At last week’s conference, besides granting review in a pension case and agreeing to answer the Ninth Circuit’s employment law questions in another case, the Supreme Court took these other actions of note:
- The court granted review in Kim v. Reins International California. The case raises the issue whether an employee bringing an action under the Private Attorney General Act (Lab. Code, § 1698 et seq.) loses standing to pursue representative claims as an “aggrieved employee” by dismissing his or her individual claims against the employer. In a published opinion, the Second District, Division Four, Court of Appeal held that the employee does lose standing.
- Two death penalty habeas corpus petitions were transferred to the superior court for decision. The court had previously issued an order to show cause in In re Williams to determine whether “the prosecutor exercised peremptory challenges against prospective jurors with racially discriminatory intent.” We identified that Batson/Wheeler OSC as a de facto transition rehearing The second transferred petition — In re Adcox — involves a jury misconduct claim.
- The court depublished the Third District Court of Appeal’s opinion in City of Anaheim v. Cohen, which concerned Anaheim’s claim for reimbursement from the Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund.
- A second depublication order was made in Guan v. Hu. The now-uncitable 2-1 opinion of the Second District Court of Appeal, Division One, involved fraud and breach of contract claims arising from a complex property sales agreement.
- Justice Goodwin Liu recorded a vote to grant review in People v. Williams, where the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Three, in an unpublished opinion affirmed the denial of a resentencing petition. The appellate court concluded it was bound to defer to the trial court’s determination that the prisoner poses a danger to public safety, even though, “If it were up to us, we might very well conclude that [the] 60-plus year old arthritic third-striker . . . poses no danger to public safety and thus could be successfully released from prison under the sentencing recall provisions of either Proposition 36 or Proposition 47.” No other justice recorded a vote to grant review, however.