology. (Though, at the same time, also understanding the strategic nature of those admissions.)

The attorney here, by contrast, adopts a different approach. Once caught, after the Court of Appeal issued an order to show cause, he initially told the justices that the miscited cases were entirely his fault, and said that "the core allegation as to using 'AI hallucination' cases is entirely untrue" -- asserting instead that "none of the cases was the product of an AI hallucination, and these errors are entirely clerical in nature." He proposed that he be sanctioned $500 and not required to show up at the hearing on the OSC, but the Court of Appeal refused to discharge the writ. 

At the hearing, the lawyer -- Jeffrey Dean Grotke -- admitted that he had used AI in preparing the brief, ostensibly only to better organize the brief. The Court of Appeal was not persuaded, and repeatedly held that Grotke's responses to the court were "not credible" (as well as lacked "candor") -- and described in substantial detail the basis for the court's belief in this regard. In the end, it sanctions Grotke $1,750, to be paid to the Court of Appeal, and directs that the opinion be sent to the State Bar.

All that seems entirely appropriate to me. It's good to publish opinions that make clear, even though it's crystal clear already, that attorneys have to be diligent in verifying their AI-generated work. And when they're not, it's entirely appropriate to not only publish the underlying opinion, as well as to refer to the sanctioned attorney by name, but to also send that opinion to the State Bar.

But I would have been even harsher here. It's one thing to prepare an AI-generated brief without checking the resulting work product. That's wrong, but it's only negligence. It's another thing, after being caught, to make representations to the court about that brief that are factually untrue. That's intentionally deceptive -- as well as premeditated.

Words like "not credible" and "lacks candor" are, in my view, entirely accurate to describe such conduct, but too soft. To me, that's an even more serious offense. And deserving of an even harsher response.

When you make a mistake, honorable people own up to it. To do otherwise, especially to a court, bespeaks volumes about one's character.

People v. Demacedo (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 13, 2025)

I'm conflicted.

When I read the facts, I want this guy to be severely punished. He drives while intoxicated, and heavily so: a .18. He crashes into another car in which four people are travelling, killing three of them and severely injuring the fourth.

That's a nightmare. Three innocent people dead, and other scarred for life. All as a result of someone who deliberately drove while drunk.

Then I read the guy's sentence. 47 years to life.

You get less than that for deliberate first-degree murders. People who intentionally cause death. There's part of me that finds that seriously wrong. Seriously.

I'm not sure where I ultimately come out; what the correct sentence should be. Because I remain torn.

But, at a minimum, reading this opinion definitely generates thoughts. As well as emotions.

In re A.H. (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 12, 2025)

Rarely is one's relationship with one's child perfect. But before one exaggerates one's own problems, it might be valuable to compare one's own situation to that of others. Like this parent:

On May 7, 2024, the district attorney filed a wardship petition and, on May 17, amended it to allege that then 16-year-old A.H. committed second degree robbery and grand theft of a person. . . . On June 14, A.H. was adjudged a ward of the juvenile court, placed on probation, and released to home supervision in his mother’s home with a GPS ankle monitor, subject to various terms and conditions. 

On June 24, the probation department filed a notice of probation violation. On June 25, A.H. admitted he violated the conditions of probation by failing to obey his mother, leaving his residence on multiple occasions without probation’s approval, and violating curfew. . . . On August 14, the probation filed another notice of probation violation. [On] August 27, A.H. admitted he violated the conditions of probation by failing to attend two meetings of his mentorship program, testing positive for THC, and smoking marijuana. [P.S. - Justice Richman might want to edit the opinion to include the missing "On"]

. . . . [T]he public defender’s office had A.H. assessed by a doctor, who diagnosed A.H. with several mental health conditions including depression, anxiety, and cannabis use disorder. . . . On September 18, the probation department filed a memorandum indicating that probation again had A.H. screened for eligibility and suitability in an STRTP. Based on that screening, probation found A.H.’s suitability in an STRTP “still highly questionable.” However, because A.H.’s mother recently expressed she did not feel safe with her son in her house due to his past negative behavior towards her and was no longer willing to house him, probation concluded it was “left with no other option but determine that placement be ordered.”"

Obviously, there are worse relationships, and more troubled children. But when a mother no longer feels safe with her own son, and is now unwilling to live with him, that's really not good.

Hunt v. PriceWaterhouseCoopers (9th Cir. - Nov. 10, 2025)

To work -- or at least to work efficiently -- capital markets require integrity. After reading hundreds of securities fraud cases over the last quarter century, I'm just not sure they in fact possess that quality.

Today's opinion is typical of what I often see. A company (here, Bloom Energy) designs and sells fuel-cell servers. It's a private company, but wants to (and eventually does) issue an IPO.

It could just present its finances in a straightforward manner. But no. Instead, it enters into various sale-leaseback arrangements where it (1) sells an energy server to a bank, (2) leases that same energy server back from the bank, and then (3) subleases that server to a customer, alongside a contract to service the server (which, technically, the bank owns).

There are a whole bunch of rules about whether these types of sale-leaseback arrangements are operating versus capital leases. The company desperately wants it to be classified as an operating lease, and designs the contracts accordingly. It thus values the leases (and resulting income) as operating leases, persuades its accountants to get on board, and goes public -- resulting in an infusion of half a billion dollars.

Later on, when the accountants inquire further into the underlying leases, the company regretfully has to reclassify the leases as capital leases, and on the day they make the announcement doing so, the now-public stock plummets 13.8%.

There's no way that normal people -- even smart normal people -- can figure out what's going on with the underlying machinations. And stuff like this happens all the time. I've gradually gotten a keen sense that I can't really rely at all on the purported income and profits claimed by large public companies. Could they be accurate? Of course they could. But they could also consist of a wide variety of this sort of stuff as well -- either in whole or in part. And there's absolutely no way for me to tell.

Now, because these things are so pervasive, it's not like I really have a ton of alternative investment options, at least in terms of equities.

But I'd be lying if I said that this uncertainty doesn't infect my investment calculus. It does. For sure.

Which is unfortunate. I'm profoundly unhappy with a system that both allows and rewards stuff like this.

State of California v. Del Rosa (9th Cir. - Nov. 7, 2025)

It's rare to see the State of California as a plaintiff. But here, it sues a corporation that's owned by an Indian tribe, alongside some individual defendants, who are illegally selling cigarettes to non-tribal members without paying the required taxes -- all in violation of federal law.

Good for California, I say.

It's also stunning to see both how long this litigation has taken -- California first started its attempts to enforce federal law against the defendants back in 2018 -- as well as how powerless the federal courts have been in the underlying litigation. The district court entered a preliminary injunction in 2023, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in 2024, and yet according to footnote five of today's opinion, here's how effective that injunction has been:

"Defendants apparently have not complied with the preliminary injunction. In February 2024, following a contempt motion by California, the district court found that California “provided evidence showing Azuma has continued to deliver cigarettes on its own behalf” “to the same customers previously identified in the preliminary injunction record.” Even after California filed for contempt, but before the district court ruled, Azuma “shipped an estimated additional 2.5 million cigarettes” in violation of the preliminary injunction. In February 2025, California filed a notice of violation that “the distribution of Azuma cigarettes ha[d] continued uninterrupted,” and that Azuma had distributed over 29 million cigarettes since February 2024."

Bold indeed.

Let's hope that future enforcement efforts are a bit more rigorous.

Coastal Environmental Rts. Found. v. Naples Rest. Group (9th Cir. - Nov. 5, 2025)

This is a fairly long opinion -- a couple of dozen single-spaced pages -- arising out of a fireworks display in which one of the fireworks failed to timely explode (and hence landed in, and thus marginally polluted, the water in the bay) and after which the defendant paid $3,576 for a permit. A lengthy litigation, multiple appeals, some district court factfinding, and ultimately a dismissal on grounds of mootness.

Lots of work for very little bang. (If you'll pardon the pun.)

On the upside, I thought that Judge Donato's concurrence (sitting by designation) was nice. He says:

"The new opinion replaces the original opinion from which I dissented. My view in the dissent was that the majority was rushing to declare the case moot without adequate support in the record, which I concluded was inconsistent with governing law. . . . The record has changed. . . . The district court determined that Naples “has continued to pay the annual fee for the NPDES permit” after receiving additional evidence on remand. The district court concluded that “it is absolutely clear that [Naples’s] discharge of pollutants without a permit is not reasonably likely to recur,” based on its review of the parties’ submissions on remand and the trial record. Because I see no clear error in these findings, I concur that this case is moot."

I like it when judges are willing to reconsider their position. In light of, as here, new evidence -- or even otherwise.

Valame v. Trump (9th Cir. - Nov. 4, 2025)

Why, exactly, are we publishing this opinion, which affirms in four brief paragraphs the dismissal of a frivolous pro se complaint?

I'm at a loss.

Cocoa A.J. Holdings v. Schneider (Cal. Ct. App. - Nov. 3, 2025)

I'm honestly not sure who to root for here. Do I root for the owner of a fractional timeshare in a condo complex near Ghirardelli Square who really, really likes to litigate against the condo association? Or do I root for the condo association, who seems equally committed to squashing that particular owner?

It's hard. Because I'm not really feeling a lot of love for either of them.

For now, though, the condo owner wins, as the Court of Appeal affirms the grant of his anti-SLAPP motion.

Hopefully the parties will at some point simply agree to separate peacefully.

It's not a great union.