KF&C California Law Blog

Arbitration is a contractual creation, intended to provide flexibility in the resolution of disputes that is usually invoked to achieve a relatively swift and inexpensive resolution. But in California, it sometimes can be invoked to achieve the opposite effect: adding another layer of litigation on top of the three-tiered state court system.

Trial courts are not required to take on the moving party’s burden of identifying specific claims or allegations susceptible to a special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP law. When defendants file an anti-SLAPP motion that seeks to strike the entire complaint but does not identify specific claims or allegations that should be stricken even if the entire complaint is not, the trial court can properly deny the motion so long as it concludes that the complaint presents at least one claim that did not arise from anti-SLAPP protected activity.

An expert’s opinion is properly excluded when the opinion does not contain a reliable methodology for weighing the evidence. While a court may not weigh an expert opinion’s probative value or persuasiveness, it must consider whether the opinion is logically sound, i.e., whether the matter relied on can provide a reasonable basis for the opinion and is not a leap of logic or conjecture.

When a party files a motion for summary judgment within the time limits set by California Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, the party has a right to have the motion heard before the start of trial. Calendaring issues are not a basis upon which the trial court can refuse to hear a timely filed motion.

Personal jurisdiction continues to be a surprisingly evolving area of procedural law despite the U.S. Supreme Court having first addressed it more than three quarters of a century ago in Int’l Shoe Co. v. State of Washington. 326 U.S. 310 (1945). The modern evolution of the concept has continued with important U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. 915 (2011), in 2011, Daimler AG v. Bauman, 571 U.S. 117 (2014), in 2014 and, more recently, BNSF Ry. Co. v. Tyrrell, 581 U.S. 402 (2017), in 2017. And, as more cases apply these SCOTUS decisions at the state and federal trial-court level each year, the nuances grow in California and elsewhere.