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.

Thompson v. Superior Court (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

The defendant here is charged with felony burglary and receives mental health diversion for alleged PTSD despite having 19 different felony convictions (for theft, fraud, forgery, assault with a deadly weapon, etc.) during the past dozen years.

To tell you the truth, I'm not entirely confident that the twentieth time will be the charm here.

People v. McAllister (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

What you know from reading this opinion is that Russell McAllister was sentenced to 75 years in prison for first-degree murder of another inmate at High Desert State Prison, plus another 12 years for carrying the shank. So, essentially, the rest of his life in prison.

What you don't know, but what's easily discovered, is that McAllister was sent to prison in the first place for attempted murder. Then, while in prison, convicted of threatening to kill the district attorney who prosecuted. Then, also while in prison, attempting to kill another inmate. All of this before the present offense, in which he appears to be the first time he successfully killed someone.

The guy is clearly feeling at home in prison. Maybe he, uh, I don't know, shouldn't be let out in the yard that much at this point?

Why does the Court of Appeal partially remand the case back to the trial court? Because it potentially improperly imposed two different fines -- one for $5,000, and another for $300 -- instead of a single fine.

As if that really practically matters here.

People v. Kazarian (Cal. Ct. App. - July 30, 2026)

Sometimes courts get too aggressive in finding an error to be harmless.

Not here.

"On a late January evening in 2023, around 1:20 a.m., San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff Gabriel Dominguez responded to a medical aid call at a gas station in Apple Valley, at the intersection of Kiowa Road and Bear Valley Road. A fire truck, paramedics, and at least one other emergency response vehicle were already at the scene attempting to contact an unresponsive man in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked at a gas pump. . . . As Dominguez walked towards the truck, he saw the driver “woke up,” then “fidget[ed]” in his vehicle for a few seconds, reaching towards the center console, and then he “put the truck into drive.” Pulling forward, defendant almost hit the fire truck parked in front of him . . . . When Dominguez exited the gas station, he was about five car lengths behind defendant, which he estimated was less than 100 feet, perhaps closer to 75 feet. When Dominguez looked at his speedometer, “we were reaching speeds over a hundred” miles per hour. Defendant did not slow down or pull over.

About two miles from the gas station, defendant approached an intersection controlled by a four-way stop sign. He was still traveling “over a hundred” miles per hour, with Dominguez still about five car lengths behind him. Defendant did not stop at the intersection; according to Dominguez, defendant did not slow down “[a]t all.” . . .

About 100 feet past where defendant failed to stop at the stop sign, defendant approached some railroad tracks that crossed Kiowa Road, with Dominguez still in pursuit. Defendant “didn’t slow down” for the tracks and, as a result, “caught [some] air” in crossing the tracks; Dominguez estimated that the tires on defendant’s truck were “three, four feet” off the ground. Defendant’s vehicle “fishtailed a little bit” as the tires “came down and contacted the asphalt.” Defendant had been traveling at “[a]t least a hundred” miles per hour when he “us[ed] the railroad tracks as essentially a ramp,” which Dominguez testified violated “Vehicle Code 23103(a).”

Next in the pursuit, about four miles away from the starting point at the gas station, still on Kiowa Road and with defendant still traveling at a hundred miles an hour with Dominguez in pursuit, the duo approached another intersection with a four-way stop sign. Defendant again did not stop, which Dominguez testified was another violation of Vehicle Code section 22450.

Dominguez fell back slightly to about seven to 10 car lengths behind defendant as defendant approached another intersection, where Kiowa Road continued with a dirt surface. Dominguez lost sight of the truck due to dust and discontinued the pursuit pursuant to department policy, but continued to travel along the road at a safe speed. Dominguez found the truck in someone’s front yard near the end of the road where it made a hard right turn. The truck appeared to have knocked a fence down, and the vehicle’s airbags had deployed. Dominguez did not immediately find defendant, who was not at or near the truck, but after several minutes of searching, Dominguez located defendant “off in the desert,” hiding in some bushes, and arrested him."

The Court of Appeal holds that, among other things, the jury should perhaps have been instructed in more detail about what constitutes speeding or failing to stop at a stop sign, those errors were clearly harmless. The issue here wasn't whether the defendant perfectly stopped or where exactly the limit line was. Defendant said he didn't do anything wrong at all, and the officer testified as he did. The jury, not surprisingly, believed the officer. Additional instructions wouldn't have made the slightest bit of difference.

True that.

Two years in prison. Doubled to four for the prior strikes. 

People v. Carrillo (Cal. Ct. App. - July 28, 2026)

If you know anything about the relationship between the Hispanic and African-American gangs in Riverside, you'll know they're . . . not good. Personally, I did not know what caused this situation, at least beyond the usual rivalries, but according to Justice Menetrez, the history here is somewhat unique. Here's the background:

"East Side Riva is a Hispanic street gang in Riverside, California with roughly 500 active members. There are a number of cliques within East Side Riva, including Clique Los Primos, which is also known as CLPS or Primos. . . .

The Mexican Mafia is a Hispanic prison gang founded in the 1950’s. The prison gang acts as a parent organization and exerts control over all Hispanic street gangs in Southern California. The Mexican Mafia forces the street gangs to pay taxes and disciplines their members when they are incarcerated. East Side Riva pays taxes to the Mexican Mafia.

The 1200 Block East Coast Crips (1200 Block) is an African-American street gang in Riverside, California. Georgia Street Mob, or GSM, is a clique within 1200 Block. East Side Riva and 1200 Block occupy or claim the same territory. According to the People’s gang expert, Detective Trevor Childers, the area has a history of racial violence that grew out of a “beef” between East Side Riva and 1200 Block in 1991. At the time, East Side Riva and 1200 Block were cooperating to target rival gangs in other neighborhoods of Riverside. The Mexican Mafia learned of East Side Riva’s alliance with 1200 Block, and the Mexican Mafia was not happy, because the gang did not cooperate with African Americans. The Mexican Mafia punished East Side Riva by “put[ting] a greenlight” on the gangs’ members, so East Side Riva members were being assaulted in jails. The Mexican Mafia directed East Side Riva not to cooperate with African Americans ever again. In the years that followed, the violence between East Side Riva and 1200 Block became “astronomical.” East Side Riva and 1200 Block became “mortal enemies.”"

One-time confederates, now implacable antagonists. A classic movie plot line.

That history made this opinion worthy reading even on its own. But there's another portion as well that made me want to write about it.

At issue here is the conviction of Steven Carrillo, a member of Primos, for the first-degree murder of Derrion Thomas and the attempted murder of "Isaiah S." Both victims were African-American and hurt in a car-to-car shooting after a confrontation at a local Motel 6.

Both victims were carrying a gun at the time of the shooting, and at trial, the defendant contended that he shot them in self-defense. The jury disagreed, based in large part on a video of the prior events at the motel and, critically, the testimony of the surviving victim, Isiah. Isiah said that the victims never shot at the defendant; there was little to no other evidence about where respective shots were fired (apart from the recovery of the defendant's vehicle, which had ten bullet holes in it, but there was some reason to believe that those bullet holes may have potentially been planted there).

The Court of Appeal holds (and everyone agrees) that it was error for the trial court to allow the police officer to testify at trial that during his interview of Isiah, he believed that Isiah was telling the truth. It is obviously not okay to let a lay witness testify to someone's alleged veracity. The Court of Appeal nonetheless finds that this error was harmless, since the defendant was fairly clearly guilty regardless.

There's something to be said for that conclusion. But a portion of that analysis -- the part that begins on page 21 -- seems wrongheaded to me.

Justice Menetrez initially says: "First, the evidence of Carrillo’s animus toward African Americans and his willingness to use violence against them was overwhelming. For instance, he referred to himself as a killer of 1200 Block, the Georgia Street Mob clique, or “snails” (a derogatory term for 1200 Block and African Americans more generally). He called a shotgun a “‘snail gauge’” and said that he was ready for a fight. He used a racial slur when talking about Isaiah and Thomas to the undercover agents, saying that he got “into it” with the victims because of their race. Notes found in his backpack after the shooting referred to the shootout with “snails,” and he gave himself high marks for it. All of that evidence shows that Carrillo targeted the victims and intended to kill them because of his animus toward them, not because he believed that his life was in danger."

But the fact that you hate a particular racial group and subsequently laud yourself for killing one of them does not prove that they didn't shoot at you first. You would say all of that even if the shooting was in self-defense. Is it relevant evidence? Sure. It may provide a potential motive for an alleged premeditated attack. But it's far from overwhelming. Someone can seriously hate sharks, for example, and be excited about killing one of them, but that doesn't prove that the shark wasn't coming to eat him when the speargun was fired.

Justice Menetrez next says: "Second, Carrillo’s claim that the victims were trying to intimidate him or threaten him is not supported by the video evidence. Carrillo said that one of them lifted his shirt and flashed a gun at Carrillo, but the video shows no such conduct. He also claimed that they followed him and pulled up to his car at the stoplight. But the video shows that Isaiah left first, Carrillo ran a red light to catch up, and Carrillo pulled up to Isaiah’s car. The video further shows that before following Isaiah, Carrillo retrieved a gun from his room."

Yes, that's relevant evidence. It shows that Carrillo may not always be telling the truth. But sometimes, particularly when you're talking to the police after a murder, you make up particular facts even if you're innocent. Is that a great strategy? No. But it's human nature. The fact that some details may perhaps be unconfirmable (or made up) doesn't prove that the critical detail -- who shot first -- is also a lie. A jury could easily conclude that Carrillo may have exaggerated or wrongly relayed various details but that he was still telling the truth when he said that the victims (who were admittedly carrying weapons) shot at him first.

The analysis here ends with Justice Menetrez saying: "Carrillo emphasizes that Isaiah never said that Carrillo shot first, whereas Carrillo told the undercover agents and the interviewing officers that the victims shot first. However, the jurors could reasonably infer from the evidence that Carrillo shot at the victims first. Isaiah testified that the person in the Jaguar “gangbanged” on his group and cocked a gun, and then he and his companions “started getting shot at.”" But the whole question is whether Isaiah was telling the truth; the fact that he testified at trial that he was "gangbanged" and "shot at" doesn't mean that the events actually went down as he described.

The last portion of the Court of Appeal's opinion, which says that Carrillo would be guilty regardless since he admits that he "racked" his gun at the victims and thereby instigated the events at issue, is less problematic. I can potentially see this as a valid basis for the ultimate result.

The rest, though? Troubling.

Even more troubling, honestly, is the apparent state of gang race relations in Riverside. As the opinion presumably accurately recounts:

"According to the People’s gang expert: “It’s to the point now, that if you investigate a crime in the east side Riverside neighborhood, and the victim is Mexican, you assume you’re looking for a black suspect and vice versa.”"

Eww.

U.S. v. Anten (9th Cir. - July 27, 2026)

It's an easy lesson, but one that perhaps bears mention:

Don't send an email to the FBI that says "I WILL UNABOMB THE LOS ANGELES FBI HQ.”

That'll earn you some prison time. As here.

Weiss v. Permanente Medical Group (9th Cir. - July 24, 2026)

I would like everyone to know that I've recently had some substantial religious revelations. So while I might have been willing to do a lot of things before -- for example, getting vaccinated -- beliefs can obviously change over time.

So, for example, in today's opinion, the Ninth Circuit holds that a healthcare worker who claimed a religious objection to getting vaccinated for COVID-19 could sue when she was placed on unpaid leave for not responding to her employer's questions regarding the sincerity of her purported religious beliefs; e.g., asking her whether she had accepted vaccinations or medicine for other ailments, notwithstanding her alleged belief that the Bible ordered her not to take "foreign substances" into her body.

This ruling obviously makes it harder -- or at least riskier -- for employers to deny religious objections.

Personally, I've always been intrigued by those stricter aspects of Buddhism that require substantial annual pilgrimages; say, 10-day trips to places like Hawaii or Fiji. Careful meditation and such. Often required during, say, final exam or grading periods. Though sometimes I feel like the Seventh Day Adventists are right and that the Bible orders me not to work at all on any Saturdays. I'm pretty flexible over time as to which religious beliefs I find attractive, but once persuaded, I'm very committed to the cause.

Of course sincere religious beliefs should be accommodated. But there may simultaneously be some settings in which a genuine doubt as to one's sincerity might be appropriate and permissible. The demonstrably sudden and unprecedented religiousity of healthcare workers (and others) during COVID-19 might perhaps have been one of those settings.

In re Conservatorship of E.A. (Cal. Supreme Ct. - July 23, 2026)

It's hard (though far from impossible) to argue with what Chief Justice Guerrero has to say here. The Court holds that lengthy delays in holding LPS hearings -- basically, hearings that decide whether the individual at issue remains sufficiently disabled to hold them against their will -- may well violate Due Process, but that such a violation doesn't automatically result in letting the person go, and is instead subject to harmless error review. So no relief here, since the person ultimately had a hearing that found that yep, still seriously disabled.

As I said, her arguments are strong ones. I particularly appreciated the last couple of pages of the opinion, which I suspected were coming and which said that notwithstanding the Court's ruling, trial courts can still try to effectively police speedy trial rights by entering orders and the like and that appellate courts could potentially grant writs as well. All of which is right.

But, with respect, I do think that Chief Justice Guerrero may somewhat wrongly minimize the interests at stake here. She says that there's principally a "dignitary interest" in having a speedy trial, designed in central part to avoid "the possibility that the defense will be impaired" by a long-delayed trial. Justice Liu emphasizes this point in his concurrence (joined by three other justices), highlighting the need to respect "the inherent dignity of each person" by granting them a speedy adjudication. These concerns, again, seem accurate to me.

But, to me, we're talking about more than "dignity" here. We're talking about right not to stay locked up without a trial. Yes, that violates someone's dignity, and treats them as less than a person. But the right to one's liberty -- the most basic and fundamental of those liberties, the right not to be locked up by the state -- isn't just a dignitary interest. It's literally the most central of one's liberty against the state. It is the fundamental liberty interest, without which few (if any) other liberties matter. If the state can lock you up, against your will, without a trial, your other alleged rights don't make much of a difference. And, in the present case, the fact that the person once had a trial, long ago, that held that they were disabled then doesn't make much of a difference. Maybe you were disabled (or, in a different context, a criminal) then, but that doesn't mean they get to lock you up now.

I understand that we have pretrial detention in criminal cases; after, I might add, a preliminary hearing in which a neutral magistrate or grand jury decides that there's probable cause. That's a big deal too. But to say that you can be locked up, potentially for years, while all the while insisting that you're no longer a danger to yourself or the community; well, that's something that we see in authoritarian states a lot, and I would like to think that we're different than that. Not merely because people have a "dignitary" interest in being heard. But because that's what it literally means to be a (mostly) free person; the entitlement to actively resist a state that seeks to lock you up without your consent.

Maybe I just want to highlight, even more than the Court does, the interests at stake here. Because in my view, they're incredibly serious ones. Maybe the most serious ones imaginable, save death.

Theis v. Intermountain Educ. Sch. Dist. (9th Cir. - July 21, 2026)

Today's Ninth Circuit opinion is fairly high profile, so it'll get a tolerable amount of mention in the legal press already. But I nonetheless wanted to write about it here.

First off, let's present the case in a neutral fashion. I want to first get your reaction without knowing who's ox is getting gored. That way, you'll approach the issue as you should: without a political reaction one way or the other. What constitutional law doctrine makes sense, regardless of which group stands to practically gain or lose as a result of that underlying theory.

Let's set forth two noncontroversial backstops at the outset. First, as a general matter, under the First Amendment, employees of the government can't be told what they can or can't say outside of the work setting. If I want to say that Trump (or Obama) is awesome, or that our education system is terrible (or fantastic), or vote a certain way on my own time and outside of work, the state can't regulate that. Free speech.

On the flip side, as a government employee, the government can generally tell me what to say while I am doing my work. So if I'm a math teacher, the government can tell me to tell my students that two plus two is four, even if I'm convinced it's five. And, at least in the elementary and high school setting, if I am a teacher and the state makes me say that the Union won the Civil War and rightly so (to abolish slavery), the First Amendment doesn't allow me to tell my students instead that the South either won or should have won. The state's paying for my speech, so they can tell me what to say.

That's the law, and rightly so.

The question that the Ninth Circuit confronts today lies somewhat in the intersection of those two bookend principles.

Imagine that you're a middle school teacher, or guidance counselor in the same setting. You want to put up a poster, or want to prominently display a particular book in your very small office. one that your middle school students will definitely see. I'm deliberately not going to tell you what that poster or book is about. Maybe it's Martin Luther King. Maybe it's Trump. Or Che Guevara. Ditto for the book. Maybe it's Das Capital, or the Fountainhead, or Mein Kampf. Shouldn't matter. It's something that's clearly on a political, hot-button issue, and that definitely expresses an opinion on it. An opinion that some people in your workplace, including students, will perhaps like, and that other people will most definitely not like.

Do you have a First Amendment right to put up that book or poster? Or can the state tell you that's not appropriate and make you take it down?

That's today's case. One that results in both a majority opinion and dissent.

Which side are you going to take? Without knowing what the book is about.

Because -- and this will perhaps not surprise you in the slightest -- once I tell you which Ninth Circuit judges are in the majority and which judge is in the dissent, you'll simultaneously be able to accurately predict what type of material -- left- or right-wing -- we're actually talking about in this case.

So before you know that, what do you think? Is the state allowed to regulate what types of hot-button political material, related to but not "officially" part of the curriculum, middle school teachers or counselors prominently display in their student-facing office?

Got your answer yet?

Okay. So, in the present case, the hot-button issue involves transgender rights. The state wants to stop a middle school counselor from prominently displaying in his office, right behind his desk, books that are fairly clearly anti-transgender: He is He and She is She, alongside a book called Johnny the Walrus that has the same theme (namely, that Johnny calling himself a walrus doesn't make him one).

Judges Owens and Sung hold that's permissible; that because the counselor is on the state's dime and in the state's workplace, they're paying for his speech, and they can tell him to take the books down. Judge VanDyke dissents, saying that the counselor has a First Amendment right to display the books, even if the state (or others in the workplace) don't like the message.

Who's right?

As a matter of precedent, the majority has the better of the argument. There are a fair number of Ninth Circuit cases in analogous settings, all of which hold that the state can regulate on-campus speech by government employees. Judge VanDyke argues in dissent that the underlying law changed once the Supreme Court decided Kennedy in 2022, which was a freedom of religion case that held that a high school football coach was allowed to say a prayer on the field (alongside students) after the game. But the rule is that unless an intervening decision is "clearly irreconcilable" with circuit precedent, you still have to follow precedent, and I don't think Judge VanDyke makes a persuasive case that the Court's religion precedent necessarily overrules the circuit's free speech holdings in this area.

Precedent aside, though, ponder what the correct rule should be. Because there are serious dangers, in my opinion, on both fronts.

On the one hand, I really don't want teachers entirely free to express their off-base personal opinions on hot-button topics to middle school students. The state gets to -- and should -- regulate that. If you want to express your personal opinion on your own time about why America should be an all-white nation, or how the Jews really control the world, go ahead, you have that right. But, sorry, the state's allowed to -- and should -- say that you've got to keep those opinions to yourself when you talk about slavery or World War II to your students. Maybe -- maybe -- if the students ask you for your personal opinions, you can tell them what you think (or, at a minimum, tell them you're happy to talk to them outside of school). But you're not entitled to shove your personal opinions on hot-button topics down the throats of middle school students on the state's dime; the state can let you if it wants, but it can also regulate that if it so chooses. There are serious dangers if the law is otherwise.

At the same time, I'll readily concede that this position has serious downsides as well. If I'm a middle school teacher -- and there are lots of them -- it's a non-trivial harm if the state's allowed to force me to tell my students that President Trump is objectively the greatest president in history, that the Civil War was entirely about state's rights, or that the Twenty Second Amendment really only bars presidents from being elected to two consecutive terms. During all of which, potentially, I am compelled to wear a red MAGA hat and a pin that says "Trump 2028." In a different era, perhaps these would be viewed as absurd hypotheticals. No longer, I fear. Sure, I could always quit my job and teach at a private school, or in a different state. (Assuming, at least, that the federal government didn't elect to withhold funds from, or actively sue, institutions that failed to follow federal guidelines on these fronts -- another previously-absurd hypothetical that is now anything but.) Overall, a rule that allowed the state to entirely regulate what posters or books or words I employ during my teaching would have consequences, ones that could potentially be seriously abused.

Judge VanDyke's dissent raises similar points, albeit in a predictably partisan fashion, with references to "woke" principles and the like. In this regard, the majority opinion has a point when it argues that the dissent, "despite its length, is cheap cotton candy: a lot of fluff but not real substance." (Alongside a footnote that critiques Judge VanDyke for quoting Justice Powell's plurality opinion in Bakke, which, notwithstanding Judge VanDyke's response, really does have nothing whatsoever to do with today's result.)

But, nonetheless, ponder the overall point. What's the right balance here? What's the state's legitimate role in regulating the workplace, student-facing speech of middle school government employees?

I'll make only one more point. Judge VanDyke argues in his dissent that "the school officials’ real interest in censoring Mr. Theis’s personal speech in this case is not efficiency or anything similarly benign, but rather something much more nefarious: to give children the false impression that all the adults in the school personally share the same woke perspective on some or all of the most disputed questions in our culture today (emphasis in original), saying that's "the reality of what is likely really going on in cases like this."

It's absurd missives like this -- oft-repeated, unfortunately -- that merit justifiable rebuke. In reality, no one -- and I mean, no one -- is going to seriously think that a guy like Mr. Theis (or his ilk) is really in favor of transgender rights because he's not permitting to prominently display anti-trans books in his office. We all have known teachers or others like Mr. Theis in our lives. We all know where they stand, regardless of whether they've got books sitting out on their desks. No one thinks, or even would think, that every teacher in Eastern Oregon (!) personally favors transgender rights just because the state does not allow the prominent display of anti-transgender books or posters in their office.

Anyway, an interesting opinion today. One that I encourage you to seriously ponder. Especially in the modern era.

Garcia Demetrio v. Blache (9th Cir. - July 20, 2026)

The success rate for asylum petitions from citizens of Mexico is strikingly low. It remains to be seen if the petitioner here will ultimately prevail. But at least for the moment, she wins in the Ninth Circuit, which holds that the BIA erred in denying her petition seeking asylum and withholding of removal. (In the meantime, the Ninth Circuit grants a stay on her deportation, so at a minimum, she's at least got some time in the States.)

Here's what she said happened to her:

"In October 2023, Garcia and her children fled to the United States from their home in Ciudad Altamirano, Guerrero, Mexico, after becoming targets of a criminal group. One month earlier, Garcia’s husband disappeared without trace or explanation. Garcia reported this disappearance to local authorities, who failed to investigate despite her follow-ups. Her husband remains missing.

After learning that her husband had disappeared, two men showed up at Garcia’s residence. The men told Garcia’s aunt, with whom Garcia lived, that they were government officials who wished to speak with Garcia about her eligibility for financial assistance programs for single mothers. The men left instructions for Garcia to attend a follow-up appointment the next day at an office in the city center.

When Garcia arrived at the office, she was confronted by four masked men, armed with rifles and wearing vests. They refused to let Garcia leave. The men told Garcia that they wanted to “take [her] girl and [her] boy to work with them” because they knew that Garcia was alone. The men planned to use her son to sell and traffic drugs, and said that her daughter might sell drugs or be raped. The men told her that she had two days to consider their offer or they would kill Garcia and her children. Garcia went home, collected her children, and immediately fled, taking a bus to Mexico City. She left without reporting the incident to the police; she wanted to “run as far as possible because [she] had fear that they could kill [her] and [her] three children.” Criminal organizations in Mexico routinely force adolescents to sell and transport drugs on their behalf, and adolescent girls are particularly at risk of sex trafficking.

On November 4, 2023, Garcia and her children entered the United States through the Nogales port of entry. She sought asylum upon arrival." 

U.S. v. Holcomb (9th Cir. - July 17, 2026)

This one took a long time.

It's an appeal in a criminal case that was filed in 2023. The oral argument was in September 2024, and the panel issued its original opinion roughly six months later, in March 2025.

So far, fairly routine.

But then the panel withdraws the opinion in September of 2025. It then takes another ten months to prepare and submit a revised opinion, which it does today.

It's a Fourth Amendment case, and there's a big fight between the majority and the dissent about whether the search here -- which was conducted pursuant to a warrant -- should have stopped once it reflected that the alleged crime pretty much certainly did not occur. (The purported victim alleged that she was raped, but the video, which she didn't know was being taken, fairly convincingly showed that the events were consensual, and that what the victim alleged had occurred did not, in fact, transpire. The opinion contains excruciating detail regarding what actually went down during this sexual interaction.)

I would predict that we have not seen the last moves regarding this appeal. There will likely be an en banc call, if only given the nature of the dispute and the fact that the panel's result means that it will likely be impossible to convict the defendant of the other crime they eventually saw after they continued the search: the defendant's rape of his nine-year old daughter, a video of which was on the same computer and for which the defendant was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

U.S. v. Hendrikson (9th Cir. - July 15, 2026)

In today's opinion, the Ninth Circuit vacates two counts of interstate solicitation in a murder-for-hire plot, for which the defendant (James Hendrikson) was sentenced to two 20-year terms of imprisonment back in 2016. One might facially think that's a big deal -- 40 less years in prison.

But those sentences were imposed concurrently with a ton of other counts. As a result, even after directing judgments of acquittal on these two counts, Mr. Hendrikson remains sentenced to two life terms in prison. Plus 20 years after that. (Plus, after he's dead, five years of supervised release, a supervision which should be fairly easy to accomplish.)

So no big deal in reality.

The underlying facts are fairly unusual. As Judge Fletcher explains: "James Terry Henrikson hired a hit man who murdered two of his business associates. He hired a different hit man to murder three other business associates, but those murders were never carried out." How much did he pay for the murder that actually occurred, you might ask? $20,000.

That's relatively inexpensive, no? The price of a (fairly crappy) new car is apparently the price of a human life? Whoda thunk?

Jackson v. Meyer (Cal. Ct. App. - July 14, 2026)

Let me see if I have this right.

A married couple has a trust in which they've placed all their community property, but then -- after 48 (!) years of marriage, if my calculations are correct -- Wife files for divorce. Promptly thereafter, as part of the dissolution proceedings, Wife revokes (as permitted by the trust) her contributions to the trust, and sets up her own trust in her own name. Wife serves Husband with this revocation, and while Husband objects that the revocation should be filed in court as well, he doesn't do anything to contest the revocation.

For some reason, the dissolution proceedings take a long time. Five years after filing for divorce, Wife dies. Wife appears to have left her share of the community property to the daughter of Wife and Husband, Linda, who is the trustee of Linda's (separate trust).

Here's the part I find stunning:

At that point, Husband files a petition to declare that Wife's revocation is invalid, and that he -- rather than his daughter -- should get all the money and be the trustee of the entire community assets. Needless to say, the daughter objects.

The trial court disagrees with Husband, and the Court of Appeal affirms. Rightly so.

Wife clearly didn't want her share going to the Husband from whom she sought a divorce. At least from what I know from the opinion, I'm more than happy this case turned out the way it did.

Price v. Diab (9th Cir. - July 13, 2026)

It's the summer doldrums on the California appellate side, so there hasn't been much for a bit. Today does, however, see this opinion by the Ninth Circuit, and I appreciated what Judge Bress did here.

It would have been easy to simply reverse in a brief unpublished memorandum disposition, or to reverse with some skimpy analysis. But Judge Bress doesn't take the absurdly easy route. His opinion is relatively  short -- ten pages -- but it takes the issues seriously, and then adds something helpful at the end.

It's an Americans with Disabilities Act case filed by a high-frequency litigant, so the defendant (potentially very smartly) doesn't even respond to the complaint and lets his default be taken. As a result, the plaintiff gets injunctive relief -- an order to comply with the ADA -- but nothing else. The district court is clearly not psyched by the plaintiff's tactics, so doesn't award even a penny of fees, despite the somewhat small amount ($9,364) requested by plaintiff. The district court's theory was that since all that the plaintiff got was an order that required defendant to comply with an already-existing law, she wasn't a prevailing party at all, since nothing changed.

Judge Bress disagrees, and he's right. The judgment changes the situation of the parties. The injunction makes it much easier to actually enforce the ADA (with contempt), and that rightly counts as "winning" under the ADA. You're a prevailing party. The analysis by Judge Bress on this point is cogent and compelling.

Then, at the end, Judge Bress adds a tangential discussion about fees, and I think it's a helpful one. Not only in this case, but in cases generally. He writes:

"To the extent Price asks us to rule on the amount of fees she should receive, we leave that determination for the district court in the first instance. But to provide guidance to the district court and Price on remand, we make a brief observation on one argument that Price advances in this court.

The district court found that even if Price were a prevailing party, her counsel “would not be entitled to the unreasonable amount that they request.” Price, 761 F. Supp. 3d at 1290. The court noted that Price’s fee motion appeared to be “recycled . . . nearly whole-cloth from another recent case” her attorneys had filed. Id. at 1289. As a result, the motion had copy-paste errors, did not reflect the procedural history of the case, and used incorrect male pronouns for Ms. Price. Price’s counsel does not dispute reusing a template from a prior case. But in briefing before this court, counsel characterizes the errors the district court identified as “irrelevant editing mistakes that would have required additional billable time to address.” 

It should go without saying that the issues the district court identified are not “irrelevant editing mistakes,” but instead reflect a lack of diligence. Sound lawyering (of course) includes making sure that the fee motion papers pertain to the case at issue. Courts consider the “[q]uality of representation” when determining a reasonable fee award. Van Gerwen v. Guar. Mut. Life Co., 214 F.3d 1041, 1046 (9th Cir. 2000). And we have affirmed that in “a ‘straightforward’ ADA case with boilerplate pleadings, minimal legal complexity, and little in the way of difficult fact discovery,” a reduction in fees can be justified, particularly when the case involves a “serial” plaintiff and a “lack of meaningful opposition” by the defendant. Shayler v. 1310 PCH, LLC, 51 F.4th 1015, 1017, 1021 (9th Cir. 2022).

The district court’s concerns with Price’s lawyering and the quality of the fee petition may appropriately factor into any fee award determination. But because the district court did not reach what a reasonable fee award would be, we remand for the court to address that issue." 

Nice finish.

People v. Sacco (Cal. Ct. App. - July 8, 2026)

"It is ordered that the opinion filed herein on June 4, 2026 be modified as follows: on page 9 in the last paragraph, second sentence delete 'witness' and replace with 'victim'."

Yep. Those are indeed different.

People v. Garner (Cal. Ct. App. - July 8, 2026)

This opinion certainly meets the criteria for (admittedly belated) publication.

In 2002, a then-15 years old gets convicted of (alongside his 18-year old accomplice) "robb[ing] the victim and her boyfriend, kidnapp[ing] the victim at gunpoint, and t[aking] turns raping her." He gets sentenced to 50 years in prison.

In 2024, the defendant (Jarvis Garner) petitions to be resentenced on the ground that his 50-year sentence is equivalent to life without parole (LWOP) since "the average age of death for a California inmate is 54 years" and, in any event, the average life expectancy of a Black Californian is 74.6 years. So, he says, his sentence is functionally equivalent to life in prison forever.

The California Attorney General . . . agrees.

Even though the trial court denied the petition, on appeal, the California Attorney General confesses error and says that, yes, the sentence here equivalent to LWOP.

The Court of Appeal is not particularly thrilled with that concession. It allows the District Attorney of San Joaquin County -- the party that opposed the petition in the trial court -- to appear as amicus curiae and oppose the grant of relief.

The panel ends up agreeing with the San Joaquin DA and rejects the Attorney General's concession.

The sentence is not equivalent to LWOP, the Court of Appeal holds, because (1) the panel refuses to accept the statistical evidence since the trial court didn't make a factual finding about it (weak sauce, in my view, but perhaps doctrinally accurate), and (2) even if all that's true, under current law, Mr. Garner is eligible for a parole hearing after 15 years in prison, so it's not LWOP, since he has a chance to potentially get out.

Most interesting to me is the fact that the California Attorney General conceded the point. (Second most interesting is that the Court of Appeal rejects that concession.) The concession may tell you something about the general approach of the current California Attorney General (Rob Bonta) -- one with which different people might stridently agree or disagree.

PWGG v. Bonta (9th Cir. - July 6, 2026)

Oops.

Doe v. Marysville Joint USD (Cal. Supreme Ct. - July 2, 2026)

I wish I could recommend an opinion today that was profoundly worth general reading, but no such luck (at least yet).

In the meantime, if you want to read something extremely erudite -- yet exhaustively boring -- here's an intricate civil procedure opinion by Justice Evans that should have you riveted. So long as you are hugely fascinated by the intersection of federalism and the Supreme Court's collateral estoppel jurisprudence as applied to the ostensibly procedural federal two-dismissal rule.

Engrossing indeed.

People v. Powell (Cal. Ct. App. - June 30, 2026)

There's good news for Quindale Powell in this opinion. Though admittedly not much.

In 2008, he's sentenced to 50 years to life for murder. In 2024, he files a motion in the trial court that says that his sentence contains mistakes. The trial court agrees in part, and gives Mr. Powell . . . two more days of custody credit.

That's something, I guess. But definitely not much.

But Mr. Powell then appeals, claiming that because the trial court modified the sentence, it should have granted him a full resentencing -- one that included all of the many sentencing changes that have taken place in California since he was originally sentenced in 2008. The Attorney General disagrees, and says that the trial court didn't have jurisdiction to do anything at all.

The Court of Appeal disagrees with both sides, and holds that the trial court did have jurisdiction to correct the miscalculated pretrial custody credits, but that's it, and was not required to (and could not) engage in a full resentencing.

And then the Court of Appeal holds that, in fact, Mr. Powell was entitled to three, rather than two, additional days of custody credits. So amends his sentence accordingly.

That counts as a win, I guess?

People v. DePape (Cal. Ct. App. - June 30, 2026)

Did it really make sense for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office to bring this appeal?

It's a high-profile matter, and involves the conviction of David DePape for smashing the head of Paul Pelosi, the husband of Nancy Pelosi, during DePape's attempted kidnapping of Nancy. Shortly before DePape went on trial in state court, he was convicted in federal court for similar (federal) offenses, so he moved to dismiss some of the state court charges against him on statutory double jeopardy grounds. The trial court agreed, dismissing five of the eight counts against DePape. The SF District Attorney's Office then filed a writ and, ultimately, an appeal.

I get that the District Attorney was miffed. The double jeopardy issue is a tough one. Which is, in part, why there's a split opinion on appeal. There's an argument that the trial court got it wrong -- not a totally obvious one, but an argument nonetheless. Hence at least the facial need to file an appeal.

But can we step aside for a second to address the practical realities here?

DePape was already convicted in federal court and sentenced to 30 years in prison. He's 46 years old now. This is federal time, so even if we're only looking at the federal convictions, he's not getting out anytime soon (if ever).

But that's not all. Three of the eight state court charges against DePape went forward at trial. And at that trial, DePape was convicted of those charges -- none of which are at issue in today's appeal -- and received life without the possibility of parole as a result.

As a result, DePape is already in prison. Forever. Even in a Bizarro-World scenario in which President Trump grants a federal pardon because he too would like to have smashed Nancy Pelosi on the head with a hammer -- and I sincerely wish that ludicrous scenario was radically more absurd than it might actually be in the present political climate -- DePape would still remain in a California prison for the rest of his life regardless of the outcome of the present appeal.

Given that reality, does it really make sense to spend time and money prosecuting an appeal on a legal issue that's entirely specific to one guy and that practically matters not in the slightest?

(Especially when the SF DA's Office ultimately loses that appeal, thereby entrenching the trial court's otherwise nonprecedential opinion into a published Court of Appeal opinion?)

At some point, just take the W and go home.

Doe v. McGrath Kavinoky LLP (Cal. Ct. App. - June 29, 2026)

The practical import of today's opinion by the Court of Appeal is both important and easy to spell out:

Don't represent multiple plaintiffs against the same defendant on the same type of tort without disclosing the potential conflict of interest; otherwise, your engagement agreement, including its arbitration clause, might (as here) be held invalid.

Lesson learned.

In re I.H. (Cal. Ct. App. - June 25, 2026)

Police officers have a warrant to arrest a guy named Delgadillo. Based on something (unstated), they think he might be in a particular hotel room in Colton. After they set up on that hotel room, two people walk out of it. They think that one of the guys is Delgadillo, so they tackle him to the ground.

But it's not Delgadillo. It's someone else.

Turns out, though, that the guy they tackled -- a teenager -- had a gun in his waistband. So they charge him (in a wardship petition) with that.

The mistakenly-tackled guy (I.H.) moves to suppress, saying the police didn't have probable cause to tackle him, since he admittedly hadn't done anything wrong (or even suspicious). But the Court of Appeal disagrees, saying:

"The officers also reasonably mistook I.H. to be Delgadillo. The arrest warrant for Delgadillo described him as a Hispanic male in his late teens or early 20s, about six feet tall, with brown or black hair and brown eyes. I.H. largely matched that description: he was 17 at the time of his arrest, about six feet tall, and has black hair and brown eyes.

I might perhaps helpfully add, however, that this basic description lumps in a huge number of Hispanic male youth. They're all in their "late teens or early 20s," a large fraction of them are "about six feet tall (around a quarter of Hispanic males are between 5'9 and 6'3), and over 90% of them have "brown or black hair and brown eyes." So we're basically saying that "If two Hispanic males walk out of a hotel room, one of them is probably the guy we're looking for, so tackle the taller one." The description that the Court of Appeal highlights as a "reasonable mistake" is so general as to be almost useless, at least for that particular ethnic group.

I'll also mention that the Court of Appeal's statement in this regard doesn't reflect either (1) that the description of Delgadillo was that he was "wearing a black sweater, dark-color hat[,] and sunglasses," and there's no indication anywhere that I.H. had any of that, and (2) the description of Delgadillo also included that he had particular tattoos on his arm, whereas I.H. didn't have any arm tattoos at all.

So the description that of Delgadillo that might perhaps to some seem fairly specific, and to closely describe I.H. as well, is actually, I think, really just a description of a wide swath of Hispanic youth.

Something to think about.

In re J.L. (Cal. Ct. App. - June 24, 2026)

Here's a classic California opinion. A lot of briefing in the trial court. An appeal, with counsel for both the government and for both of the defendants paid for by the state. An initial appellate opinion produced by three state-paid appellate justices and their staff. Review by the (state-paid) California Supreme Court, resulting in a transfer for the Court of Appeal to reconsider its decision. More briefing filed by state-paid counsel for both sides. Resulting in another 20-plus page opinion by the Court of Appeal.

All over whether a particular restitution order should be reduced by the princely sum of $750 for one of the defendants and $205 for the other.

A $15,000+ restitution order imposed upon two minors that, in all likelihood, will never be paid anyway.

At least arguably not a perfect allocation of substantial social resources.

Pitt v. Shefler (Cal. Ct. App. - June 24, 2026)

Do you think the Court of Appeal pays slightly more attention to a personal jurisdiction disputes when one of the parties in Brad Pitt, and the case involves his high-profile dispute with Angelina Jolie over the sale of their jointly-owned winery? I would be surprised if the answer was "No."

The Court of Appeal reverses the trial court's grant of the motion to quash, finding that personal jurisdiction in California exists. I'll leave everything else about the opinion to the higher-profile press articles that this particular dispute will undoubtedly receive.

Fazel v. Pete Fowler Const. Svcs (Cal. Ct. App. - June 23, 2026)

It's always nice when the holding of a case is cogently summarized in its first couple of paragraphs, and that happens here:

"In a prior lawsuit, plaintiff Maryam Fazel sued her neighbor due to water intrusion emanating from her neighbor’s property. The neighbor retained Pete Fowler Construction Services (Fowler Construction or Fowler) as an expert. Fowler Construction prepared an expert report in which it recommended repairs that later formed the basis of a settlement of the lawsuit. After the repairs were implemented and the underlying suit settled, however, the water intrusion returned.

In the present lawsuit, Fazel sued Fowler Construction for negligence in the formulation of the repairs. The court entered judgment on the pleadings in favor of Fowler, ruling that Fowler’s recommendations were generated for an expert report in the course of litigation, and thus the absolute litigation privilege barred Fazel’s suit. We agree and affirm the judgment."

The remainder of Justice Sanchez's short-but-sweet opinion also smartly addresses the underlying details as well as the unsuccessful arguments to the contrary. Nicely done.

Cocom v. ABM Aviation, Inc. (9th Cir. - June 23, 2026)

Imagine that you're an attorney representing a corporation and defending a wage and hour class action in the Central District of California filed by one of your janitorial employees. In the district court, you moved to compel arbitration, but the judge held that the company's arbitration agreement was unconscionable.

You filed an appeal in the Ninth Circuit. I generated randomly generated the following panels, one of which is the panel in the actual case. All of the panels contain two active judges and one senior judge. You're hoping that the Ninth Circuit will reverse the district court and compel arbitration. Which of the following is your dream panel?

A.  Judges Murguia, Bumatay and Tashima.

B.  Judges Koh, VanDyke and Graber.

C.  Judges Desai, Sanchez and Sidney Thomas.

D.  Judges Tallman, VanDyke and Tung.

E.  Judges Mendoza, Forrest and McKeown.

The company here gets both its hoped-for panel as well as its hoped-for result.

People v. Sacco (Cal. Ct. App. - June 22, 2026)

After a relatively long period of inactivity, the California Court of Appeal gets back into the game today with several published opinions. Every one of them affirms the decision below.

This opinion struck me as interesting not because the Court of Appeal gets it wrong, but rather because the fact that it's somewhat close is fairly surprising. The defendant intercepted mail intended for a local post of the American Legion and cashed some checks that belonged to it. His scheme was fairly sophisticated; he had set up bank accounts in related names, had gotten replacement checks in his fake names sent to him by various entities who paid money to the Legion, and basically operated a neat little scam that netted him a healthy chunk of change.

When he got caught, he hired a psychologist who prepared a report that said that the defendant's mental health -- basically, stress -- was a significant factor in his crimes. On that basis, the defendant requested mental health diversion, which would basically amount to no criminal consequences for his fraud.

What surprised me what that the DA's office (1) didn't hire an expert to refute these claims, and (2) when time came to argue the motion orally, didn't offer any argument in response to the defense, and simply submitted on the papers.

Admittedly, that gambit worked, and the trial court denied diversion. I was nonetheless somewhat surprised at the laissez-faire attitude of the DA's office. I would have perhaps expected the expenditure of a little more effort, particularly given the nature of the crimes at issue.

People v. Brim (Cal. Ct. App. - June 17, 2026)

It has been nearly a week since the Court of Appeal has issued a published opinion, so I was glad to read this one by Justice Richman today. It's an extremely good one. Well written, well argued, and persuasive on the merits. Really well done.

My only marginal critique is that I felt as though the opinion could have given the deceased victim here a touch more respect. The victim -- Oliver Williams -- was stabbed to death by the defendant (Jermaine Brim) during a fight on a BART train that was instigated when the barefoot defendant attempted to get some shoes from someone sleeping on the train. Mr. Williams stepped in to confront Mr. Brin and ordered him to leave the train; Mr. Brin did so, but then returned, a scuffle ensued, and ultimately Mr. Brin stabbed Mr. Williams to death.

Maybe the case involved a second degree murder, or maybe it involved voluntary manslaughter. That is what the published opinion is all about, and rightfully so.

But I would have preferred that the opinion, at least once, describe the deceased victim, Mr. Williams, as a good Samaritan. Because that's surely what he was. For better or worse, he was trying to protect someone else on a BART train. He didn't have to do that. Many -- perhaps most -- other people in that situation would have simply turned away, or watched the events transpire helplessly.

Mr. Williams didn't do that. He tried to help. And he ultimately paid for that decision with his life.

That deserves, in my mind, at least a little respect. Were it me, I would have expressly given it.

Quinteros v. Harbor Dist. Co. (Cal. Ct. App. - June 11, 2026)

No one likes to get sanctioned. No one likes to have their name sullied in public, or be compelled to pay $5,000 to the other side and another $1,000 to the court.

But sometimes, you just have to let it be. Rather than appeal the thing and result in a published opinion like this one.

It's yet another opinion about AI-generated briefs. (Anyone starting to get the message on that?) This time from a firm that used a contract attorney and didn't check his work -- amongst other problems.

Not only does the law firm and its attorneys lose the appeal, but it results in an opinion that includes the following representative content:

"The [trial] court compared quotations from the opposition to existing legal authority and stated, LLG “repeatedly and seriously misrepresent[s] the holdings of these and other cases” and “blatant misrepresentations appear throughout the brief.” The court pointed out, “the brief contains no fewer than eight fabricated quotations that purportedly appear in cases cited by” LLG and stated, again in bold font, “Literally every other purported quotation from a case in the brief is similarly fictitious.” The court expounded: “If these fabricated quotations were created by the use of a generative artificial intelligence tool such as ChatGPT, they are even more insidious than quotations from ‘hallucinated’ cases because they are attributed, falsely, to actual reported (if miscited) cases, which renders them more difficult and burdensome to detect." . . .

At the July 11 hearing on the OSC, Schelly and Badawi appeared in person as the court had directed. The court began the hearing by explaining the reason for the OSC: “The brief contained inaccurate citations, misrepresentations of California law, and remarkably eight different purported quotations from cases that are as far as the court can determine, entirely fabricated, invented, they don’t exist. [¶] They don’t appear in any of the cited cases. They don’t appear in any reported California case authority.”

Speaking on LLG’s behalf, Schelly apologized to the court and stated, “we’re all absolutely embarrassed, dismayed, upset that something like this has occurred involving our firm.” The court responded, “unfortunately, Mr. Schelly, the damage is done, but in the sense that both the court and your opponent had been put [through] the burden of reading and responding to a brief that turned out to be dishonest and—literally, almost literally, at every page. [¶] This is the worst example of misconduct by a lawyer that I think I’ve ever seen since I’ve been on the bench.”"

Yeah. Might have wanted to just take your lumps and go home on that one.

People v. Russo (Cal. Ct. App. - June 12, 2026)

The Court of Appeal decided to publish this (originally unpublished) opinion, which means that the following opening paragraph now gets to live on in perpetuity:

"[I]n February 2024, defendant’s mother told defendant to leave her property. Defendant responded by punching his dog approximately 20 times, calling it racial slurs, and dragging it down the street."

Dude: Why take it out on the dog?! (Also: Calling your dog racial slurs? Really? Does that even make any sense?)

In re Marriage of Capos (Cal. Ct. App. - June 12, 2026)

The Court of Appeal amends its opinion, inter alia, to add the following footnote (emphasis in original):

"The trial court’s math appears to be wrong, and the total amount awarded ($768,748.65) does not match the total amount LaShelle requested ($768,478.65), but neither party mentions these discrepancies, so we do not either."

To be honest, I do that whole "switch the numbers" thing on occasion as well.

County of Del Norte v. Britt (Cal. Ct. App. - June 11, 2026)

A guy who owns a house dies intestate. No one else is on the deed, and no one claims the house. Vagrants (predictably) take it over, and it gets ugly. The County then declares the house a nuisance, gets a receiver appointed, evicts the squatters, and hauls off fourteen tons of trash, junk and debris.

All this makes sense. Good government at work.

With the following caveat.

The dead guy has two sisters. They have zero interest in the house. They never opened up a probate estate and never sought to get any of their brother's assets. The County asks them if they care at all about what happens to the house. The sisters say "No." It was their brothers'. He's dead. Deal with it however you'd like. Burn it down, for all they care.

After evicting everyone and cleaning out the trash, the receiver then rehabilitates the house, finds a buyer, sells it, and uses the proceeds to off the mortgage as well as the costs incurred by the County. But those funds weren't sufficient to fully pay the receiver's own fees.

So the receiver then asks the court to make the sisters pay his fees.

The sisters hire a lawyer, who essentially says "Hey, we didn't do anything here. It's not our house, we never wanted it, we never filed anything, and we shouldn't have to pay fees for something of which we had utterly no part." The sisters are also miffed because the receiver could have gotten a super-priority lien to make sure the receiver's own fees got paid first, but inexplicably failed to do so.

The trial court agreed, and didn't hold the sisters responsible. But when the sisters then moved to recover their fees, the trial court refused, holding that they were not recoverable.

The Court of Appeal reverses, holding that they were.

There's no way anyone should have gone after the sisters in the first place. They weren't responsible. It wasn't their house, they didn't want it, and they shouldn't be liable for something just because they're the closest relatives to someone who dies intestate. Just like someone who dies with a credit card debt, that's exclusively the dead person's problem, not the relatives'. (At least if the relatives, as here, don't want any benefit from the estate.)

I'm happy the sisters got their fees. Both in the trial court and on appeal.

 

In re Tung Trust (Cal. Ct. App. - June 9, 2026)

There hasn't been a ton of interesting action in the Ninth Circuit or California Court of Appeal lately, but I've been thinking a little about this opinion ever since it came out the day before yesterday.

It's not that I disagree with either the result or the reasoning. It's actually an outstanding opinion by Justice Fueur, and I'm totally down with everything she says. Indeed, in my mind, the case is a great example why we have appeal as a matter of right. Because sometimes, a single judge gets it wrong, and it makes sense to have three smart judges take at least a quick look at the thing (and sometimes a deeper look) to correct any errors that might have transpired. Even if in the majority of cases, the result ends up getting affirmed.

Here, by contrast, there's a reversal. And rightly so.

To me, the ruling in the trial court is a great example of how, on occasion, judges get too bogged down in doctrine and purported efforts to confine themselves to contractual (or statutory) language and, in doing so, leave common sense behind.

The question here is how to distribute the assets of a revocable trust once the settlor dies. In 2011, an unmarried mother, Ya-Ching Tung, established a trust that designated as successor beneficiaries her three adult children. Typical. Moreover, the trust contained all the usual boilerplate paragraphs about additional property that might be added to the trust, the 30-day survivor provision, a no contest clause, etc.

In 2016, the oldest of the three children died, leaving behind his three kids. That son was supposed to get the majority of the property in the trust. In 2019, the settlor (the mother) died, and shortly thereafter, in 2020, one of the two daughters in the trust also died, without issue. That left alive only one of the three original children -- the one who was originally supposed to get a tiny fraction of what was in the trust (less than 1/6th) -- alongside the three grandkids, the children of the eldest son.

The surviving daughter then becomes the trustee of the trust, and petitions to have . . . get this . . . all of the trust property given to her, because she was the only direct child still alive. She admits that California law generally says (of course it does!) that surviving children generally stand in the shoes of their parents if the parents are beneficiaries and die. But the surviving daughter says that doesn't apply because the boilerplate 30-day survivor provision of the trust "demonstrates a contrary intent" and means that the three grandchildren are totally cut out, leaving the daughter as the sole beneficiary.

The trial court agrees with her. The Court of Appeal reverses.

As I said, I'm totally on board for Justice Feuer's reasoning and result. [My bad on the original spelling, though -- sorry about that!] Spot on right.

But I was also fundamentally displeased with how the trial court went about its task here. Yes, we're interpreting a written document -- a trust. Yes, we generally follow what it says, and look to what the terms mean. Yes, I understand why a judge might (wrongly) view the 30-day survivor provision as perhaps saying that if one of kids predeceases her, that kid is treated as dead. (Though, truthfully, that provision is really just intended to avoid the problem of figuring out "who died first" in a situation in which the settlor and one of the beneficiaries gets offed in the same incident.)

But here's the thing. There's zero reason to think that that's how the settlor ACTUALLY intended her trust to be distributed. There's ZERO reason why the grandmother would purportedly want the child who she gave the least amount under the trust (less than a sixth) to have the whole thing, while leaving her grandkids out in the cold merely because their mother had the misfortune of dying first. That's not how people actually act. I'm a thousand percent confident that was not, in fact, the settlor's intent. Yet that's what the trial court ended up deciding.

Common sense should matter. Actuating the intent of the written instrument should matter. That's got to play a role. Even if you think -- and especially if you think mistakenly -- that the words in the document technically or literally mean something else.

Text matters. So does intent.

And yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the whole parole evidence rule and the like. I understand that principle. Ditto for statutory interpretation, which follows the same general principle.

But written text is often more ambiguous than what we facially perceive it to be. Particularly when, as here, we've got a very reasonable, common sense interpretation of what that written text was intended to do.

Short version: Don't lose the forest for the trees. Don't forget what we're actually trying to do in cases like this one. Yes, we're reading text. But we're also very much trying to effectuate intent.

Don't leave common sense behind.