Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal held yesterday that a judge erred in denying a wife’s request for on-going needs-based attorney fees based on her previous litigation tactics in the family court proceedings, saying that the fact that she was found to have lied in an earlier declaration and to have used wasteful strategies in the past had no impact on her entitlement to a pendente lite award.

The Commission on Judicial Appointments will hold an in-person public hearing in San Francisco at 9 a.m. on Monday to consider the nomination of California Supreme Court chambers attorney Matthew Scherb to the role of an associate justice of Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal.

(Subscription required) The filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Central California cites the plaintiffs’ claims that the new Democrat-friendly maps rely on unconstitutional race-based gerrymandering.

(Subscription required) The four-week trial, featuring plaintiffs Monica Kent and Deborah Schultz, two women who got ovarian cancer, is the first from among talcum powder lawsuits coordinated in California’s state courts and could be a harbinger for similar trials in 2026.