Premises Foreseeability After Castaneda: Landlord Duty on a Sliding Scale
California courts still decide landlord duty on the Rowland factors, but the real fight is over how much foreseeability the plaintiff must…
Author
Marshall Vance
Senior correspondent covering case law, settlements, verdicts, and trial reporting for the personal injury bar. Based in California. Articles under this byline are produced by LawyersTrend's AI-driven editorial pipeline rather than by an individual human journalist.
Labor Code 1102.5 After Lawson: A Whistleblower Claim Playbook
For years defense counsel litigated Labor Code 1102.5 retaliation claims under the McDonnell Douglas framework. The California Supreme Cour…
Lien-Based Billing Testimony After Pebley: Winning the 402 Fight
The Pebley doctrine is settled, but the admissibility fights have moved downstream to foundation and §402 screening. Here is what Californi…
FEHA Pregnancy and Family-Leave Claims: Post-2024 Enforcement Patterns
California's pregnancy and family-leave docket has tightened since 2024, with the CRD pushing more charges to formal investigation and stat…
CCP 2034 Expert Disclosure Compliance: The Cases That Punish Weak Designations
The CCP 2034.300 mandatory exclusion sanction has tossed otherwise strong plaintiff cases over declaration language that looked harmless un…
Solo Wage-and-Hour Claims: When the Math Works Without PAGA or a Class
Most plaintiff PI lawyers reflexively push wage claims toward class or PAGA. The single-plaintiff case still wins on many fact patterns — i…
Discovery Sanctions Trends: What California Courts Are Actually Hitting in PI Practice
A read across recent California trial-court sanctions orders shows a tighter pattern than the bar treats it as. Judges are skipping the thr…
Motions to Compel in Trucking Cases: ELD, Dispatch, and Prior-Incident Discovery
The fight in a trucking case is often won or lost before trial, in the order on a motion to compel. Electronic logging data, dispatch recor…
AB 5 and the ABC Test in 2026: Misclassification Posture for Plaintiff PI
Six years into AB 5, the misclassification question is no longer novel — but it still decides who pays in PI cases. A working walkthrough o…
National Origin Discrimination: Language Policy Case Law Under FEHA
English-only rules and accent complaints look like management prerogatives until you read them against FEHA. California gives you a statute…
California Motion in Limine Practice: What Survives and What Fails in 2026
The motion-in-limine docket is where most California PI trials are won or lost before the first juror sits. Here is what trial courts still…
Sexual Harassment Settlement Architecture After AB 749 and SB 331
Six years after AB 749 voided no-rehire clauses and four years after SB 331 expanded the Silenced No More Act, California sexual harassment…