Several civil grant-and-holds at the Supreme Court’s conference

No straight grants at yesterday’s Supreme Court conference, a double one, but lots of action, including:

• Supreme Court allows commutation of two LWOP sentences.
• PAGA grant-and-holds. Piplack v. In-N-Out Burgers, Seifu v. Lyft, Inc., and Gregg v. Uber Technologies, Inc. are the latest grant-and-holds for Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. In Adolph, which was argued last month (video here), the court limited the issue to: “Whether an aggrieved employee who has been compelled to arbitrate claims under the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) that are ‘premised on Labor Code violations actually sustained by’ the aggrieved employee (Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. __, __ [142 S.Ct. 1906, 1916] (Viking River Cruises); see Lab. Code, §§ 2698, 2699, subd. (a)) maintains statutory standing to pursue ‘PAGA claims arising out of events involving other employees’ (Viking River Cruises, at p. __ [142 S.Ct. at p. 1916]) in court or in any other forum the parties agree is suitable.” In published opinions, the Fourth District, Division Three, Court of Appeal in Piplack and the Second District, Division Four, in Seifu and Gregg found standing. Horvitz & Levy is appellate counsel for Lyft in Seifu.
• Void judgment grant-and-hold. The court granted review in Premier Capital, LLC v. Yakovi and deferred further action pending a decision in California Capital Insurance Company v. Hoehn. The court agreed to hear Hoehn in January and is expected to there decide: “(1) Is there a time limitation for filing a motion under Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (d) to vacate a judgment that is allegedly void based on extrinsic evidence? (2) In the alternative, does an equitable motion to vacate an allegedly void judgment for lack of service require proving intentional bad conduct in order to show extrinsic fraud?” In Yakovi, the Second District, Division Five, unpublished opinion rejected an attempt to invalidate an 18-year-old default judgment. The defendant claimed substituted service of the lawsuit had been made at an incorrect address, but Division Five said the challenge wasn’t sufficiently substantiated because the superior court could not consider the defendant’s “self-serving declarations,” but “only the summons, the accompanying affidavit or proof of service, the complaint, the request for entry of default and the entry of the same, and the judgment.”
• Administrative subpoena depublication. At the California Labor Commissioner’s request, the court depublished the Third District’s opinion in Garcia-Brower v. Nor-Cal Venture Group, Inc. The appellate court held the Commissioner didn’t have the statutory authority to issue a deposition subpoena once she had issued a wage citation because a subpoena is among the “powers that exist solely during the investigatory phase,” not during “an adjudicatory one.” There was no petition for review.
• COVID speedy trial rights depublication. The court denied review in Estrada v. Superior Court, over the dissenting recorded vote of Justice Goodwin Liu, but it depublished the opinion of the First District, Division One. The petitioners unsuccessfully claimed their statutory speedy trial rights were violated, contending, as the opinion paraphrased, “there was no good cause to continue their cases past the statutory deadline, [because ] the superior court can no longer rely on the ‘exceptional circumstances’ resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.” In Hernandez-Valenzuela v. Superior Court (2022) 75 Cal.App.5th 1108, a divided First District, Division Three, rejected a similar argument based on court conditions during late summer/early fall of 2021. The Estrada court concluded that, about a year later, “the pandemic and its attendant disruptions, while somewhat abated, certainly had not ceased” and that “the continued, but abating, backlog at the time in question was primarily the result of exceptional circumstances arising from a ‘ “unique, nonrecurring event” ’—the continuing consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.” As in Estrada, the Supreme Court denied review in Hernandez-Valenzuela with Justice Liu dissenting (see here), but the Hernandez-Valenzuela opinion remains on the books. In both Estrada and Hernandez-Valenzuela, because Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero and Justice Carol Corrigan were recused (probably because they are, respectively, the chair and a member of the Judicial Council, which issued pertinent jury-trial-suspension orders during the pandemic), the denials of review were by a four-justice minimum.
• COVID insurance denial. A Fourth District, Division One, published opinion in Best Rest Motel, Inc. v. Sequoia Insurance Company found no possibility of business interruption insurance coverage for a motel’s lost business during the pandemic. The Supreme Court denied review, even though its docket already has two straight-grant and two grant-and-hold COVID insurance cases. (See here, here, and here.)
• COVID vaccination. The court denied a depublication request (there was no petition for review) in In re Matthew M., where the Second District, Division Seven, published opinion upheld a juvenile court order allowing vaccination against the COVID virus of a 12-year-old over the religious objections of the child’s mother. The appellate court concluded “it was . . . well within the authority of the juvenile court to allow the vaccination of a dependent child notwithstanding parental objection if the evidence before the court, including the approval of the child’s doctor, supported the decision to do so.”
• Parole consideration. The court issued an order to show cause on the pro per’s habeas corpus petition in In re Hicks. The matter is to be heard in the Second District, Division Two, which had summarily denied three earlier Hicks habeas petitions. The issue is whether Hicks is “entitled to relief based on his claim that he is unconstitutionally being excluded from early parole consideration under section 32, subdivision (a)(1) of article 1 of the California Constitution” (link added), which concerns “[a]ny person convicted of a nonviolent felony offense.”
• And the Oscar goes to . . . . The court denied review of the Second District, Division Two, published opinion in Juarez v. Ward that held the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had a contractual right to reclaim an Oscar statuette for $10 from the awardee who was now a judgment debtor. The judgment creditor sought the statuette to satisfy in part a judgment she had obtained for unpaid wages and penalties.
• Criminal case grant-and-holds. There were five criminal case grant-and-holds:  one more holding for a decision in Camacho v. Superior Court, which is technically a civil case, involving a civil commitment under the Sexually Violent Predators Act (see here), and which will be argued at a special session in two weeks; one more waiting for People v. Lynch (see here); one on hold for People v. McCune (see here); one more waiting for People v. Mitchell (see here); and one more holding for decisions in two death penalty appeals — People v. Bankston and People v. Hin.