CA Unpub Decisions

The trial court vacated the forfeiture and exonerated the bail bond issued by Bankers Insurance Company (hereafter Bankers Insurance) to ensure the appearance of a defendant in a misdemeanor criminal action. The People appeal arguing the bail bond was properly forfeited.
The issue is whether the defendant was lawfully required to appear at the hearing at which the bail bond was forfeited. We conclude there is substantial evidence to support the trial court’s conclusion the defendant was not ordered to appear, and therefore affirm the trial court’s orders.

Plaintiff, Mitchell Anthony Productions, LLC, appeals from an order denying a Code of Civil Procedure section 1286.2, subdivision (a) motion to vacate an arbitration award. Plaintiff sued defendant, Jennifer Hamilton, for: negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage; inducing contract breach; interference with contract; defamation; and Business and Professions Code section 17200 violations. Defendant moved to compel arbitration, which the trial court granted. An arbitration hearing was conducted, at which plaintiff failed to appear. The arbitrator awarded in favor of defendant. Plaintiff moved to vacate the award. Plaintiff asserted the arbitrator failed to disclose disqualification grounds and committed fraud, misconduct and corruption. The trial court denied plaintiff’s motion. We affirm the order.

Plaintiff, Larchmont Village Partners One LLC, appeals from a June 25, 2015 judgment of dismissal entered pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure sections 583.310 and 583.360, subdivision (a). Plaintiff contends Judge Stephanie M. Bowick erred in granting the dismissal motion of defendant, City of Los Angeles, because the case was not tried within five years after it was filed. Plaintiff argues the five-year provision of section 583.310 is inapplicable because Judge Soussan G. Bruguera granted defendant’s judgment on the pleadings motion without leave to amend on January 30, 2013. We agree.

Defendant Mark Steven Simmons challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the trial court’s July 2015 order extending his involuntary commitment as a mentally disordered offender (Pen. Code, § 2972) for the twelfth time. We conclude substantial evidence supports the order and will affirm.

Family courts hear a lot of sad and tragic cases, some of which find their way to the Court of Appeal. This case is one of the saddest. It centers on the desperate – but, as we must explain in this opinion, futile – efforts of a self-represented man with terminal cancer to see more of his children.

J.B. (father) appealed from the juvenile court’s order terminating his parental rights (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 366.26) as to his now 21-month-old son, J.B., Jr., and selecting adoption as the child’s permanent plan. After reviewing the juvenile court record, father’s court-appointed counsel informed this court she could find no arguable issues to raise on father’s behalf. This court granted father leave to personally file a letter setting forth a good cause showing that an arguable issue of reversible error exists. (In re Phoenix H. (2009) 47 Cal.4th 835, 844 (Phoenix H.).)

In this dissolution proceeding, the primary issue appears to have been the custody of the children. Salome M. Ovalle (father) is representing himself in his appeal to this court. Anna B. Ovalle (mother) is also representing herself, but she did not file a brief.
We are required to make numerous assumptions in this appeal because father’s brief is unclear, and the record is incomplete. It appears to us that father is challenging the trial court’s latest custody order. The last custody order in the record before us is a custody order filed over one year before the notice of appeal was filed. Moreover, this order appears to be a temporary custody order. Therefore, we must dismiss the appeal because a temporary custody order is not appealable. Additionally, if this order had been a final custody order, father’s appeal would be untimely. Finally, even were we to consider the merits of father’s appeal, we would affirm the order of the family court because father fails to exp

Donald Ray Newsome was placed on probation after he pled no contest to domestic abuse. He argues the electronic search condition imposed by the trial court as a condition of probation is unconstitutionally overbroad, and is unreasonable under People v. Lent (1975) 15 Cal.3d 481 (Lent). He also argues the condition of probation prohibiting him from possessing firearms is unconstitutionally vague because it fails to include a requirement that the possession be knowing.

This is the third and fourth appeal pursued by plaintiff Deborah Ellis concerning the med-pay provisions of an automobile insurance policy issued by defendant Mercury Insurance Company in 2004. The present appeal arises from the second lawsuit Ellis has filed, based on the same facts and claims as the first lawsuit. We affirm the judgment in favor of Mercury.

Austin Kreider sued a number of defendants, seeking to enjoin the impending foreclosure of his house. Two of the defendants demurred; the trial court sustained the demurrer with 30 days’ leave to amend. Kreider did not file an amended complaint, so the trial court dismissed the action.
Kreider now appeals, contending that he did state valid causes of action, and in any event, he had good cause for his failure to file a timely amended complaint. We will hold that, on this record, he cannot show that the trial court erred by sustaining the demurrer. Moreover, he failed to show that he had good cause for his failure to amend. Hence, we will affirm.

At the heart of this appeal is whether an employer conclusively proved that a terminated employee copied the employer’s data and not just the employee’s personal information from a hard drive owned by the employer. After a six-day court trial, the court concluded that the employer failed to carry its burden of proof and that “[t]he data kept by [the employee] was his own.”
Plaintiff John Mendez filed this action because his former employer, defendant Piper Environmental Group, Inc. (PEG) and its chief executive officer, defendant Jane Piper, his former wife, (collectively “appellants”) had warned two prospective employers that he was prohibited from divulging PEG’s trade secrets and that he was barred from competing with PEG under his marital settlement agreement (MSA) with Piper. He requested declaratory relief, damages, and an injunction. PEG cross-complained, alleging that Mendez had breached a fiduciary duty and violated the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, Penal Co

Appellant Jason Michael Salinas (defendant) pled guilty to one count of an attempted violation of Penal Code 4573, bringing a controlled substance into a prison, and admitted one prior strike conviction. Defendant was sentenced to a total term of two years. Defendant filed a notice of appeal stating the appeal is based on the sentence or other matters occurring after the plea that do not affect the plea. Appellate counsel filed a brief pursuant to People v. Wende (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436. We affirm.

A jury convicted Armando Castillo of robbery (Pen. Code, § 211) and found that he personally used a dangerous or deadly weapon (§§ 12022, subd. (b)(1), 1192.7, subd. (c)(23).) Castillo contends: (1) insufficient evidence supports the robbery conviction; (2) the trial court erred in not including the portion of the aiding and abetting instruction explaining the significance of the defendant's mere presence at the scene of the crime (CALCRIM No. 401); and (3) the trial court erred in not instructing sua sponte on self-defense. Although we conclude there were instructional errors, they do not require reversal and we accordingly affirm the judgment.

In 2012, the workers’ compensation judge (WCJ) determined that the employee had sustained industrial injuries to his right shoulder and left knee. A medical report issued in 2013 identified additional injuries to the neck and back. In 2015, the WCJ ruled that the claim for injuries to the neck and back was barred by the 2012 decision because that decision had found injuries only to the right shoulder and left knee. A majority of the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (appeals board) upheld the WCJ’s 2015 decision.