Plaintiffs challenged orders of the Superior Court of Orange County (California), that denied their application to allow a class action, granted summary judgment against them on their cause of action against defendants, a parent company and its subsidiary, under the Cartwright Act, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 16720 et seq., granted judgment on the pleadings to and dismissal of defendant subsidiary, and denied them leave to amend their complaint.
Plaintiffs filed a class action on behalf of all homebuyers required to accept the subsidiary for escrow purposes as a condition to the purchase of their homes from the parent company. Plaintiffs alleged a violation of Cal. Civ. Code § 2995, and an antitrust violation under the Cartwright Act, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 16720 et seq. Defendants demurred, and the complaint was dismissed. On appeal, the court reversed and remanded. The employment attorney san diego ca help you in all San Diego employment matters.
On remand, the trial court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the antitrust claim, basing its decision on a newly issued U.S. Supreme Court decision, denied class certification, and granted the subsidiary’s motion for summary judgment on the § 2995 claim, thereby dismissing the subsidiary from the case. Plaintiffs appealed. On appeal, the court reversed the order dismissing the subsidiary from the antitrust claim. The holding in the first appeal as to the antitrust claim was the law of the case, and the U.S. Supreme Court decision did not preclude the antitrust claim. Also, the class should have been certified. As the case involved the violation of a statute, individual issues of prior knowledge did not bar class certification.
The court reversed the trial court’s orders dismissing the defendant subsidiary from plaintiffs’ antitrust claim and denying plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. The court’s reversal of the dismissal of plaintiffs’ antitrust claim in the first appeal was the law of the case in the subsequent proceedings. As the case involved the violation of a statute, individual issues of prior knowledge did not bar class certification.
The San Diego County Superior Court convicted and sentenced defendant under numerous felony counts, including violating Cal. Penal Code § 311.4(b). The Court of Appeal of California, Fourth Appellate District, Division One, reversed the conviction for violating § 311.4(b) and modified it. Defendant appealed.
Defendant was convicted of using his nine-year-old daughter to produce child pornography and posting it on the Internet. The material included pictures of the girl penetrating herself, as well as defendant penetrating her in various ways. The supreme court granted review to decide whether producing child pornography and posting it on the Internet in order to induce others similarly to trade such pornography on the Internet (without making a monetary profit), satisfied the statute’s commercial requirement of Cal. Penal Code § 311.4(b). A major reason for providing additional punishment for defendants who produced child pornography for a commercial purpose was to deter and punish the production of pornography for purposes of exchanging it for other child pornography. Because courts broadly construed the commercial purpose concept in many contexts, the supreme court concluded that posting child pornography on the Internet under the circumstances of this case satisfied the requirements of § 311.4(b). The court of appeal erred when it focused solely on whether defendant had financially profited from his Internet posting, trading, and videomaking enterprise.
The appellate court’s judgment was reversed and remanded.