California Municipal Law Blog
by Karen A. Feld on July 4, 2016
posted in
Damages,
SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation” and is perfectly named. The whole point of the lawsuit is to intimidate people into submission. The goal is not necessarily to win the case; it is to make life so difficult and expensive that the defendant just gives up and goes away.
Many states, starting with California, have enacted protections against such lawsuits, recognizing that they infringe on someone’s freedom of speech and right to participate.
... Continue Reading
tags:
Defenses, Lawsuits, Motion to Strike, SLAPP,
by David G. Ritchie on March 31, 2016
posted in
Employment Law, Recent Court Decisions, Unions,
The Fourth District Court of Appeals issued two decisions yesterday that held that fact-finding under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (“MMBA”) applies to all impasses between exclusive representatives and MMBA public agencies such as cities, counties, and special districts. The results in these cases means that when impasse is reached in negotiations involving a city, county or special district with an exclusive representative employee organization, and that dispute involves subject matters within the scope of representation, the public agencies could be forced to engage in non-binding ... Continue Reading
tags:
AB 646, Fact-finding, MOUs, PERB,
by David G. Ritchie on March 29, 2016
posted in
Employment Law, Recent Court Decisions, U.S. Supreme Court, Unions,
Previously we wrote about Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (a link to our previous article is here), a case involving whether public-sector union fair share arrangements are invalid because they violate individual first amendment rights.
Today, the Supreme court divided equally in deciding the case and issued a one-sentence decision affirming the Appellate Court decision and leaving earlier precedent, including the Abood case intact (as criticized as it has become.) The case was decided by an eight-member Court, which could have held the case over for re-argument after confirmation ... Continue Reading
tags:
Abood Case, California Teachers Association, Fair Share Arrangements, Friedrichs, Ninth Circuit, Union Shop,
by Derek P. Cole on March 28, 2016
posted in
Public Records Act, Recent Court Decisions,
As this Blog previously noted, the State Supreme Court had before it two cases in which inadvertent disclosures of attorney-client privileged records were made in response to requests under the California Public Records Act (“CPRA”). In both cases, the question was whether the mistaken releases waived the privileges. (Our previous updates about these cases are linked here and here.)
On March 17, the Court resolved a split in the appellate courts by ruling that mistaken disclosures do not waive the attorney-client privilege (or the related attorney “work-product” protection). In ... Continue Reading
tags:
Attorney-Client Privilege, Mistaken Release, Public Records, Work Product Protection,
by Derek P. Cole on February 1, 2016
posted in
Meetings,
Local agency officials are well aware of the basic requirements for public-meeting agendas. They know, for instance, that agendas for regular meetings must be posted at least 72 hours in advance. In light of legislation that took effect in 2012, they also know that if their agencies post agendas online—which most local agencies now do—the agendas must be posted online within the same timeframe.
But what happens if an agency’s website goes down during the period in which the agenda must be online? Does that mean the agency can’t take any action on any of the business items for the ... Continue Reading
tags:
Brown Act, Online Agendas, Technical Difficulties, Website Outages, Websites,
