Alternative Dispute Resolution
AB 216 (Beall) Public contracts: claims. This bill would have revised the pre-litigation dispute resolution process for local government public works contracts entered into after January 1, 2010, particularly with respect to deadlines for making written claims and responses, requesting a meet and confer conference, and, if necessary, demanding mediation. This bill would also have expanded the dispute resolution process to include "change orders," and other relief, made charter cities and counties subject to the process, and applied the process to claims against contractors by local agencies. Status: Dead, Asm. Approps.
AB 696 (Hagman) California Environmental Quality Act: arbitration. This bill would have permitted a project applicant and the lead agency that prepared an environmental impact report (
AB 1718 (Monning) Dispute resolution. As originally referred to this Committee, this bill would have increased civil filing fees to support community dispute resolution programs. The bill was subsequently gutted and amended to deal with an unrelated subject. Status: Vetoed.
Civil Procedure
AB 298 (Tran) Appeals: class action certification. This bill would have established a new rule allowing a right of immediate appeal from an order granting class certification. More specifically, this bill would have allowed the defendant in a class action lawsuit a right of immediate appeal of the court's procedural determination to certify a class of plaintiffs and allow the lawsuit to proceed. Status: Failed, Asm. Jud.
AB 335 (Fuentes) Employment contracts: forum. This bill would have created a rebuttable presumption that a choice of law or a choice of forum clause in an employment agreement that is a condition of employment is unconscionable, violates public policy, and is void. In addition, this bill would have required a court to consider specified factors to determine whether the rebuttable presumption has been rebutted by an employer seeking to enforce the choice of law or choice of forum clause in an employment agreement. Status: Vetoed.
AB 353 (Calderon) Civil actions: statute of limitations. This bill would have required a civil action for relief on the ground of libel or slander to be commenced within three years, effectively extending the applicable statute of limitations by an additional two years. Status: Dead, Asm. Jud.
AB 499 (Hill) Environment: California Environmental Quality Act: determination: dispute. This bill would have revised California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) judicial review procedures to clarify that only the recipients of a project approval identified by the lead agency are the real parties in interest that must be named by the plaintiff in an appeal of the lead agency’s decision. Status: Vetoed.
AB 578 (Huber) Civil procedure: discovery: objections. This bill would have amended the rules of civil procedure to expressly allow a party making a discovery demand to ask that the other party produce a privilege log, if the other party objects to the discovery demand on the basis of privilege or work product. Under this bill, the court would have been given discretion to determine if the privilege log was necessary to evaluate whether the responding party's claim of privilege or work product was valid. Status: Dead, Sen. Jud.
AB 839 (Emmerson) Medi-Cal service providers: judicial remedies. This bill clarifies that a health care provider who files a grievance or complaint regarding the processing or payment of money by the Medi-Cal program, and who filed a complaint with the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), may appeal the DHCS decision by filing a petition for writ of mandate in superior court. This bill also modifies the three-year and ten-year prohibition on enrollment as a health care provider in any DHCS program to begin from the date the provider’s application package is denied or the provisional provider status is terminated. Status: Chapter 255, 2009.
AB 927 (Calderon) Common interest developments: construction defects. This bill extends the sunset date from July 1, 2010 to July 1, 2017 on provisions of existing law that sets forth pre-litigation dispute resolution processes and procedures before a common interest development (
AB 1040 (Strickland) Appeals: notice: class action settlements. This bill would have required the appellant in a civil action, upon filing a notice of appeal, to state if the appeal is from a lower court’s approval of a class action settlement. If so, this bill would have entitled the appellant to expedited briefing and preference in setting the date for oral argument within 120 days after the notice of appeal has been filed. Status: Dead, Asm. Jud.
AB 1262 (Strickland) Conflict of interest rules: exemption from anti-SLAPP law. This bill would have exempted certain actions under the Political Reform Act (PRA) from the protections afforded to free speech and petition by the anti-SLAPP statute. Specifically, this bill would have provided that the special motion to strike that is used against speech-related law suits would no longer apply to any cause of action brought by a private citizen or business entity authorized by law to sue for injunctive relief to enjoin violations of, or to compel compliance with, provisions imposing ethical standards on elected officials and candidates for elective or judicial office. Status: Dead, Asm. Jud.
AB 1264 (Strickland) Attorney's fees: objectors. This bill would have required any award of attorney’s fees paid in settlement to a professional objector or an objector’s counsel to be approved by the court prior to payment. Under this bill, a “professional objector” would have been defined as an attorney who challenges attorney’s fees and other aspects of class action settlements without merit. Status: Dead, Asm. Jud.
AB 1805 (Calderon and Nestande) CEQA: judicial review. This bill would have prohibited judicial review under CEQA for 125 projects selected by the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency. Status: Dead, Asm. Natural Resources.
AB 2119 (Tran) Civil procedure: deadlines: computation. This bill provides that, when calculating service and filing deadlines of motions, oppositions, and replies, the deadline shall be counted backward from the hearing date, excluding the day of the hearing. This bill further provides that additional days added to the deadline because of a particular method of service shall be computed by counting backward from the deadline date. Status: Chapter 41, 2010.
AB 2162 (Niello) Eminent domain: public utilities. This bill would haveallowed public utilities seeking to develop natural gas storage facilities to obtain prejudgment possession orders ex parte if immediate possession by the utility would not displace or unreasonably affect any person in lawful possession of the property. Status: Dead, Asm. U&C.
AB 2284 (Evans) Jury trials: rules of court. This bill, the Expedited Jury Trial Act, establishes an alternative to full-length jury trials in California, by authorizing, until January 1, 2016, a streamlined and consensual, binding jury trial before a reduced jury panel and a judicial officer only when the parties voluntarily agree after a dispute arises and an action has been filed. Status: Chapter 674, 2010.
AB 2394 (Brownley) Civil process and notices: ministerial officers. This bill, the Levying Officer Electronic Transaction Act, would establish procedures for sheriffs and marshals to transmit, receive, and maintain certain electronic records and documents related to civil law enforcement. Among other things, this bill permits a levying officer, in lieu of returning the paper version of an original writ of execution to the court, to instead retain the original writ and electronically file with the court only a return reporting the levying officer's actions, amounts collected, and costs. Status: Chapter 680, 2010.
AB 2453 (Tran) Oil and gas: operations: enforcement actions. This bill significantly revises the current appeals process for operators of oil, gas, and geothermal wells to appeal a regulatory order issued by the Department of Conservation, and establishes specific due process requirements, including notice and timelines for decisions, and the judicial standard of review to be applied, as provided. Status: Chapter 264, 2010.
AB 2588 (Strickland) Class actions. This bill would have repealed California's class action litigation statute and negated existing case law, specifying class certification rules and procedures for actions under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and would replace both with a substantially different set of rules and procedures. Status: Failed, Asm. Jud.
AB 2760 (Tran) False Claims Act: prevailing defendant: attorney's fees. This bill would have required, in a civil action relative to certain claims arising from a public works contract, a court to award a prevailing defendant its reasonable attorney's fees and expenses against the state or political subdivision that prosecuted the action. This bill also would have prohibited, except as specified, a court from awarding a prevailing defendant its reasonable attorney's fees and expenses against a qui tam plaintiff who proceeded with an action without the assistance of the Attorney General or local prosecuting authority. Status: Dead, Asm. Jud.
AB 2765 (Judiciary) Civil actions: statute of limitation: theft. This bill extends the statute of limitations for specific recovery of a stolen work of fine art, including works taken by fraud or duress, as defined, from three to six years after actual discovery if the action for recovery is brought against a museum, gallery, auctioneer, or dealer. This bill specifies that this extension of the statute of limitations will only apply to works of fine art taken within 100 years prior to the enactment of this statute. In addition, the bill clarifies the definition and applicability of the "discovery rule" in response to recent conflicting appellate court decisions. Status: Chapter 691, 2010.
AB 2773 (Swanson) Discrimination in employment. This bill would have exempted civil actions brought pursuant to the Fair Employment and Housing Act from existing law that provides discretion to judges to determine costs, in a case other than a limited civil case, if the prevailing party recovers a judgment that could have been rendered in a limited civil case. Status: Vetoed.
SB 209 (Corbett and Harman) Civil actions: disabled access. This bill revises the legal standard of protection associated with Certified Access Specialist (CASp) inspection reports, which are submitted to the court in an action involving alleged violations of disability access laws. Specifically, this bill requires CASp reports to remain confidential, rather than be under seal and subject to protective order. This bill specifies persons granted access to the CASp report and the time at which confidentiality of the report terminates. Status: Chapter 569, 2009.
SB 786 (Yee) Civil procedure: attorney's fees and costs. This bill prohibits a prevailing defendant in an anti-SLAPP motion from recovering attorney’s fees and costs in the following actions: (1) whenever it is made to appear by verified petition that certain public records are improperly being withheld from a member of the public; (2) specified actions involving meeting provisions of the legislative body of a local agency or a state body; or (3) an action to obtain a judicial determination that an action taken by a legislative body of a local agency or a state body is null and void, as specified. Status: Chapter 65, 2009.
SB 1274 (Judiciary)Electronic service of process. This bill amends existing law authorizing electronic service of documents, to re-define electronic service to include both methods of electronic transmission and electronic notification. This bill further provides that parties may only consent to electronic service for documents which are not currently required to be served personally. Status: Chapter 156, 2010.
Evidence
AB 5 (Evans) Civil discovery: Electronic Discovery Act. This bill establishes procedures in the Civil Discovery Act for a person to obtain discovery of electronically stored information in addition to documents, tangible things, and land or other property, in the possession of any other party to the action. Status: Chapter 5, 2009.
AB 129 (Ma) Confidentiality: taxpayer communications. This bill re-enacts a statute, which was inadvertently allowed to sunset on January 1, 2009, to expand the application of the attorney-client confidential communication privilege to specified communications between a federally authorized tax practitioner and a taxpayer, where the practitioner is representing the taxpayer on a tax matter before certain state agencies. Status: Chapter 411, 2009.
AB 653 (Feuer) Law enforcement: marital privilege. This bill would have provided that a peace officer who asserts evidentiary marital privileges in an administrative or disciplinary investigation or hearing shall not be subject to administrative discipline for failure to report information to his or her supervisor or department, except when the information concerns criminal or certain other conduct of the peace officer’s spouse, who is also a peace officer employed by the department, and other specified conditions apply. Status: Vetoed.
AB 1163 (Tran) Attorney-client privilege: decedent's estates. This bill makes two clarifications to the attorney-client privilege that apply after the client’s death. First, this bill clarifies that the attorney-client privilege is held by a deceased client’s personal representative appointed for subsequent estate administration after the original personal representative has been discharged. This bill also provides that no attorney-client privilege exists for communications relevant to issues between parties who all claim through a deceased client in a non-probate transfer. Status: Chapter 8, 2009.
AB 1723 (Lieu) Evidence: admissibility of hearsay statements. This bill creates a new "forfeiture by wrongdoing" hearsay exception, modeled after the federal rules. Specifically, this bill provides that evidence of a statement is not made inadmissible by the hearsay rule if the statement is offered against a party that has engaged or aided and abetted in wrongdoing that was intended to, and did, procure the unavailability of the declarant as a witness. In addition, this bill expands the statutory definition of "unavailable as a witness" to include a declarant who persistently refuses to testify on the subject matter of the declarant's out-of-court statement despite having been found in contempt of court for refusal to testify. Status: Chapter 537, 2010.
SB 1041 (Harman) Hearsay evidence: wills and revocable trusts. This bill amends the Evidence Code to extend the hearsay exception which already applies to wills, in cases when the decedent is, by definition, no longer available to testify, to trusts when the same set of facts is present (i.e. the trustor is unavailable.) The hearsay exception created by this bill applies to a statement made by an unavailable declarant that (1) the declarant has or has not established a revocable trust; (2) has or has not revoked a revocable trust; or (3) that identifies the declarant's revocable trust, or any amendment thereto. Status: Chapter 106, 2010.