1 Community Compact v. City of Fresno (Cal. Ct. App. - Aug. 21, 2026)

Can you figure out from the very first paragraph the twists and turns that likely -- and in fact -- occurred in this case?

Here's the opening paragraph:

"Emphasizing the “profound impact” of Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez “on the people of Fresno” and concluding the renaming of a downtown thoroughfare in his honor would “provide a source of pride and community recognition,” the Fresno City Council (City Council) adopted Resolution No. 2023-056, which facilitated the renaming of the “East Kings Canyon Road, East Ventura Avenue, and West California Avenue alignment” (collectively, the Alignment)1 to Cesar Chavez Boulevard."

So in 2023, Fresno changed the street name to Cesar Chavez Boulevard. Plaintiffs didn't like that, and filed suit to change it back.

You can guess what happened next, right?

The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and in 2025, plaintiffs appealed. But then, as you likely know, Cesar Chavez got cancelled. So in 2026, Fresno reverses course, and changes the street names back.

The City then, predictably, moves to dismiss the appeal as moot.

The Court of Appeal (1) agrees that the appeal is moot, but (2) decides to resolve it anyway, and affirms. The dissent, Justice Mehan, agrees that it's moot, and wouldn't decide the merits.

Maybe you wouldn't have necessarily predicted the disagreement between the majority and dissent. (I did not.) But that the appeal got mooted by subsequent events; yeah, once you saw that it was Cesar Chavez, you probably figured out what was eventually going to happen.

Int'l Longshore & Warehouse Union v. NLRB (9th Cir. - Aug. 20, 2026)

I'm not a Ninth Circuit judge, so I don't know the answer to this question. But I wonder how it feels when you write an opinion -- in this case, one by Judge Hawkins, in 2020 -- with a particular holding, and then six years later (i.e., today), your colleagues take a case en banc and unanimously say that you were wrong.

Maybe your reaction is: "Well, I decided my case, and thought I was right, and if some future case goes the other way, no big deal." Or maybe you instead feel a bit miffed. Either at your colleagues, at yourself, at your law clerk, or at some combination of all three.

Nothing you can do about it either way, of course.

Just wondering.

P.S. - Can the Ninth Circuit website please stop posting the same opinion multiple times for cases that are consolidated? Yes, I know, they're different case numbers, but it's the exact same opinion. Just put it up there once. Ever since the new website went up a month or so ago, you've often got to scroll through the day's opinions to screen out the duplicates (which sometimes, like today, have different captions). It's a slight -- but extant -- pain the butt. 

People v. Lightsay (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 17, 2026)

The California Supreme Court issued two death penalty opinions today. 

In one of those cases, it unanimously affirmed the re-imposition of a death sentence after a prior reversal. The underlying facts of that murder, which occurred in 1998, are so graphically horrific that I will say no more about it.

In the other case, the Court reversed (yet again) a death sentence that it had previously conditionally reversed for a determination of whether the defendant was competent when he represented himself at trial. As a result of today's opinion -- which involved only competence issues, not didn't involve the underlying events, so there's nothing about the actual crime -- the defendant will get a full retrial (assuming that he's now competent to stand trial). Presumably with an actual lawyer.

Though the funny part is that according to the California Department of Corrections, the defendant is now . . . 73 years old. Putting a 73-year old on trial for murder; in a death penalty case, no less.

You don't see that every day.

U.S. v. Jackson (9th Cir. - Aug. 17, 2026)

Sometimes it's sufficient to state the facts; the ultimate result is obvious.

This is one of those cases.

"These cases present the question whether the Attorney General can make someone an Acting United States Attorney—bypassing the usual requirement that a U.S. Attorney be confirmed by the Senate—by designating that person as the first assistant to an already-vacant office of U.S. Attorney. We hold that the Attorney General cannot do so. Although the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998 (FVRA) provides that a first assistant automatically succeeds to a vacant office, that rule of automatic succession applies only to a first assistant who held that position at the time the vacancy arose; it does not apply to a first assistant who never served under a validly appointed official. 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1). Nor can the Attorney General create a de facto Acting U.S. Attorney by delegating all of the functions and duties of the U.S. Attorney to someone else. The FVRA is “the exclusive means for temporarily authorizing an acting official to perform the functions and duties of any office,” so it prohibits a complete delegation of all of the U.S. Attorney’s powers to a single person. Id. § 3347.

Applying those principles, we affirm the district court’s order disqualifying Sigal Chattah, the putative Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, from supervising the prosecutions of the defendants in these cases. . . .

On January 17, 2025, Jason Frierson resigned as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. At that time, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Sue Fahami became the Acting U.S. Attorney by operation of the FVRA, which provides that upon the resignation of a Senate-confirmed officer, “the first assistant to the office of such officer shall perform the functions and duties of the office temporarily in an acting capacity.” 5 U.S.C. § 3345(a)(1).

Two months later, the Attorney General invoked 28 U.S.C. § 546 to appoint Sigal Chattah as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada, effective April 1. That statute permits the Attorney General to appoint an interim U.S. Attorney when the position of U.S. Attorney is vacant, id. § 546(a), but limits the service of an interim U.S. Attorney to a term of 120 days, id. § 546(c)(2). Chattah’s 120-day term would have expired on July 30.

On July 28, Chattah resigned as the interim U.S. Attorney. In her resignation letter, she stated that she “look[ed] forward to continuing to lead the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Nevada.” The same day, the Attorney General designated Chattah as the First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada. In the designation order, the Attorney General asserted that “[a]s First Assistant United States Attorney, Ms. Chattah will have authority to serve as Acting United States Attorney upon a vacancy in that office” by operation of the FVRA. At the same time, the Attorney General also appointed Chattah “as a Special Attorney to the United States Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515” and authorized her “to conduct in the District of Nevada, any kind of legal proceedings, civil or criminal, . . . which United States Attorneys are authorized to conduct.” . . . .

The maneuvers used to extend Chattah’s time atop the U.S. Attorney’s Office are not unique to the District of Nevada. The Attorney General has employed similar— though not always identical—tactics to extend the service of other temporary appointees who have not been confirmed by the Senate. The district court’s reasoning was consistent with that of the other courts to consider those tactics, every one of which has concluded that they violate the limits imposed by the FVRA. See United States v. Giraud, 160 F.4th 390, 400– 01 (3d Cir. 2025); United States v. Ramirez, 807 F. Supp. 3d 1086, 1105 (C.D. Cal. 2025); United States v. James, 810 F. Supp. 3d 752, 762–63 (E.D. Va. 2025), appeal docketed, No. 25-4673 (4th Cir. Dec. 22, 2025); United States v. Comey, 810 F. Supp. 3d 768, 780 (E.D. Va. 2025), appeal docketed, No. 25-4674 (4th Cir. Dec. 22, 2025); In re Grand Jury Subpoenas to Off. of N.Y. State Att’y Gen., 814 F. Supp. 3d 284, 292 (N.D.N.Y. 2026), appeal docketed, No. 26-156 (2d Cir. argued May 4, 2026); United States v. RamirezMartinez, No. 22-cr-01721, 2026 WL 113431, at *15 (D.N.M. Jan. 14, 2026)."

Yep. Obvious. 

People v. Shove (Cal. Supreme Court - Aug. 13, 2026)

I won't opine about the 5-2 dispute between the majority and the dissent about whether there was a Batson error here. You can read the entire 139-page thing on that point if you would like.

I will only say that this is one of those cases where even someone like me might want to sentence the defendant to death. Not the only one, for sure. But one.

Because Theodore Shove III does indeed seem like an affirmatively evil person.

Regardless, Shove is now 74 years old. He's going to die in prison. As a practical matter vis-a-vis his sentence, no big deal either way.

Turrey v. Vervent (9th Cir. - Aug. 12, 2026)

This is an opinion about accrual dates for RICO violations, but what's somewhat (very marginally) strange about it is that it seems like Judge Mendoza is deliberately writing the opinion to be extremely accessible to the general public.

Check it out for yourself. The language and analysis just seems . . . simple. To be clear: Not simplistic, but instead, pitched to a low-level audience. Explaining basic concepts using simple words and ideas.

That's not necessarily a bad thing, of course. It's just that your typical Ninth Circuit opinion involves complex issues and gets discussed in a complex fashion. This one just reads different to me.

That might not be unusual for a high-profile opinion that's potentially going to be read by lots of people in the general public. But it's not like normal people commonly pick up opinions about when injuries accrue for statute of limitations purposes in federal RICO statutes, right?

I put Judge Mendoza's text into a couple of online analysis websites and they all say the writing is at around a 12th grade level. That's not simple, of course. But it's a lot lower, I suspect, than a lot of Ninth Circuit opinions that are written for what I suspect is a more graduate-school audience.

Just unusual. Not bad. Different.

Something that jumped out at me that I thought I would point out.

Simerley v. Golden Gate Bridge & Highway Trans. Dist. (Cal. Ct. App. - August 11, 2026)

Maritime law. You know it. You love it. That's what today's Court of Appeal opinion is all about.

Loss of consortium claims aren't available under the Jones Act. So the wife of an injured seaman -- he worked on a ferryboat -- can't sue.

Sorry about that. But the law is the law. Demurrer sustained and affirmed.

Family Violence Appellate Project v. Superior Court (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 10, 2026)

I have no problem with today's opinion by the California Supreme Court, which holds that indigent litigants are entitled to have their hearings officially recorded on tape -- notwithstanding a statute that expressly precludes it -- if they can't afford a private court reporter. Indeed, that seems a very salutary holding, and I applaud it.

I'll nonetheless mention that the most critical part of the opinion, if my view, is the third footnote, so I want to make sure everyone reads it. The Court expressly holds that we're not just talking about in forma pauperis litigants; instead, this right applies to anyone who can't afford a court reporter. Here's what that footnote says:

"Although our discussion primarily refers to indigent litigants, we do not suggest some absolute standard of indigency. Instead, the right to proceed in forma pauperis extends to any litigant who cannot reasonably afford the costs necessary to access the judicial process. In this case, the litigants at issue include all litigants who cannot afford to hire a private court reporter to provide an official verbatim record of their proceeding. Because the costs involved in hiring a private court reporter can be significant, the population of litigants who cannot afford to hire a private court reporter, but who can afford to pay routine court fees and costs, may be large. Courts should be flexible in assessing a litigant’s ability to pay. We have previously rejected the contention that “a formal in forma pauperis application is required before relief can be granted.” (Conover, supra, 11 Cal.3d at p. 852.)"

As a result, I expect that a lot -- indeed, perhaps the majority of -- civil litigants will be entitled to ask for a tape recording under today's decision. With no formal IFP motion required.

I would expect to shortly see a massive increase in standardized recording in state courts.

U.S. v. Doyle (9th Cir. - Aug. 8, 2026)

This opinion is strangely sanitized.

Patrick Edward Doyle hooks up with a minor on a dating app -- she allegedly showed him a fake i.d. that showed that she was an adult -- and has explicit pictures of their hookup on his phone. He gets prosecuted and convicted on one count of possessing child pornography, and is sentenced to the statutory maximum of 10 years by Judge Battaglia (down here in San Diego) notwithstanding "his limited criminal history, his family support, and his numerous letters of support." The Ninth Circuit affirms.

It's a lengthy sentence. I would like to know more. Did the victim, or anyone else, deny showing Doyle a fake identification? How old was she? (I believe she's a teenager, since otherwise the statutory maximum would be 20 years, but not sure if she's 17, 13, or somewhere in between.) Was this Doyle first offense? (I know it's his first child porn conviction, since, again, the maximum would be higher otherwise, and know that he has "limited" criminal history, but are there other non-pornography convictions?) There's reference in the opinion to pictures of "[the victim] and other unidentified girls engaged in explicit sexual conduct" beyond the pictures of Doyle and the victim. Does that mean that there are pictures of Doyle having sex with other underage girls, or the victim having sex with other underage girls, or just other underage girls solo? (That matters, I think; if they are indeed pictures of Doyle and other girls, that shows an even larger scope of predation.) The opinion by Judge Brown, sitting by designation from the Southern District of Texas, leaves all of this unexplored.

One might perhaps think that Judge Brown leaves out these details in order to avoid mentioning sensitive subjects or potentially traumatizing the reader. Yet I am fairly confident that's not the reason, if only given one of the paragraphs that Judge Brown includes later in the opinion. Trigger warning: Stop reading this paragraph and skip to the next one if you don't want to read some really graphic stuff. Ready? Here's what I am talking about (from the opinion): "The videos and photographs of MV here are “abhorrent” and “reprehensible” to the extreme. Id. One eighteen-second video shows MV “performing fellatio on what we believe to be the defendant and [sic] his bed, in his house.” Another video shows an “unknown minor female” as she “anally penetrates herself with a razor, the handle end of a razor, where she then pulls the razor in and out. And there is apparent feces on the razor. At one point in time she licks the razor.”"

Oh my God.

The opinion hold that the district judge committed error by not reviewing these clips before showing them to a jury, but that the error was harmless, notwithstanding the fact that -- and this is incredibly unusual, I believe -- "'one of the jurors broke down crying' after seeing the child-pornography videos and a different juror requested counseling the day after the trial ended."

Intense material indeed.

So, on the one hand, I ended the opinion simultaneously wanting more information and yet wishing that I had perhaps been told less.

Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America (Cal. Supreme Ct. - Aug. 6, 2026)

I like this opinion, and it has practical significance for many California litigators.

The California Supreme Court unanimously holds that a party can validly make a Section 998 offer to compromise that contains multiple alternatives. The Court of Appeal held otherwise, and the Supreme Court disagrees. So, for example, if you want to make a 998 offer that says (1) I'll pay you $75,000 total, or (2) I'll pay you $30,000 plus whatever your reasonable costs and attorney's fees are, you choose, that's fine. If the other side rejects your offer and you do better thereafter, cost-shifting applies.

There are a wide variety of cases in which such alternative offers might be valuable, not just (as here) in Song-Beverley cases. You'll also need to be very careful in crafting such offers to make sure that the offer is both sufficiently clear and enables the other side to clearly accept any of the multiple offers, but if you do it right, this should be a powerful tool. As well as one that helps push cases to settlement.

So let's make these types of offers. As early as possible, for maximum benefit and pressure. (The Supreme Court also has a nifty line in the opinion that the responding party should use. The Court says that a court might find the offer not in good faith if the responding party asks for an extension of the 30-day deadline and/or informal discovery to more fully evaluate the offer and the offering party refuses to grant it. That's likely to become a standard tactic, at least amongst sophisticated counsel, when dealing with early and/or fulsome 998 offers.)

Overall, as I said, I think this is likely to advance the ball, and seems a proper interpretation of the statute, so I'm fully on board for Justice Corrigan's opinion. There's one part, however, that I wish she'd clarify.

The 998 offer at issue here had two alternatives. The Court of Appeal held that you can't do that, and the California Supreme Court disagrees. As a result, you can validly make what the Court calls "alternative choice"  998 offers. It also seems clear to me that the Court is saying that you're not necessarily limited to two alternatives in the offer, and that even three or more might still be valid. For example, maybe an offer says (1) I'll pay you $75,000 total, (2) or $30,000 plus your costs and fees, or (3) give you a brand new 2026 Land Rover, you choose. I believe that such an offer would be fully permissible under today's decision, and rightly so. Justice Corrigan says -- and I again agree with her -- that if an offer "deluge[s] an offeree with an array of choices" that simply "attempt[] to overwhelm an opponent [] in an effort at gamesmanship, rather than genuinely attempting to reach a settlement," such an offer might be found to be not in good faith. Makes sense. But, in a normal case, multiple options contained in a single offer are perfectly fine. I agree.

But notwithstanding what I believe to be the Court's clear holding in that regard, in multiple places in the opinion, it restates its holding as limited to offers that contain "two" options. For example, on page 27, the opinion says: "To reiterate, the alternative-choice offer at issue is best understood under general contract principles as an invitation to the offeree to enter into a contract under one of two equally acceptable sets of terms presented by the offeror." (Emphasis added) Similarly, on page 29, the opinion summarizes its holding by saying: "Furthermore, under our holding, cost-shifting penalties can only be triggered by a 998 offer in which (1) the rejected or lapsed offer clearly presents a choice between two distinct sets of terms, either of which the offeree may accept as a settlement; (2) at least one set of alternative terms is sufficiently certain to be fairly valued; and (3) the offeree fails to obtain a judgment or award that exceeds the value of a valid alternative." (Emphasis added)

I understand that the 998 offer here only contained two alternatives. But these portions of the opinion aren't talking about this particular offer; they're instead setting forth general rules. I believe that what the Court means to say is that a 998 offer is valid under today's holding when it clearly presents a choice between multiple distinct sets of terms -- not necessarily limited to two -- any of which the offeree may accept as settlement. The existing language in today's opinion could easily be read by litigants and trial courts as expressly limiting alternative-choice 998 offers to two options, no more. That would be bad, so I would edit the opinion to replace the "two" in those categorical statements with "multiple." Even if a trial court could potentially rightly understand the opinion (as I do) as not necessarily limiting offers to two alternatives, some courts -- and definitely some litigants -- could easily get it wrong, so I think it would assist things a lot to make it clear that even more-than-two-alternative options are permissible (at least when, as the Court already explains, they do not constitute excessive gamesmanship).

Other than that, great opinion. Helpful, and will make litigation marginally better in California.

A Company Hungary KFT v. Bespalov (Cal. Ct. App. - Aug. 4, 2026)

I, like many (but not all) lawyers, sometimes write intemperate things in draft briefs. You get caught up in the emotion of what you're arguing sometimes and it spills out onto the ink.

But on the second, or third, or fourth, edit, you invariably take those things out. Passions fade. Reason prevails. You (hopefully) understate rather than overstate. That's the nature of a good brief, particularly in the Court of Appeal.

That didn't happen here.

Jeremiah Reynolds, the head of litigation at Eisner in Beverly Hills, signs a set of appellate briefs that does not receive a warm reception in the 2/4. Here's a snippet from Justice Zukin's opinion today:

"The first line of the opening brief reads: “This is an appeal about double standards.” The brief explains that judgment was entered against the Bespalovs “due to the Respondent Court’s manifold and prejudicial legal errors and unchecked bias.” “This judgment,” it says, “could not have been reached without . . . the Respondent Court’s two thumbs firmly on the scale for [respondents].” The brief claims that “the outcome of this case was predetermined by the double standard employed by the Respondent Court.” It further contends that “the Respondent Court abdicated [its] responsibility” when it credited the testimony of an opposing witness. It asserts “that the Respondent Court was as biased against the Bespalovs as it was in favor of [respondent].” (Italics in original.) “The Court,” it complains, “bent over backwards to assist [respondent] in glossing over the gaping and dispositive flaws with its case . . . and it relentlessly shut down the Bespalovs’ ability to present effective defenses. The resulting $5.9 million Judgment was a travesty.” This vitriol made the introduction memorable, in all the wrong ways.

The body of the brief continues to press the allegations of bias but offers no evidence to substantiate them. It deploys headings that refer to “Biased Trial Rulings” and say the trial court gave respondent “Carte Blanche to Introduce Whatever Evidence It Wanted.” Yet nothing in the arguments beneath those headings explains how the court’s rulings were biased, beyond the mere fact that counsel disagreed with them. In other sections, the brief accuses the court of showing “unending deference” to the respondent, abdicating its judicial responsibilities, and making “a mockery of due process.” It concludes by again charging the court with employing an “unabashed double standard.”

The reply brief maintains the drumbeat of insults. It says the trial court failed to accept “obvious propositions” and “helped [respondent] gloss over its fatal standing problem.” It calls the court’s final ruling “a runaway Statement of Final Decision.” Finally, it treats the court’s alleged bias as assumed, remarking snidely in response to an opposing argument: “it is manifestly unavailing to argue that . . . any error was harmless because the court was already biased against Mr. Bespalov anyway.”"

The Court of Appeal issues an order to show cause regarding sanctions. Although Mr. Reynolds then apologizes for the invectives, he goes on, in both briefs and at oral argument, to somewhat defend what he wrote.

That's not the play. It doesn't work, and results in (1) a published opinion that mentions Mr. Reynolds by name, and (2) $1000 in sanctions.

Just fall on your sword. Apologize, full stop. Say -- accurately -- that you got caught up on the moment, and that you won't do it again.

You might still get sanctioned. But at least you won't get an opinion like this one. (Probably.)

Los Angeles County ERA v. County of LA (Cal. Supreme Court - Aug. 3, 2026)

This is an unusual 4-3 split opinion by the California Supreme Court. Unlike the United States Supreme Court, you don't routinely see such sharply split opinions from that tribunal.

Plus, given the underlying topic, it's an unusually sharp dissent. Still generally moderate in tone, but the case is a hypertechnical one about "the job classification and salary-setting authority granted to public pension boards and county boards of supervisors." Not exactly a high-profile, hot button topic.

The majority opinion is by Justice Corrigan, and the dissent is by Justice Groban. Justice Simons, sitting by designation from the 1/5, is the (exciting) swing vote.