The First District Court of Appeal recently ordered published its decision in Denny v. Arntz in which it ruled that statutory challenges to the sufficiency of ballot materials cannot be made post-election.  The ruling helpfully construes Elections Code section 16100 to exclude post-election challenges based on alleged flaws in the ballot question and voter information pamphlet. Here, Denny filed a post-election challenge to Proposition A, which proposed a 30-year bond issuance of $425,000,000 to…

The Second Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal held that arbitration clauses are unenforceable in continuing care retirement community tenancy agreements. Harris and four other residents (“Harris”) live in the University Village Thousand Oaks (UVTO) continuing care and retirement community. Residents of UVTO must sign a contract before moving in. Pursuant to the contract, residents pay various monthly fees for a residence, care, and services. The contracts include the right to live in…

Damage claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 – and really any personal injury claims — are broken down into two categories: economic and noneconomic damages. Pain and suffering, mental anguish, and loss of consortium are commonly sought in large numbers as noneconomic damages to enhance a plaintiff’s out-of-pocket damages. Prior to 1986, a plaintiff could recover all of her economic and noneconomic damages from one party, even if she pursued multiple defendants. Proposition 51 — the…

The First Appellate District of the California Court of Appeal held that local rent control laws can apply to individual rooms rented in a single-family home. Jonathan Owens owns a single-family home in Oakland. He rents out three of the bedrooms in this home to separate tenants on a month-to-month basis, terminable upon 60 days’ notice. Each tenant has their own private room, and the common areas of the house are shared between the tenants…

The American Civil Liberties Union has sued the City of Pomona for improperly training its police officers on the new legal standard for justifiable use of deadly force enacted by 2019’s Assembly Bill 392. AB 392, which was sponsored by the ACLU, changed the standard for use of deadly force in California, now codified in Penal Code section 835a. According to the ACLU’s complaint, Pomona, relying on advice from Lexipol and the…

In Pimentel v. City of Los Angeles, the Ninth Circuit found the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause applies to Los Angeles’ parking fines. Following Timbs v. Indiana, a recent SCOTUS decision that applied the excessive fine clause against the states, Pimentel extends the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive fines to routine municipal fines. The Court upheld a decision that a $63 parking fine was not grossly disproportionate to the offense of parking too…

Ben Franklin famously said: “When the well is dry, we know the worth of water.” Today’s Supreme Court decision in Wilde v. Dunsmuir is an important win for public utilities and local governments promising stability in local finance. [Disclosure: I argued the case for five local government associations.] Specifically, it holds that water rates are not subject to referendum and, on the logic of the case, neither are other utility fees. The decision is…