The Supreme Court today announced its March oral argument calendar. As with the court’s February calendar, which was heard two days ago, there will be three civil cases in the morning and three criminal cases in the afternoon.
One of the civil cases has been around a while. (There’s also a death penalty appeal that’s been around a while, but all death penalty appeals are.) The court granted review in In re Cipro Cases I & II three years ago, although briefing was stayed for separate periods of nine months and then five months. Another interesting fact about the case: there were only four votes to grant review, which is unusual. The docket doesn’t state that any justices were recused, although Justice Werdegar is listed as the Acting Chief Justice, so Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye might not have participated in the vote.
On March 3, in San Francisco, the court will hear the following cases (with the issue presented as stated on the court’s website):
In re Cipro Cases I & II: May a suit under the Cartwright Antitrust Act (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 16720 et seq.) be brought to challenge “reverse exclusionary payments” made by pharmaceutical manufacturers to settle patent litigation with generic drug producers and prolong the life of the patents in question? The court also asked for supplemental briefing about the relevance of FTC v. Actavis, Inc. (2013) 570 U.S. __ [133 S.Ct. 2223, 186 L.Ed.2d 343] to the issues in the case.
State Department of State Hospitals et al. v. Superior Court: (1) Did the state comply with the requirement of the Sexually Violent Predator Act(Welf. & Inst. Code, § 6600 et seq.) that it conduct a “full evaluation” of an inmate potentially qualifying as a “sexually violent predator” prior to the inmate’s release? (2) Did the Court of Appeal err in finding that, as a matter of law, plaintiff could not establish that defendants’ actions were a proximate cause of her injuries?
South Coast Framing, Inc. v. W.C.A.B.: Does a claim for workers’ compensation death benefits have a separate and distinct causation standard and burden of proof requiring that an industrial injury constitute a “material factor” contributing to the employee’s death, or does the standard require only that the industrial injury be a “contributing cause”?
People v. Cross: Did the trial court err in failing to advise defendant in accordance with In re Yurko (1974) 10 Cal.3d 857 before accepting a defense stipulation that he had a prior conviction for an offense that exposed him to an increased sentence under Penal Code section 273.5, subdivision (e)(1)?
In re R. V.: (1) Which party bears the burden of proof in a juvenile competency proceeding? (2) What is the proper standard of review on appeal of a trial court’s finding that the juvenile is competent?
People v. Trujeque: [This is an automatic appeal from a November 1999 judgment of death. The court’s website does not list issues for such appeals.]
