In Berkeley Cement, Inc. v. Regents of the Univ. of California (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1153, the court confirmed that a trial court may award mediation fees as costs, whether the mediation is court ordered or privately agreed to. In affirming the
Simkin & Associates
Simkin & Associates is a legal publisher associated with real estate and business law topics. The organization provides analysis and commentary on issues such as real estate licensing and fees, corporate and LLC registration requirements, immigration law procedures including FOIA requests, and contract law developments. Their content includes practical legal guidance, case law interpretation, and regulatory updates relevant to attorneys, brokers, and business owners. The publisher also offers insights into legal writing techniques for attorneys, emphasizing persuasive communication. The focus is on providing detailed, practice-oriented information primarily related to real property law, corporate compliance, and administrative law matters.
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No waiver of jury trial even if willfully disobey Court’s Order re jury trial preparation (Guo Zhang Chen v. Lin (Cal. App. Dep’t Super. Ct., Nov. 14, 2019, No. BV 033055)
Waiver of the right to a jury trial cannot be imposed as a sanction. In a Los Angeles unlawful detainer action, the pro per tenant (who was also pro per on appeal) appeared on the trial date without complying with…
Legal Writing Techniques: How to Emphasize or De-Emphasize for Affect
Attorneys primary tool is language. How you say something is critical. Attached here is a cheat sheet of how you can think about framing and focusing your argument. Click here:
Deadline to file copyright registration does not run if only published on a foreign website (Moberg v. 33T, LLC 666 F. Supp.2d 415)
I had a case where the issue was if the work had been previously published invalidating the US copyright. This case will be very useful for showing no publication occurred if the work was only posted on a foreign website. In …
US Border Police cannot search inside your cell phone or laptop to just fish around (U.S. v. Miguel Angel Cano 9th Cir. Aug. 16, 2019)
While the law still allows the U.S. CBP (Customs, Border Patrol) to conduct a limited search of a cell phone or laptop at the border without any suspicion whatsoever based upon the border search exception which is designed for customs
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It is illegal to charge more to pay by credit card than by check (but can give a discount for cash/check payments)
It pisses me off when companies want charge 3% or more to pay them by credit card. If you don’t want to take credit cards fine, but don’t profit from it! Elavon through Costco only charges 1.99% + 25 ¢…
White v. Square, Inc: Online Services Cannot Discriminate by their Terms of Use
In White v. Square, Inc. S249248 (August 12, 2019), the California Supreme Court held that an online business violated the Unruh Act by discriminating based upon occupation (or other protected categories of people) and the discriminated person has standing to…
A Stipulated Judgment Can Be an Unenforceable Penalty (Use an incentive for a discount, not an increase if a default (Red & White Distribution v. Osteroid Enterprises (2019)
A stipulated judgment constituted an unenforceable penalty under Civil Code §1671(b) where the stipulated judgment for $2.8 million bore no reasonable relationship to the range of actual damages the parties could have anticipated from a breach of their agreement to…
The Decline of Civilization (We are Fuct’d!) –Iancu v. Brunetti (June 24, 2019)
The U.S. Supreme Court just FUCT’d the Lanham Act. The Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1052(a)) prohibits the registration of “immoral[] or scandalous” trademarks. Respondent founded a clothing line that uses the trademark FUCT. The U.S. Patent and Trademark office decided…
Lawyer Civility Includes More Than a Pro Forma Attempt to be Civil” (LaSalle v. Vogel (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 127.)
The day after a responsive pleading was due, plaintiff’s lawyer sent defendant a letter and an email telling her that the time to respond was past due and threatening entry of default if a responsive pleading was not filed by…