- (LPS Act) Employee’s willful disclosure of confidential Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 record to plaintiff’s relative despite knowing she lacked entitlement required awarding of treble damages under section 5330. John Doe v. County of Orange (No. G064562 Super. Ct. No. 30-2022-01286908 California Court of Appeal Fourth Appellate District Division Three Filed September 2, 2025)
- (AI Fabrication) Counsel’s use of AI-fabricated (i.e., “hallucinated”) legal authority violated California Rules of Court, rendered plaintiff’s appeal frivolous, and warranted monetary sanctions. Sylvia Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P. (No. B331918 Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC716737 California Court of Appeal Second Appellate District Division Three Filed September 12, 2025)
- (Good Faith Determination Settlement) Code of Civil Procedure section 877.6 does not limit challenges to good faith settlement determinations to only writ petitions; postjudgment appeals are also an available avenue. Fennessy v. Ronald Altoonian (No. C098976 Super. Ct. No. PC20160016 California Court of Appeal Third Appellate District Filed September 19, 2025)
- (Judgment Debtors) Despite prior decision that individual defendant was not the alter ego of corporate defendant, collateral estoppel did not bar plaintiff from adding individual as judgment debtor based on post-decision actions. Angel Lynn Realty, Inc. v. Steve George (No. C101389 Super. Ct. No. 34-2015-00186631-CU-PN-GDS California Court of Appeals Third Appellate District (Sacramento) Filed September 23, 2025)
- (Confidential Medical Records) Health and Safety Code section 1280.15’s mandate that health facilities “shall prevent” unauthorized access to confidential medical information requires reasonable safeguards and is not a strict liability statute. The Regent of the University of California v. State Department of Public Health (No. C100351 Super. Ct. No. 34-2022-80004049-CU-WM-GDS California Court of Appeals Third Appellate District (Sacramento) Filed September 23, 2025)
- (Co-Defendant Opposition to MSJ) When a defendant moves for summary judgment, a codefendant with an adverse interest has standing to oppose the motion regardless of whether it has filed a cross-complaint. Bonnie Bean f. City of Thousand Oaks (2d Civ. No. B338497 Super. Ct. No. 56-2021-00561100-CU-PO-VTA Ventura County California Court of Appeal Second Appellate District Division Six Filed September 29, 2025)
The above court decisions came to our attention during this last month. Please find below a summary of the court opinions for your consideration.
- (LPS Act) Employee’s willful disclosure of confidential Welfare and Institutions Code section 5150 record to plaintiff’s relative despite knowing she lacked entitlement required awarding of treble damages under section 5330. John Doe v. County of Orange (No. G064562 Super. Ct. No. 30-2022-01286908 California Court of Appeal Fourth Appellate District Division Three Filed September 2, 2025)
Welfare and Institution Code section 5328 makes all information and records obtained in the course of providing services to either voluntary or involuntary recipients involved in mental heath treatment confidential. Section 5330 authorizes a person who received such services to bring an action to anyone who unlawfully disclosed such records. If the records are negligently disclosed the statute awards the aggrieved party $1,000 in actual damages. However, if records were willfully and knowingly disclosed, the statute awards the aggrieved party the greater of $10,000 or three times the amount of actual damages.
In this matter, the individual who worked for the Sheriff’s Department unlawfully disclosed the plaintiff’s confidential record to the plaintiff’s sister and her attorney who used it to threaten the plaintiff to dismiss a lawsuit that the plaintiff brought against his sister. The plaintiff brought an action against the individual who disclosed her records and the County, in which a jury found that the individual willfully and knowingly disclosed the record. However, the jury apportioned 25 percent of the plaintiff’s damages to the plaintiff’s sister and her attorney based on their conduct. The trial court then granted the defendant’s motion for partial judgment notwithstanding the verdict ruling that there was no substantial evidence to support the finding of willfulness. As a result, the court did not order treble damages. The trial court apportioned both economic and noneconomic damages and entered a judgment in favor of plaintiff.
Plaintiff appealed arguing the trial court error in concluding there was not substantial evidence to support the jury’s finding and in apportioning damages. On appeal, all parties agreed that the individual defendant unlawfully disclosed the confidential record. But the parties disagreed over what it means to “willfully and knowingly” disclose the confidential record within the meaning of section 5330. The Court of Appeals found that the trial court erred in granting the defendant’s motion for partial judgment notwithstanding the verdict. It found that the individual defendant intentionally released the confidential record to a person that the defendant knew was not entitled to the record and the disclosure was otherwise unlawful. The court found that there was substantial evidence that the individual defendant willfully and knowingly released the confidential records.
- (AI Fabrication) Counsel’s use of AI-fabricated (i.e., “hallucinated”) legal authority violated California Rules of Court, rendered plaintiff’s appeal frivolous, and warranted monetary sanctions. Sylvia Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P. (No. B331918 Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. BC716737 California Court of Appeal Second Appellate District Division Three Filed September 12, 2025)
This matter involved an unremarkable appeal that raised neither novel questions of law nor required the appellate division to apply settled law in a unique factual context. What set this appeal apart and the reason the appellate division elected to publish the opinion is that nearly all the legal quotations in plaintiff’s opening brief, and many of the quotations in plaintiff’s reply brief, were fabricated. That is, the quotes plaintiff attributed to published cases do not appear in those cases or anywhere else. Further, many of the cases plaintiff cited do not discuss the topics for which they are cited and a few of the cases do not exist at all. These fabricated legal authorities were created by generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools that plaintiff’s counsel used to draft his appellate briefs. The AI tools created fake legal authority sometimes referred to as AI “hallucinations” that were undetected by plaintiff’s counsel because he did not read the cases the AI tools cited.
Although the generations of fake legal authority by AI sources have been widely commented on by federal and out-of-state courts and reported by many media sources, no California court has addressed this issue. The appeals court therefore published the opinion as a warning. Simply stated, no brief, pleading, motion, or any other paper filed in any court should contain any citations whether provided by generative AI or any other source that the attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally read and verified. Because plaintiff’s counsel’s conduct in this case violated a basic duty counsel owed to his client and the court, the appeals court imposed the monetary sanction on counsel, directed him to serve a copy of this opinion on his client, and directed the clerk of the court to serve a copy of this opinion on the State Bar.
- (Good Faith Determination Settlement) Code of Civil Procedure section 877.6 does not limit challenges to good faith settlement determinations to only writ petitions; postjudgment appeals are also an available avenue. Fennessy v. Ronald Altoonian (No. C098976 Super. Ct. No. PC20160016 California Court of Appeal Third Appellate District Filed September 19, 2025)
Plaintiffs purchased a residential property held by the trust of the defendant, who was represented in the sale by an agent of a defendant real estate firm. After the sale closed, the plaintiff discovered undisclosed and allegedly concealed details of a death that had occurred on the property, leading them to sue the defendants. The defendants filed a cross-complaint against a co-defendant for indemnity and breach of duty, and negligence. The plaintiffs ultimately settled their claims against one of the defendants, and the defendant successfully moved for determination that the settlement was entered in good faith pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 877 and 877.6. In granting the good faith settlement determination, the trial court also found that all of the crossclaims were barred under section 877.6, as actual or artfully plead claims for indemnity or contribution. The plaintiffs proceeded to trial on their claims against the remaining defendant, and a jury found the remaining defendant not liable. The plaintiffs appealed from the judgment and the defendant cross-appealed. Through this court’s mediation process, the plaintiffs and the defendants settled the appeal, but the cross-appeal was not resolved.
In a present cross-appeal, the defendant contended the trial court erred in finding that the good faith settlement determination barred three of the crossclaims against the settling defendant calling those a asserting a breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence. The settling defendant argued in response that the non-settling defendant cross-appeal should be dismissed because a good faith settlement determination could be reviewed only through a petition for writ of mandate pursuant to section 877.6, subdivision (e), and that, if the appeals court reaches the merit, the disputed crossclaims were properly dismissed. The appeals court concluded that a postjudgment appeal is a permissible way to challenge a good faith settlement determination. Therefore, the appeal court jurisdiction to reach the merits of the non-settling defendant’s cross-appeal. On the merits, it concluded that trial court correctly determined that the crossclaims for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and negligence were effectively claims for indemnity and thus correctly ruled the claims were barred. Hence, the appeals court affirmed the judgment.
- (Judgment Debtors) Despite prior decision that individual defendant was not the alter ego of corporate defendant, collateral estoppel did not bar plaintiff from adding individual as judgment debtor based on post-decision actions. Angel Lynn Realty, Inc. v. Steve George (No. C101389 Super. Ct. No. 34-2015-00186631-CU-PN-GDS California Court of Appeals Third Appellate District (Sacramento) Filed September 23, 2025)
California Code of Civil Procedure section 187 grants the courts all the means necessary to carry out their jurisdiction into effect. Among other things, it authorized a trial court to amend a judgment to add additional judgment debtors on the ground that a person or entity is the alter ego of the original judgment debtor. Plaintiff filed such a motion to add a defendant as an additional judgment debtor to a $1 million judgment entered against defendants. The trial court denied the motion, finding it was barred by collateral estoppel because it had already decided that the additional defendant was not an alter ego of the underlying defendant. Plaintiff argued this was error because its motion was based entirely on events that occurred after the trial court’s decision and collateral estoppel did not apply if new facts or changed circumstances had occurred since the prior decision. The appeals court agreed and thus reversed and remanded the trial court to determine in the first instance whether new facts or changed circumstances occurred since the prior decision that changed the alter ego analysis.
- (Confidential Medical Records) Health and Safety Code section 1280.15’s mandate that health facilities “shall prevent” unauthorized access to confidential medical information requires reasonable safeguards and is not a strict liability statute. The Regent of the University of California v. State Department of Public Health (No. C100351 Super. Ct. No. 34-2022-80004049-CU-WM-GDS California Court of Appeals Third Appellate District (Sacramento) Filed September 23, 2025)
California Department of Public Health (CDPH) imposed a monetary penalty on the plaintiff Regents of the University of California doing business as a hospital associated with UCLA after an employee of that hospital photographed confidential patient information and posted the photograph to his Instagram account. The CDPH imposed this penalty after finding that the hospital violated Health and Safety Code section 1280.15, which provides in part that a health facility shall prevent unlawful or unauthorized access to, and use or disclosure of, patients’ medical information, as defined within Section 56.06 of the Civil Code and consistent with section 1280.18. The question before the appeals court was whether the language “shall prevent” language denote a strict liability statute, such that any failure to prevent disclosure constitutes a violation of the statute. Or, as the trial court ruled, there is the “consistent with Section 1280.18” language required that a violation must be supported by concomitant violation of section 1280.18 mandated health facilities establish appropriate safeguards to protect medical information and reasonably safeguard confidential medical information, effectively, importing a reasonableness standard of 1280.18 into section 1280.15.
An administrative law judge upheld the CDPH’s findings and penalty. The trial court subsequently granted the hospital’s petition for a writ of mandate to set aside that determination. CHPH argued that the plain language of the section supports its interpretation of the statute as one of strict liability, the legislative history confirmed its position, and that the CDPH’s interpretation is reasonable, longstanding, and consistent, and should be afforded deference.
The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s ruling. It denied the hospital’s motion for judicial notice of certain documents related to the legislative history of section 1280.15 as unnecessary to its determination.
- (Co-Defendant Opposition to MSJ) When a defendant moves for summary judgment, a codefendant with an adverse interest has standing to oppose the motion regardless of whether it has filed a cross-complaint. Bonnie Bean f. City of Thousand Oaks (2d Civ. No. B338497 Super. Ct. No. 56-2021-00561100-CU-PO-VTA Ventura County California Court of Appeal Second Appellate District Division Six Filed September 29, 2025)
After tripping on a sidewalk, plaintiff sued the owner of a nearby residence, along with the city for general negligence and premises liability. The city appealed from an order granting summary judgment against the plaintiff in favor of the co-defendant resident. The appeals court concluded that the trial court erred in not considering the city’s opposition to the motion for summary judgment for two reasons. First, the city was not required to file a cross-complaint to have standing to oppose the motion for summary judgment. And second, the city did file a cross-complaint. The appeals court nevertheless affirmed the judgment because there was no triable issue of material fact regarding resident’s liability. The appeals court noted that when a defendant brings a motion for summary judgment, a co-defendant does not have to file a cross-complaint to obtain standing to oppose the motion. A co-defendant with an adverse interest has standing to oppose a motion for summary judgment whether it has filed a cross-complaint or not.
Should you have any questions concerning these court decisions or desire a copy of any of them, please do not hesitate to contact our office.