At the Supreme Court’s conference yesterday, the actions of note included:
- The court granted review in an employment arbitration case, Conyer v. Hula Media Services, LLC. It also depublished the opinion of the Second District, Division Eight, Court of Appeal, which upheld most of an arbitration agreement in an employee handbook, kicking out of court a former employee’s claims of sexual harassment and other things. Review/depublication combo orders happen only occasionally, but maybe there is one here because the appellate court opinion does not even mention the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho (2019) 8 Cal.5th 111, cert. denied (2020) 207 L.Ed.2d 170), where the court found unconscionable and unenforceable an employer-employee arbitration agreement and where the dissent predicted that “the majority’s finding of unconscionability will surely be the rule in the vast majority of cases in the employment context.”
- The court denied review in Lona v. City of Fullerton Police Department, but it depublished the opinion of the Fourth District, Division Three, which affirmed the denial of a petition to remove the petitioner’s name from a gang database that lists him as a suspected gang member or associate. After the petition for review was filed, the Supreme Court asked for supplemental briefing regarding the “impact, if any, the recent promulgation of California Code of Regulations, Title 11, Section 750 et seq. may have on this case.” (Link added.)
- The court also denied and depublished in Starks v. Vortex Industries, Inc. The divided Second District, Division One, opinion prevented one employee who had filed a wage-violations action under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 from intervening or challenging the judgment after settlement in another employee’s PAGA action against the same employer. PAGA allows an employee to recover civil penalties as an agent for the Labor and Workforce Development Agency. The employee was barred, the majority held, because the other employee recovered penalties and the Agency had already taken its share of the proceeds. The dissent said the court’s ruling “effectively insulates PAGA settlements from judicial review,” including the settlement before the court, which, the dissent asserted, was “so stealthily procured and lopsided as to merit court scrutiny.”
- With Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye not voting in favor and Justice Carol Corrigan recused, the court issued an order to show cause, returnable in the Court of Appeal, on the habeas corpus petition in In re Moore. The appellate court will address whether “there was insufficient evidence to support the robbery-murder special circumstance finding and whether petitioner’s youth at the time of the offense should be one of the factors considered under People v. Clark (2016) 63 Cal.4th 522, 609-623 and People v. Banks (2015) 61 Cal.4th 788.”
- The court granted a pro per’s original writ petition in Harrison v. Superior Court and transferred the matter to the Fourth District, Division One, with directions to vacate that court’s order summarily denying a writ petition (here?) and to issue an alternative writ to assess “petitioner’s motion for post-conviction discovery under Penal Code section 1054.9 and . . . [his] requests contained therein seeking materials to which he is entitled under the statute. . . . (See Catlin v. Superior Court (2011) 51 Cal.4th 300, 305; Barnett v. Superior Court (2010) 50 Cal.4th 890, 898-901; In re Steele (2004) 32 Cal.4th 682, 691, 693-697.)”
- There were seven criminal case grant-and-holds: four more holding for a decision in People v. Lewis (see here), one more holding for People v. Lopez (see here), and two more holding for People v. Raybon (see here).
