Latest 5 Cases: Uber Technologies Pricing Cases (Antitrust & Trade Regulation), City of Redondo Beach v. Padilla (Civil Rights), California v. ...

What Should Democrats Do About Republicans’ Insistence on Lining Their Own Pockets With the Stimulus Plan?

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

UF Levin College of Law professor and economist Neil H. Buchanan discusses the ongoing negotiations in Congress over the stimulus bill that would purportedly start to address the present economic crisis. Buchanan argues that while Democrats are right to try to stop Republicans from writing a huge unrestricted corporate handout into the bill, they will have to agree to something quickly—and the sooner the better.

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Will Coronavirus Stop America from Carrying Out Executions?

AUSTIN SARAT

Guest columnist Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—points out one unusual effect of the COVID-19 pandemic: deferring the executions of death row inmates. Sarat observes that while past pandemics have not affected the rate at which states have executed inmates, last week the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted 60-day stays in the execution sentences of two men, and other states seem poised to follow suit.

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Uber Technologies Pricing Cases

Docket: A154694(First Appellate District)

Opinion Date: March 23, 2020

Judge: Kathleen M. Banke

Areas of Law: Antitrust & Trade Regulation, Consumer Law, Government Contracts, Transportation Law

Taxi companies and taxi medallion owners sued Uber, alleging violations of the Unfair Practices Act’s (UPA) prohibition against below-cost sales (Bus & Prof. Code, 17043) and of the Unfair Competition Law (section 17200). The UPA makes it unlawful “for any person engaged in business within this State to sell any article or product at less than the cost thereof to such vendor, or to give away any article or product, for the purpose of injuring competitors or destroying competition” but does not apply “[t]o any service, article or product for which rates are established under the jurisdiction of the [California] Public Utilities Commission [(CPUC)] . . . and sold or furnished by any public utility corporation.” Uber is a “public utility corporation” under section 17024 and is subject to CPUC’s jurisdiction. CPUC has conducted extensive regulatory proceedings in connection with Uber’s business but has not yet established the rates for any Uber service or product. The trial court ruled the exemption applies when the CPUC has jurisdiction to set rates, regardless of whether it has yet done so, and dismissed the case. The court of appeal affirmed, reaching “the same conclusion as to the applicability of section 17024(1) as have three California federal district courts, two within the last year, in cases alleging identical UPA claims against Uber.”

City of Redondo Beach v. Padilla

Docket: B294016(Second Appellate District)

Opinion Date: March 23, 2020

Judge: Dennis M. Perluss

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

The City of Redondo Beach challenged the Voter Participation Rights Act (VPRA) on the ground it improperly infringed the plenary authority conferred on charter cities by article XI, section 5, of the California Constitution to schedule their own elections for local offices. The superior court upheld the City's challenge, issued a writ of mandate barring the Secretary of State from enforcing the VPRA against the City, and declared it unconstitutional as applied to charter cities. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment to the extent it restrains the Secretary from enforcing the VPRA against the City on the ground that the Legislature failed to clearly provide the VPRA applies to charter cities. The court explained that courts have usually insisted on statutory language clearly including charter cities before engaging in the CalFed/Vista constitutional analysis, and legislative history of the VPRA does not indicate a clear intention to include charter cities.

California v. Mitchell

Docket: E071660(Fourth Appellate District)

Opinion Date: March 23, 2020

Judge: Fields

Areas of Law: Constitutional Law, Criminal Law

Defendant-appellant Gloria Mitchell was convicted by a jury of several offenses involving three minor victims, John Doe 1, John Doe 2 and Jane Doe. With respect to John Doe 1, defendant was convicted of torture (count 1) and mayhem (count 2). With respect to John Doe 2 and Jane Doe, defendant was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse. She was sentenced to prison for: seven years to life on count 1; the middle term of four years on count 2; 180 days in county jail on count 4; and another 180 days in county jail on count 5. However, the trial court stayed the sentence on count 2 pursuant to Penal Code section 654 and deemed the sentence on counts 4 and 5 satisfied based on credit for time already in custody. The trial court also imposed a restitution fine in the amount of $300; a court operation assessment in the amount of $160; and a criminal conviction assessment of $120. Defendant appealed her convictions and sentences, and argued the fines should have been stricken as unconstitutional under California v. Duenas, 30 Cal.App.5th 1157 (2019). Finding no reversible error, the Court of Appeal affirmed defendant's convictions and sentences.

In re B.E.

Docket: G058062(Fourth Appellate District)

Opinion Date: March 23, 2020

Judge: Raymond J. Ikola

Areas of Law: Family Law, Government & Administrative Law

This proceeding concerned three children, ages seven, four, and two. Their parents had an extensive history of drug abuse, treatments, and relapses. After one such relapse in 2018, after a hypodermic needle was found under a sofa cushion in the family home, Orange County Social Services Agency ("SSA") petitioned to take the children into protective custody.Both mother and father consistently drug tested over the protracted course of the jurisdictional/dispositional hearing, which did not finish up until late July 2019, ten months after the children were removed. Welfare and Institutions Code section 361.5 (b)(13), allowed a court to bypass reunification services to parents if they had “a history of extensive, abusive, and chronic use of drugs or alcohol and [have] resisted prior court-ordered treatment for this problem during a three-year period immediately prior to the filing of the petition . . . .” This appeal concerned the meaning of the word “resist.” The parents in this case indisputably had the sort of history that satisfied the first condition of subdivision (b)(13). They contended, however, and the court found, that they had not resisted a court-ordered treatment program: they simply relapsed. SSA and the children appealed, contending that the parents’ extensive history of relapses irrefutably demonstrated so-called passive resistance. The Court of Appeal found it was "compelled" to break with the line of cases that interpreted subdivision (b)(13) as encompassing passive resistance, where passive resistance simply means relapse. "The bypass provision was intended for parents who refuse to participate meaningfully in a court-ordered drug treatment program, not parents who slip up on their road to recovery." The Court determined the parents her did not "resist" treatment; thus the trial court correctly offered them reunification services.

City of Warren Police and Fire Retirement System v. Natera Inc.

Docket: A155613(First Appellate District)

Opinion Date: March 23, 2020

Judge: Miller

Areas of Law: Securities Law

Natera's primary product is Panorama, a screening test for fetal chromosomal abnormalities, based on a blood draw, rather than amniocentesis. A class action under the Securities Act of 1933 (15 U.S.C. 77a), alleged that documents issued in connection with Natera’s initial public offering omitted material facts that were required by regulations or necessary to make the documents not misleading. It alleged that the documents, which became effective on July 1, 2015, improperly touted Natera as "rapidly growing," amid a quarterly revenue growth trend with year-over-year revenue increases, while omitting Natera’s “material negative financial results” for the second quarter of 2015, which had ended on June 30, 2015; second-quarter financial results were not yet public. The court of appeal affirmed the dismissal of the claims. In the context of the Registration Statement as a whole, there is nothing false or misleading about the statements that Natera is “rapidly growing” or that its “rapid growth of revenues” was based on the success of Panorama. The Statement clearly stated that revenues declined from 4Q 2014 to 1Q 2015 and attributed that decline to decreased average reimbursement for Panorama due to a new billing code and delayed revenue recognition. The Statement itself refutes any argument that defendants failed to disclose the negative trend of declining reimbursements and revenues with increasing costs and losses.