(Subscription required) Judge Elaine Lu brings preparation, candor and a willingness to rethink assumptions to some of Los Angeles County's most complicated litigation.

A unanimous California Supreme Court yesterday invalidated a “practice” by the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board to “equitably toll” a statutory deadline in order to grant itself more time to act on a petition for reconsideration of a decision by an administrative judge, highlighting that the doctrine has only ever been applied to benefit litigants and never to give flexibility to an agency charged by the Legislature with making a timely decision.

Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a liquidated-damages clause in a settlement agreement that anticipates the entry of a stipulated judgment for $1.5 million in the event that the corporate defendant fails to cure a default of its obligations to repay $450,000 to the plaintiff is unenforceable under California law, drawing a sharp dissent calling the decision “illogical, unfair, and destructive.”

(Subscription required) The Los Angeles judge manages a 700-case civil calendar by staying months ahead, pushing cases toward earlier resolution, and digging into the legal questions that still challenge her after more than four decades on the bench.