CA Pub. Decisions

School district's decision to terminate teacher allegedly because he informed the athletic director at another interdistrict school that the school's football coach had recommended a weight increasing nutritional supplement to a student was not explicitly prohibited by law and thus provided no basis for liability under California law.

Trial court did not violate double punishment prohibition contained in Penal Code Sec. 654 by imposing sentences on convictions for attempted robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and attempted murder arising out of a single event where evidence showed defendant's commission of those acts did not arise from single objective of robbing victim but rather separate motives to rob victim, then to hurt victim after robbery attempt failed, then to kill victim by shooting him. Court did not violate Sec. 654 by imposing firearm use enhancements on both defendant's attempted murder and attempted robbery convictions based on same discharge of firearm where it concluded that use of gun in attempting to rob victim had a different objective than later use of gun to attempt to kill victim. Where police officer found bullets and cartridges in defendant's closet, evidence was sufficient to support conviction for possession of ammunition under Penal Code Sec. 12316.

Bifurcation of prior conviction allegations was not required once evidence of the convictions was introduced to impeach defendant's testimony. In prosecution for possession of fictitious bills, where prosecution presented direct evidence that defendant possessed bills and that they were counterfeit, but used circumstantial evidence to prove defendant's specific intent that the bills be accepted as genuine, trial court erred in giving CALJIC No. 2.01, Sufficiency of Circumstantial Evidence Generally instead of CALJIC No. 2.02, Sufficiency of Circumstantial Evidence to Prove Specific Intent or Mental State, but error was clearly harmless because former instruction was more inclusive than latter. Imposition of upper prison term based on judicial factfinding did not violate right to trial by jury where trial court found that defendant's prior convictions were a sufficient basis for its decision.

In this case, the County of San Bernardino (hereafter the County) provided medical care to Martin Zavala Calderon after he was injured in a car accident in which the other driver was at fault. The parties concur that the hospital has a valid lien for the reasonable value of its services to Calderon. The principal issue on appeal is whether the Countys lien for services rendered beginning on July 14, 2003, notice of which was given to the responsible third party on November 13, 2003, takes priority over a lien for attorney fees which was created by contract between Calderon and his attorney on July 18, 2003. In a trial on the Countys action for declaratory relief based on stipulated facts, the trial court held that the hospital lien was created on November 13, 2003, upon the giving of notice. Because the lien for attorney fees was created before the hospitals lien, the court determined that the attorneys lien has priority over the hospital lien.
The construction of a statute and its applicability to undisputed facts are questions of law which we review de novo. (People ex rel. Lockyer v. Shamrock Foods Co. (2000) 24 Cal.4th 415, 432; International Engine Parts, Inc. v. Fedderson & Co. (1995) 9 Cal.4th 606, 611.) Court conclude that the HLA does not provide that hospital liens have first priority over competing liens regardless of the time of creation of the lien, and that the hospital lien was not created until notice was given on November 13, 2003. Accordingly, Court affirm the judgment.

Reversal of self represented defendant's judgment was compelled where judge at preliminary hearing twice expressed doubt about defendant's mental competence, warning of a mental competence hearing, but failed to appoint counsel to represent him on that issue at that time.

Reversal of self represented defendant's judgment was compelled where judge at preliminary hearing twice expressed doubt about defendant's mental competence, warning of a mental competence hearing, but failed to appoint counsel to represent him on that issue at that time.

A modification decision.

Orange County Social Services Agency (SSA) and minor, Hadley B., appeal the juvenile courts order dismissing a dependency petition after refusing to allow an amendment to include evidence of incidents occurring outside Orange County. In a second dependency petition on behalf of the same minor, the juvenile court struck all allegations of acts outside Orange County and of those litigated in the first petition. SSA filed a petition for extraordinary relief from the rulings on the second petition.
On the appeal, Court find the juvenile court erred in dismissing the original dependency petition and reverse, directing the juvenile court to dismiss the second petition, accept amendments to the original petition, and conduct another jurisdictional hearing. Court dismiss the petition for extraordinary relief as moot.

City's 2002 general plan substantially complied with Housing Element Law, as it then read, where the plan provided an aggregate inventory of what the city identified as vacant sites and sites potentially available for development. Law at the time did not require that the inventory identify specific sites both suitable for residential development and available to meet housing needs. Least Cost Zoning Law does not require that city take action to actually rezone a sufficient supply of adequate sites to meet lower income share of need following revision of general plan's housing element. Substantial evidence supported city's contention that implementation of the plan through rezoning, along with another city program, will have a positive effect on the supply of higher density, lower income housing and will satisfy the regional housing need in all income categories, thus complying with the law.

Where army veteran's service had begun eight years prior to his marriage to former wife and he was still on active duty when they separated, trial court did not err in requiring veteran to pay his former wife a percentage of any veterans disability payments he may receive during his retirement. Court did not abuse its discretion in requiring that veteran participate in military's Survivor's Benefit Plan and name his former wife as his sole beneficiary where doing so was an equitable means to insure that former wife receives her community share of veteran's retirement pay. Court did not abuse its discretion in requiring veteran to pay half the cost of a class of benefits that would give former wife her proportionate interest in veteran's maximum benefit as a way of attempting to guarantee that former wife receives her full share of the military retirement.

Where jury convicted defendant of two counts of attempted murder and made true findings as to various special allegations, including that the crimes were premeditated and were committed for the benefit of a street gang, and trial court ordered new trial as to those allegations before proceeding to pronounce judgment as to the convictions and other enhancements, defendant's constitutional protection against double jeopardy barred retrial on the special allegations.

City's 2002 general plan substantially complied with Housing Element Law, as it then read, where the plan provided an aggregate inventory of what the city identified as vacant sites and sites potentially available for development. Law at the time did not require that the inventory identify specific sites both suitable for residential development and available to meet housing needs. Least Cost Zoning Law does not require that city take action to actually rezone a sufficient supply of adequate sites to meet lower income share of need following revision of general plan's housing element. Substantial evidence supported city's contention that implementation of the plan through rezoning, along with another city program, will have a positive effect on the supply of higher density, lower income housing and will satisfy the regional housing need in all income categories, thus complying with the law.

Where jury convicted defendant of two counts of attempted murder and made true findings as to various special allegations, including that the crimes were premeditated and were committed for the benefit of a street gang, and trial court ordered new trial as to those allegations before proceeding to pronounce judgment as to the convictions and other enhancements, defendant's constitutional protection against double jeopardy barred retrial on the special allegations.

Trial court did not abuse its discretion in proceeding with voir dire as means of evaluating whether murder defendant could obtain a fair trial in county, instead of granting his motion for a five week continuance so he could conduct a public opinion survey to assess how media publicity garnered by his codefendant's trial would affect his ability to receive a fair trial, where his trial had been scheduled to begin that very day and he did not refute prosecution's claim that the requested delay would cause hardship with regard to the 40 potential witnesses it had subpoenaed; court and parties had developed a juror questionnaire that took into account the recent completion of the codefendant's trial and posed questions relating to the pretrial publicity of the case; and defendant did not exhaust his peremptory challenges and did not object to the jury's final composition. Court did not err in failing to instruct jury on lesser included offenses of second degree murder and involuntary manslaughter where defense counsel told court that defense was not requesting any instructions on the lesser included charges. Any error would have been harmless where jury was properly instructed that a torture murder special circumstance requires the intent to kill and found true that special circumstance, necessarily determining that defendant intended to kill victim when he tortured her. During voir dire at penalty phase of trial, court did not err in failing to excuse six allegedly biased potential jurors for cause where defendant neither made a peremptory challenge to any of the six jurors nor exhausted his available 20 peremptory challenges; and even if he had, five of the potentials jurors did not actually serve in defendant's jury, and the remaining one, who at first candidly said she initially formed an opinion of defendant's guilt after reading a newspaper story about the codefendant's trial, later stated she would need to hear evidence to overcome her suspicion of defendant's guilt and understood that all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Court at penalty phase did not err in instructing jury regarding governor's commutation power where, though jury did not specifically ask about commutation power, it implicitly inquired about it when it asked if "life in prison without parole really mean[s] without parole forever."