Div. Six of this district’s Court of Appeal held yesterday that a trial judge did not abuse her discretion in awarding the rape victim of an on-campus assault $20,000 in restitution to account for a four-year scholarship she lost after withdrawing from classes at the Camarillo-based California State University Channel Islands in the wake of the attack, rejecting the defendant’s view that a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision operates to require a jury trial on the issue.

The defendant in an action against it by a former employee who alleges fraud and unfair business practices had no standing to move for the disqualification of the plaintiff’s lawyer on the ground that, as a deputy Los Angeles alternate public defender, he was impermissibly representing a private client, Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal has declared.

(Subscription required) Judge Dean Hansell expected family law to be a brief stop before moving to civil. A decade later, the complex financial cases, thorny legal questions, and human stakes have convinced him he has "one of the best jobs" on the Los Angeles County bench. 

(Subscription required) A Santa Maria man has agreed to plead guilty to detonating a bomb in a Santa Barbara County courthouse in 2024, according to an agreement with prosecutors filed in the U.S. District Court for California’s Central District. Nathaniel James McGuire will plead guilty to one count of using a weapon of mass destruction and one count of using an explosive for malicious destruction of a building.