The case involved Ridgecrest Charter School's request for facilities from Sierra Sands Unified School District under the Charter Schools Act as amended by Proposition 39, which mandates that districts provide charter schools with reasonably equivalent and contiguous facilities for their in-district students. The district offered space at five different sites totaling 9.5 classrooms spread across 65 miles, while the charter school argued for a single site since some district sites could accommodate all 223 students. The trial court denied the charter school's petition for a writ of mandate, but the appellate court reversed, holding that the district failed to minimize the number of sites assigned when a single site was not used and did not adequately consider student safety or the contiguity requirements.
In People v. Enos, the defendant entered a plea bargain resolving three separate criminal cases and was sentenced to five years in prison, with the trial court imposing separate restitution fines and matching parole revocation fines in each case that totaled $1,000. The defendant appealed, contending that the statutes permitted only a single set of fines because the cases were resolved by one comprehensive plea agreement at a combined sentencing hearing. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment, holding that the cases remained distinct since they were never consolidated, were treated as separate throughout the proceedings, and the total fines did not exceed the statutory maximum. The court distinguished prior authority that had limited multiple fines only where the aggregate exceeded the cap, noting that the defendant suffered no prejudice from the allocation among cases.
This case concerned defendant Allen Thomas Ayers, who was charged with spousal battery, making terrorist threats, and false imprisonment after an August 2003 incident in which he allegedly struck, choked, and threatened his partner Marisa M., the mother of his children. At trial, Marisa recanted much of her initial account, but the jury convicted Ayers solely of spousal battery under Penal Code section 273.5(a) and acquitted him on the remaining counts. On appeal, Ayers challenged the admission of records from a domestic violence shelter under the business records exception, arguing they contained inadmissible double hearsay, and contended that the standard jury instruction (CALJIC No. 9.35) should have been modified to require proof of “unlawful” injury. The court concluded that the shelter records were improperly admitted but that any error was harmless, that refusal to modify the instruction was not error or was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore affirmed the conviction.
The case involved Bakersfield Citizens for Local Control challenging the City of Bakersfield's approval of two large retail shopping centers under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), each featuring a Wal-Mart Supercenter and together totaling 1.1 million square feet. The court held that the environmental impact reports (EIRs) for the projects were inadequate, requiring their decertification and rescission of the associated project approvals and land use entitlements. The reasoning centered on the EIRs' failure to evaluate the potential for the centers to indirectly cause urban or suburban decay through economic competition and store closures, their omission of cumulative impacts from treating both projects together, and their lack of correlation between acknowledged air quality harms and resulting effects on human respiratory health.
The case involved an appeal by a father from an order terminating his parental rights to his five children in a dependency proceeding initiated after the children were exposed to methamphetamine labs on the family property. The father contended that the juvenile court had erroneously found the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) inapplicable, because the Fresno County Department of Children and Family Services had not provided all available information about the children's potential Indian heritage to relevant tribes. The Court of Appeal reversed the termination order, holding that an agency's compliance with basic ICWA notice requirements is insufficient if it possesses additional identifying heritage details that were not shared with the tribes, as this information is necessary for tribes to determine a child's eligibility for membership. The matter was remanded for the department to serve complete notices, including all known Indian heritage information, and for the trial court to reassess whether ICWA applies.
This case involved subsequent homeowners suing the builder Anderson Homes for latent construction defects, including improper installation of chimneys, roofs, windows, and siding that caused progressive water damage to the structures, which the plaintiffs discovered only after their purchases. The trial court granted the builder's motion in limine and dismissed the negligence and strict liability claims, relying on Krusi v. S.J. Amoroso Construction Co. to conclude that any causes of action had accrued in the original owners when physical damage first occurred. The appellate court reversed the dismissal, holding that absent proof the original owners suffered actual economic injuries from the defects, they possessed no causes of action that would bar the subsequent owners from bringing their claims. The core reasoning was that a tort cause of action for latent construction defects accrues upon the owner's compensable economic injury rather than upon the initial undetected physical damage to the property.