by Andy Chen | Feb 7, 2020 | California, Torts
I recently put out a post about the statute of limitations that applies to a breach of contract case in California. In that post, I explained that a “statute of limitations” is the time period within which a plaintiff has to file their lawsuit. If they miss it — and can’t come up with a good tolling argument — then they will lose their case. Their evidence could be rock solid (e.g. the proverbial smoking gun), but they will lose simply because they waited too long. In this post, I’m going to continue that theme and discuss another statute of limitations. We’re talking about California again, but this time it’s the statute of limitations for a civil fraud suit. As an aside, my experience has been that fraud is alleged in cases way more often than it actually happens. Fraud — at least in California — has a very, very, very specific definition. If you’re going to allege it in a lawsuit, I would highly recommend that you look up that definition and know it back to front. Anyway, aside over. The statute of limitations for a civil fraud suit is 3 years. That’s section 338(d) of the California Code of Civil Procedure. As before, knowing that the proverbial clock is 3 years is only part of the solution. The other part is that you need to know when this 3 years starts. The answer to that is when the plaintiff discovers the fraud. That’s also in section 338(d) which provides: “The cause of action… is not deemed to have accrued until the discovery, by the aggrieved party, of...
by Andy Chen | Feb 5, 2020 | New York, Torts
A while back, I put out a video on my Youtube channel about the Shopkeeper’s Privilege in California. In short, this is a justification that the proprietor of a business (e.g. a store) can use to detain someone they believe is committing a theft (e.g. shoplifting). Normally, detaining someone could be considered False Imprisonment and is something that the person who has been falsely imprisoned could be sued for. I learned about the Shopkeeper’s Privilege in law school in California, but the concept exists in other states also. I wrote about the New York Shopkeeper’s Privilege in a recent post and how it’s codified in statute, specifically n New York, for example, it’s Section 218 of the New York General Business Law. In this post, I’m going to describe the antecedent tort to Shopkeeper’s Privilege, namely what False Imprisonment involves. This post will specifically be about the False Imprisonment in New York. I’ll put out a subsequent post about how the tort of False Imprisonment is defined in California law. As with most things in law — I’m speaking generally and not specifically about California or New York — the tort of False Imprisonment has various criteria. If you are the plaintiff and you satisfy those criteria (e.g. your witnesses, evidence, etc are sufficient), you win. Keep in mind, however, that the defendant in your case will do everything in his/her power to show that your evidence not only doesn’t meet the criteria, but that the evidence shows precisely the opposite. In other words, you as the plaintiff haven’t come even remotely close to satisfying the criteria required to...
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...
