(Subscription required) Nine test takers, originally told they failed, have now been told they passed the February bar exam after a review uncovered answers that weren't graded.

The Court of Appeal for this district yesterday declined to relieve a realtor of a $633,380.44 judgment against him stemming from his failure to repay an $85,000 loan made to him by a teenager, half his age, whom he had befriended.

Div. Seven of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujie did not err in denying a defendant’s request for a continuance after his attorney withdrew during the second day of a bench trial, finding that the fact that the lawyer’s request was predicated on ethical concerns over presenting the defense and the client had intermittently represented himself in the case, as well as other factors, supported the decision.

A judge’s instruction that allowed jurors to find two defendants guilty on two counts of each of attempted murder under the legislatively abandoned “natural and probable consequences” theory has resulted in the Court of Appeal’s reversal of those convictions, over a dissent, but the justices were unanimous in affirming murder convictions, finding the instructional error to have been harmless under the circumstances.