Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that a trial judge erred in granting a partial judgment notwithstanding the verdict motion as to a whistleblower cause of action, based on a finding that the plaintiff had wrongly complained about legal wage disparities at work, declaring that the man’s misunderstanding of the Equal Pay Act as barring any compensation variance for those doing the same job was not unreasonable as a matter of law.

(Subscription required) A Los Angeles judge on Monday urged attorneys to resolve lingering limited discovery issues "sooner rather than later" in the Palisades Fire litigation, as plaintiffs sought production of additional wildfire maps they say are needed before depositions of state parks rangers this week.

(Subscription required) The California Supreme Court ruled that a single act of vehicular manslaughter that killed two people cannot be counted as two prior strikes under the Three Strikes law, rejecting a decade-old appellate precedent and ordering resentencing in a DUI case. 

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declared on Friday that a magistrate judge correctly dismissed an inmate’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus challenging moneys being deducted from prison wages to go toward payment of a fine, but said the order was made for the wrong reason, holding that the District Court for the Central District of California is not vested with jurisdiction simply because the convict is housed here.