A jury returned a unanimous verdict requiring Shell Pipeline and Alon to pay TVA's clients $40.6 million in benefits-obtained trespass damages.

TVA's clients bought a 138-acre parcel across the street from Meadows Field airport, a property hoped to be the "window to the city"...

CEB has published my article, “When It Comes to Writs of Administrative Mandamus, the Appealability Rules Are Confused,” available here: https://lnkd.in/ge8d8mYS

The article is about the mandamus case of County of Santa Cruz v. Santa Cruz County Civil Service Commission (D6 May 5, 2023 no. H049856) 2023 WL 3267749 (nonpub. opn.). The setup is that, when challenging an agency action via a writ of administrative mandamus, normally you have to assume the trial court’s ruling is the appealable order. But the Santa Cruz court permitted an appeal much later than that, when the appellant appealed from a statement of decision (which itself is usually not appealable).

The decision contradicts last year’s holding in Meinhardt v. City of Sunnyvale (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 43 (but the Supreme Court granted review in Meinhardt).

My comment: It should make you nervous when courts are wishy-washy on appealability. Once the cases suggest an order might be appealable, you need to assume they are definitely appealable, because they’re treated as jurisdictional.

CEB has published my article, “What Happens to a Fee Award After the Judgment Is Reversed? Try a Stipulated Reversal.” In the short article, I discuss a common confusing scenario: what happens when a judgment is reversed, but the fee award is still on appeal?

That is what happened in Mid-Wilshire Property, L.P. v. Dr. Leevil, LLC (D4d3 Jul. 20, 2022 no. G059899) 2022 WL 2824967 (nonpub. opn.). Briefing in the fee appeal was still underway when the judgment was reversed. Do the parties still have to go through with the briefing and argument?

Nope. Instead, they filed a joint stipulated request to summarily reverse the attorney fee award. And the appellate court granted it.