At its double conference yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three new cases, it depublished one opinion, and more. This is Part I of a recap.
Insurance coverage
The court will hear 11640 Woodbridge Condominium Homeowners’ Association v. Farmers Insurance Exchange to resolve a conflict (in California and also nationwide) about property insurance coverage for water damage that occurs during roof repairs. The Second District, Division Three, Court of Appeal’s published opinion, disagreeing with the Second District, Division One, decision in Diep v. California Fair Plan Assn. (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 1205, reversed a defense summary judgment and reinstated a lawsuit for insurance benefits, bad faith, and punitive damages. There was no petition for review in Diep.
Horvitz & Levy filed the successful petition for review.
[July 11 update: Here is the issue as summarized by court staff (see here) — “Does a provision within an ‘all-risk’ property insurance policy providing that the insurer will pay for ‘[w]ater damage to the interior of any building or structure caused by or resulting from rain’ if the ‘building or structure first sustains damages’ to the ‘roof or walls through which the rain . . . enters’ operate to exclude coverage for damage caused by rain that entered a building while its roof was being replaced?”]
Ex post facto resentencing; no opposition?
The court also granted review in People v. Henderson and it limited the issue to: “Does Penal Code section 1385.1, which bars sentencing courts from striking special circumstance findings, apply to Penal Code section 1172.6 resentencing proceedings [Senate Bill 1437] for murder convictions occurring prior to the June 6, 1990 effective date of section 1385.1?” (Links added.) The case involves a 1986 murder committed by the defendant’s accomplice.
It was the defendant’s petition for review, but the prevailing Attorney General did not file an answer to the petition and he apparently agrees with the defendant.
The Second District, Division Seven, belatedly published opinion concluded, “Because Henderson’s sentence imposed at his 2023 resentencing was reduced from his initial sentence based on ameliorative changes to the law that were not available at the time of his initial sentencing, and his new sentence was no more severe than the punishment the law prescribed at the time of his crimes, application of section 1385.1 in 2023 to limit the court’s discretion to strike the robbery-murder special circumstance did not violate the constitutional prohibitions against ex post facto laws.”
Division Seven disagreed with the Fourth District, Division Three, opinion in People v. Nguyen (2025) 109 Cal.App.5th 1133 (decided five days before Henderson), despite the Attorney General stating in his Henderson rehearing petition (a rehearing petition in a case he won) that, in light of Nguyen, he “will take the position in future cases that section 1385.1 does not apply at a section 1172.6 resentencing for murders committed prior to 1990.” The Supreme Court yesterday denied the Sacramento County District Attorney’s request to depublish Nguyen.
Division Seven agreed with the Second District, Division Two, decision in People v. Hill (2024) 100 Cal.App.5th 1055 and the Second District, Division Four, decision in People v. Gonzales (2021) 65 Cal.App.5th 1167. The Supreme Court denied review in Hill and Gonzales.
Attorney’s kickback convictions
The court granted the Attorney General’s petition for review in People v. Woods, a case in which the Fourth District, Division Three, in a published opinion, reversed many of a worker’s compensation attorney’s convictions for, as the opinion stated, “referring copy and subpoena work to companies who were providing various undisclosed financial benefits to Woods and his firm.”
The opinion applied In re Williamson (1954) 43 Cal.2d 651, which stated a rule that, as summarized by Division Three, “where the Legislature has defined a specific crime with a lesser punishment, the conduct described by that crime may not be charged as a more general crime with a harsher punishment.” The appellate court reversed felony convictions for concealing or withholding information from an insurance company that would affect an entitlement to an insurance benefit because a Labor Code statute makes it a misdemeanor to refer work to third party servicers in exchange for compensation of any sort.
[July 11 update: Here is the issue as summarized by court staff (see here) — “Must workers’ compensation insurance fraud involving a kickback scheme be prosecuted as a misdemeanor under Labor Code section 139.32, subdivision (c), or may it be prosecuted as a felony under Penal Code section 550, subdivision (b)(3)? (See In re Williamson (1954) 43 Cal.2d 651.)]
Another headless PAGA grant-and-hold
Williams v. Alacrity Solutions Group, LLC is another grant-and-hold for Leeper v. Shipt, Inc. (see here), in which the court limited the issues to: “1.) Does every Private Attorneys General Act (Lab. Code, § 2698 et seq.) (PAGA) action necessarily include both individual and non-individual PAGA claims, regardless of whether the complaint specifically alleges individual claims? 2.) Can a plaintiff choose to bring only a non-individual PAGA action?”
The Second District, Division Five, published Williams opinion held the untimeliness of the plaintiff’s individual claims precluded him from pursuing non-individual PAGA claims. “[T]he statute of limitations is tied to the PAGA plaintiff’s individual claims,” the appellate court said, “and . . . the PAGA plaintiff must bring a PAGA action . . . within one year of the last Labor Code violation he or she individually suffered.”
Because the underlying Leeper lawsuit has been dismissed at the plaintiff’s request, we guessed the Supreme Court would dismiss review in Leeper and straight grant in another case raising the same issues. That hasn’t happened, at least not yet. Another Leeper grant-and-hold is Rodriguez v. Packers Sanitation Services Ltd., LLC. (See here.)
Medical malpractice causation depublication
The court denied review in Montoya v. Superior Court, but it depublished the Fourth District, Division Three, belatedly published opinion in the case. Division Three issued a writ requiring the superior court to give a jury instruction in a medical malpractice trial that shifts to the defendant physician the burden of proving a lack of causation if the plaintiffs prove the physician was negligent in failing to timely order a CT scan that plaintiffs claim would have revealed an ongoing stroke when an ameliorative surgery was still possible.
The appellate court “question[ed] some of the rationale in” the First District, Division One, decision in Thomas v. Lusk (1994) 27 Cal.App.4th 1709. There was no petition for review in Thomas.
