by Andy Chen | Feb 3, 2020 | California, Evidence
It should hopefully not surprise anyone that evidence is important in legal disputes. The parties will inevitably say their own versions of what happened, but unless someone has evidence to back up what they’re saying, the outcome will likely disappoint all involved. Not all evidence is treated equal, however. The evidence in question has to be relevant to the dispute in order to be of interest to a judge, a jury, the lawyers, etc. In this post, I’m going to talk about what “relevant” means in California court cases. The definition, unfortunately, varies from state-to-state. New York has a different definition as does the Federal Court system. Hopefully, though, you can see that the definitions are similar, regardless of the jurisdiction. In California state court, relevance is defined in California Evidence Code section 210, which provides: “Relevant evidence” means evidence, including evidence relevant to the credibility of a witness or hearsay declarant, having any tendency in reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action.” I bolded the end of that definition to highlight that ‘the tendency within reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact’ is the essence of what relevance means. Relevance is important because it limits what evidence can be admitted. Under section 350 of the California Evidence Code, only relevant evidence is admissible. In the abstract, this should hopefully make sense to everyone. It would be confusing and a waste of time and energy to admit or use evidence that is unrelated (i.e. is not relevant) to what the dispute or case is about. In practice,...
by Andy Chen | Feb 3, 2020 | California, contracts
Contracts are super prevalent in everyday life. If you have a loan (e.g. for your car), then you likely have a contract specifying things like what you have to pay and when and what happens if you don’t pay when you’re supposed to. Companies rely on contracts to do business with one another all the time. I would posit that literally everything you buy has been made and transported to you by a series of companies that have contracts between them specifying what each company’s obligations are and what fee they want to be paid. Contracts, of course, aren’t perfect. When problems arise and a lawsuit needs to be filed over, say, one party not doing what they are supposed to under the contract, one thing that needs to be examined is whether it is too late to sue. The time limit in which you have to file a civil lawsuit is called a “Statute of Limitations.” This varies not only state, but also by the type of case you want to file. If you miss this statute of limitations and then try to file your case, you will almost certainly lose your case because you’ve waited too long. In certain rare situations, you might be able to make an argument for why the statute of limitations period should be paused for a period (e.g. one year). This is called “tolling” and, if successful, would extend the statute of limitations period by that same amount of time that the proverbial clock was paused. If you’re the plaintiff, the filing date of your case will hopefully be within this extended...
by Andy Chen | Jan 21, 2020 | New York, Torts
A few years ago — 2016, it appears — I put out a video on my Youtube channel about the Shopkeeper’s Privilege in California. Here’s the video. This post will go over the Shopkeeper’s Privilege as it exists in New York. Like California, New York’s Shopkeeper’s Privilege is also statutory. The governing New York statute is Section 218 of the New York General Business Law. Section 218 provides that if a defendant is sued for “false arrest, false imprisonment, unlawful detention, defamation of character, assault, trespass, or invasion of civil rights” by a person detained at a retail establishment, the defendant may raise as a defense that the plaintiff was detained in a reasonable manner and for not more than a reasonable time to permit such investigation or questioning by a police officer or an owner or employee of the retail establishment and that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the plaintiff being detained had committed a theft. (Note: I am paraphrasing this somewhat due to length. If you’re going to actually use the statute (e.g. in court), do always take a look at the section’s actual text first). If you compare this to how California’s Shopkeeper’s Privilege works (see California Penal Code section 490.5(f)), you should see similarities. As always, this post is meant to only briefly go over a singular topic. If the Shopkeeper’s Privilege — either the California or New York one — please do additional research before proceeding and do not rely on just this blog post. Lastly, I’ll repeat again as I do at the end of every post related to New York...
by Andy Chen | Nov 27, 2019 | California, Military Law
If you are in the military in any way, you’re likely entitled to various legal protections under California law that — at least in theory — are meant to make it easier for you to perform your military service. These laws allow, for instance, may allow you to resume your old health insurance when your active duty service ends. It may allow you to enjoy a reduced interest rate on loans and other debts when you’re on active duty. There are housing-related benefits as well related to rental agreements and mortgages. In this post, I’m going to describe California’s laws in this area in a very general or high-level way. There are a lot of laws so I can’t go over all of them because if I did, this post would be enormous. As I make follow-on posts over time, however, I will probably hit a lot of these topics anyway. I am going to start this process by describing some common themes or ideas that all of these laws have that hopefully make it so all who are entitled to these benefits actually receive them. When working on cases in this area of California law, the first thing I ask is what kind of military member am I working with? By that, I mean is this person an active duty service member (e.g. Lance Corporal in the Marines), a member of the California National Guard, or a member of the Naval Reserves who has been called to active duty? As with anything in the law, technicalities and definitions like this can be important. The benefits provided are similar,...
by Andy Chen | Nov 3, 2019 | California, Family Law, Torts
In a prior post, I went over the definition of “separate property” in New York. Under that definition (Section 236(B)(1)(d) of New York’s Domestic Relations Law, if you need to look it up), one of the things that is separate property in divorce in New York is damages received by a spouse for their personal injuries. In this post, I’m going to go over that same question — namely, is money received for personal injuries separate or not — for California. California and New York are similar politically, but remember that when it comes to divorces, California is a community property state and New York is not. Does that affect the answer? In short, yes. Money received for personal injuries sustained during the marriage is community property in California, but it is not automatically subject to division in the way community property typically is in a divorce. There are three California statutes that apply here, all of which are in the California Family Code. The first is section 780 of the California Family Code which provides the following. This entire statute is important, but I’ve put the super important parts in bold. “Except as provided in Section 781 and subject to the rules of allocation set forth in Section 2603, money and other property received or to be received by a married person in satisfaction of a judgment for damages for personal injuries, or pursuant to an agreement for the settlement or compromise of a claim for such damages, is community property if the cause of action for the damages arose during the marriage.” From this, the general rule...
