Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the [U.S.] Supreme Court’s most influential member prior to his retirement, has watched quietly for eight years as a new conservative majority took charge.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision interpreting California law, yesterday reversed an order suppressing evidence found in a trailer and pickup truck, saying that officers reasonably believed that the vehicles belonged to, or were under the control of, a man who was on parole, a condition of which was submitting to warrantless searches of his residence or property under his control.

Div. Two of the First District Court of Appeal has rejected a party’s assertion that his insurance company should be estopped from enforcing a one-year statute of limitations, that starts to run when an insurer makes an unequivocal denial of a claim, based on ongoing communications inviting the insured to submit “any additional information.”

The California Supreme Court held yesterday that a conservatee’s due process rights were breached by a delay in the trial on the determination of whether she continued to qualify for involuntary institutionalization that lasted nearly as long as the allowable term of detention under the governing statutory framework but declared that the violation does not qualify as structural error requiring dismissal of conservatorship proceedings.