The California Supreme Court has been -- and, occasionally, still is -- at the forefront of modern torts jurisprudence.
But there's a reason why today's opinion is unanimous. And doesn't expand tort liability one iota.
I wanted to quote from one or two paragraphs of Justice Cuellar's opinion to identify just why the Court doesn't allow businesses who were clearly damaged by the Southern California gas leaks -- but that nonetheless did not suffer actual "personal injury" or "property damage" -- to sue for the profits they undeniably lost from the thing. The problem is that every single paragraph is just so darn good, it's hard to isolate just one or two. So I'm going to make you read the whole shebang.
It's a folky, policy-centered, articulate, awesomely crafted decision. Beautiful, really.
Were I able to write a tenth as well, I'd be a happy man.
