April 24, 2013

Proposition 64 (passed in 2004) placed severe limits on unfair competition claims in California.  Some courts and lawyers had believed that a customer must have had direct business dealings and have had lost money due to those dealings in order to bring a lawsuit for unfair business practices under the unfair competition law (“UCL”).  Not anymore.  Now, businesses that have lost sales or profits can sue under the UCL those competitors who compete by breaking the law.   To find out more, click here.

April 24, 2013

Every student in law school learns about adverse possession.  Non-lawyers sometimes refer to it as “squatters’ rights.”  Basically, the law will give one person’s property to another person where the possessor meets certain requirements.  One of those requirements is the payment of property taxes.  Usually, someone else paying the property taxes tips off the true owner.  This is especially true for large, unused parcels of land.  But, public benefit corporations (churches, charitable organizations, etc.) don’t pay property taxes.  Can they be targeted by adverse possessors who don’t pay the property taxes?  A California court recently said yes.  For more information, click here.

October 18, 2012

This past August, a California Court of Appeal ruled that where a homeowner is offered a home loan modification, accepts that modification, and makes the trial payments, the modification is complete and binding upon the lender. The lender cannot unilaterally deny the modification after the borrower has performed his or her part of the agreement.  To find out more, click here.

March 24, 2011

Friends shake hands. They agree to be partners. A business is formed. But what rules apply between the partners? Between the partners and third parties – customers, vendors, employees?

In the absence of a partnership agreement, California’s Uniform Partnership Act (Corporations Code §§16100-16962) supplies these rules for general partnerships in California. But, sometimes these rules may not be what a partner “thought” he had agreed to when he shook hands.  To learn more, click here.