On Monday morning, the Supreme Court will file its opinion in Wilde v. City of Dunsmuir and Ixchel Pharma, LLC v. Biogen, Inc. (Briefs here and here; oral argument video here and here.)
Wilde is the last undecided case from the early-May calendar, while Ixchel will be the first opinion in a June calendar case. After Monday, there will be 12 cases left in the summer pipeline, three more from the late-May calendar and nine from the June calendar.
The issue in Wilde is whether the electorate can use the referendum power (Cal. Const., art. II, § 9) to challenge a city’s resolution increasing water fees or is such a challenge expressly limited to the power of initiative (Cal. Const., arts. XIII C & XIII D, § 6 (Proposition 218))? The court asked for supplemental briefing on this issue: Does the exception to the referendum power in article II, section 9, subdivision (a), of the California Constitution apply to all statutes providing for tax levies, or only those statutes providing for tax levies that are “for usual current expenses of the State”? (See Geiger v. Board of Supervisors (1957) 48 Cal.2d 832, 836, fn. *.) The court granted review in January 2019.
In September 2019, the court agreed to answer these questions posed by the Ninth Circuit in Ixchel: (1) Does section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code void a contract by which a business is restrained from engaging in a lawful trade or business with another business? [Link added.] (2) Is a plaintiff required to plead an independently wrongful act in order to state a claim for intentional interference with a contract that can be terminated by a party at any time, or does that requirement apply only to at-will employment contracts? [Disclosure: Horvitz & Levy filed an amicus curiae brief in this case.]
The opinions can be viewed Monday starting at 10:00 a.m.
