Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has rejected an assertion, in a malicious prosecution case, that the fact that a former putative class representative is the sister-in-law of one of the attorneys who filed the case establishes that the firm and the party responsible for the underlying matter lacked probable cause to pursue the asserted claims as a matter of law.

Div. One of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has reversed an alleged killer’s judgment of conviction relating to a decision by the trial court to kick a juror, who was the “likely” sole holdout against a finding of guilt on a second-degree murder charge, saying the dismissal was not supported when “looking at the conduct” at issue rather than the other panelists’ characterizations of her behavior.

The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday invalidated a sentence, in obedience to a recent California Supreme Court decision, with the majority indicating a belief that the wrong result was being reached.

(Subscription required) A state appellate panel has upheld $6,000 in sanctions against a Southern California law firm’s attorneys for submitting a brief marred by generative artificial intelligence mistakes in what a trial judge called “the worst example of misconduct by a lawyer that I think I’ve ever seen since I’ve been on the bench.”