Mendoza v. Trans Valley Transport
Docket no. H044372 (Sixth Appellate District)
Opinion Date: March 1, 2022
Arbitration agreements, enforceability
Plaintiff applied for a job as a truck driver. Does not speak or write English. Employee handbook included the arbitration agreement. Director of Human Resources testified he would have given the Plaintiff a copy of the handbook in Spanish. Plaintiff signed various acknowledgements and agreements in English which he could not read and which he understood were a condition of employment. The Sixth District found that the handbook was not an agreement to arbitrate because there was no place for Plaintiff to sign the handbook. Further, the handbook was informational and not an agreement for employment. Nothing in the forms signed by Plaintiff contained an acknowledgement that Plaintiff was waiving his right to a jury trial.
Broadcast Music, Inc. v. Structured Asset Sales LLC
Docket no. B304809 (Second Appellate District)
Opinion date: February 24, 2022
Sanctions, CCP sec. 128.7
A party is not entitled to Code of Civil Procedure §128.7 sanctions unless the target of the motion has had 21 days to withdraw the allegedly offending paper, claim, defense, contention, allegation, or denial. When calculating the earliest possible day that a motion for sanctions can be filed, the day the motion was served is excluded and the last day is included.
Balistreri v. Balistreri
Docket no. A162222 (First Appellate District)
Opinion date: February 24, 2022
Trusts and trust amendments
Trust amendments must comply with methods of amendment specified by the trust. When a trust specifies a method of amendment — regardless of whether the method of amendment is exclusive or permissive, and regardless of whether the trust provides for identical or different methods of amendment and revocation — Probate Code §15402 provides no basis for validating an amendment that was not executed in compliance with that method.