Law Commons^™

Selected Problems In The Administration Of Criminal Justice, Alvin H. Goldstein Jr.

Cal Law Trends and Developments

What follows is an effort to focus attention on certain problem areas in the day-to-day administration of justice. They are problems not so much because of their complexity, but rather because uncertainty persists despite considerable discussion of the rules governing each area. I have selected preliminary hearings, bail, appointment of counsel, sua sponte judicial dismissals, and reasonable doubt as appropriate topics for this chapter. There are, of course, numerous others entitled to treatment, but each of those selected relates to a subject over which the trial judge may exercise an extremely broad discretion. The exercise of this discretion may alter …

Welfare Law In California, Peter E. Sitkin

Cal Law Trends and Developments

In California, over 1,500,000 people are dependent on public assistance for all or part of their means of subsistence. To provide aid to these individuals, a large and complex bureaucracy has developed over the years that expends more than a billion dollars a year, and is governed by an evergrowing set of federal, state, and local rules and regulations. Notwithstanding the size of the bureaucracy and the complexity of the laws governing the system, until recently there had been few instances of judicial review of welfare practices or laws. With a few exceptions,4 the court decisions relating to welfare prior …

Juvenile Law, Kenneth Hecht

Cal Law Trends and Developments

Review of the 1969 decisions in juvenile law reveals that the courts in California, as elsewhere, have been traumatized by the recent transplant of constitutional due process into the formerly barren soil of the juvenile code. For sixty years, children in most American jurisdictions were hidden from constitutional view. The fiction persisted that they were not tried but treated. If a child carne to the attention of the juvenile court, he did so because his parents had failed to fulfill their function. The court succeeded to their role and, in the name of parens patriae, exercised only the power it …

Labor Relations, Joseph R. Grodin

Cal Law Trends and Developments

While primary responsibility for regulating labor relations affecting interstate commerce lies with the National Labor Relations Board, there are a number of significant areas in which state courts may exercise jurisdiction; during 1969, California courts had opportunity to determine a variety of issues raising fundamental conflicts of position: The State Supreme Court was called on to decide a case of classic tension between constitutional rights of free speech and private property and the Courts of Appeal passed on the issue of employees' basic right to organize, a claim of duress by an employer who contended he was "forced" to sign …

Contracts, Claude D. Rowher

Cal Law Trends and Developments

Recent decisions have brought about a number of changes in the area of contract interpretation. Although the general trends seem clear and commendable, the details are often obscure and bothersome.

Insurance, Robert A. Seligson

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Commercial Transactions And Consumer Protection, James R. Mccall

Cal Law Trends and Developments

Because the preceding edition of this publication did not contain an article on trends in commercial transactions or consumer protection in California, this article will discuss selected decisions and developments in those fields during the years 1968 and 1969. The principal focus of this article will be the significant decisions made during this period that interpret or relate to the principal statutes in the two fields: the California Commercial Code, the Rees-Levering Automobile Sales Finance Act, and the Unruh Retail Installment Sales Act. These legislative enactments establish a comprehensive statutory pattern for regulation of all aspects of commercial law in …

Real Property, Roger Bernhardt

Cal Law Trends and Developments

"Real property" as a topic exists only in a law professor's mind. Practicing attorneys may specialize in representing title companies or developers or brokers or any of the other entrepreneurs who make their living in one way or another from real estate, but none of these lawyers would claim that his proper field of expertise is real estate per se. Consequently, any article on developments in the field of real property law really becomes a series of separate articles on developments in some real estate specialties, rather than a cohesive whole. I have tried, here, to cover the three specialties …

Secured Transactions - Real Property, Marshall Cornblum

Cal Law Trends and Developments

As in most fields of the law, the law pertaining to real property security transactions is continually evolving. That evolving process is highlighted by the current trend of the California Supreme Court allowing the parties, at the inception of their transaction, to freely elect the true nature of the transaction and thereafter be bound by that election. At the inception of a security transaction, the true nature of that transaction is limited only by the imagination and relative bargaining positions of the parties. In determining this true nature, the court will look to substance rather than form. Once the true …

Trusts And Estates, James D. Hill

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The most significant development in 1969 in the area of trusts and estates was the codification of the law regarding powers of appointment. Other legislation subjects irrevocable inter vivos trusts to the jurisdiction of the Superior Court. In the area of judicial developments, there were two cases of first impression. Estate of Pernas, dealt with the allocation as to principal or income of gains distributed from mutual funds. The other, Estate of Phillips, concerned the admission to probate of a will executed by a Californian who had been adjudicated an incompetent in Illinois prior to his coming to California.

Torts, Frederick J. Moreau

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Administrative Law, Wiley W. Manuel

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The year 1969 produced little in the way of legislation affecting administrative law, and the cases reviewing administrative action noted here are not necessarily included because they indicate anything new, but because they indicate someone did not understand what is old. The decisions of the Department of Motor Vehicles, in particular, have been the subject of most of the litigation during the past year. These cases present most clearly the struggle of the courts to evolve some unifying principles in the application of the law to the driver who drinks. Not all the cases are in harmony, but trends seem …

Community Property And Family Law: The Family Law Act Of 1969, Aidan R. Gough

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The year 1969 marked the decade's principal accomplishment in family law, the passage of the Family Law Act. The last several years have seen a sharply rising discontent with our traditional procedures for handling the dissolution of marriages, and numerous reform proposals have been advanced both in this country and abroad.

The Family Law Act brings some of these proposals to fruition; it marks the first legislative eradication of marital fault as the governing principle of divorce in any American jurisdiction. Because the passage of the new law virtually eclipses the past year's decisional developments in family law and community …

Workmen's Compensation, Jack E. Goshkin

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The reviewing Courts in 1969, enjoyed an open season in reviewing Workmen's Compensation Appeals Board factual determinations, much in the manner reported in last year's article. The comments made by the legislature (and some members of the State Supreme Court) on the courts' hunting without a license have been to no avail.

The legislature, for all practical purposes, was inactive in the field of workmen's compensation. There were important developments in case law, but some of the cases that may well work important changes in the field of workmen's compensation law are presently in various stages of appeal.

Constitutional Law, James E. Leahy

Cal Law Trends and Developments

This was a year in which the reviewing courts in California were confronted with contemporary problems of constitutional law.

Corporations, Harry C. Sigman

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The major 1969 corporate law developments of particular interest to the California practitioner were: (1) California appellate decisions which, at least by implication, greatly broaden the scope of a controlling shareholder's duty to minority shareholders; (2) amendments to the California Corporations Code; and (3) amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law.

Evidence, Joseph B. Harvey

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The principal developments and trends to be noted in the law of evidence appeared this year in appellate Court decisions. The legislative changes were few. Only one legislative change seems likely to be of any significance and will be felt primarily by drivers accused of being under the influence of intoxicating liquor. For lawyers, the notable developments appear in the case law; it is likely that the courts will remain the primary arena for the development of the law of evidence for some time to come.

Remedies, Kenneth H. York

Cal Law Trends and Developments

Remedial problems are best dealt with in the context of substantive law situations. However, the disparate characteristics of restitution, equitable remedies, and damages necessitate some generalized preliminary comment. We regret that the points raised in the California cases during a one-year period do not form a tidy or cohesive pattern or adapt themselves to a symmetrical outline.

Civil Procedure, Jack H. Friedenthal

Cal Law Trends and Developments

One of the more important recent developments in California procedural law is the enactment of an entirely new set of provisions dealing with personal jurisdiction and service of process. The new procedure is effective July 1, 1970, and will alter substantially a number of current practices.

Foreward, J. Lani Bader

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Judicial Dilemmas In Enforcement Of Drug Abuse Laws, Alvin H. Goldstein Jr.

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Table Of Cases

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Procedure, Rex A. Collings Jr.

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Contracts, Robert G. Meiners

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

Labor Relations, Joseph R. Grodin

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.

State And Local Taxes, James E. Sabine, Ernest P. Goodman

Cal Law Trends and Developments

The year 1968 may have been more significant for constitutional changes that did not occur than for those that did. Proposition 9, the so-called "Watson Amendment," would have imposed severe limitations on the property tax as a source of revenue. According to its opponents, this measure, which was defeated, would have resulted in a drastic restriction on the borrowing power of the state and its political subdivisions, and would have required an extensive shift to other taxes if the present level of expenditure were to be maintained. But Proposition I-A, affording a moderate amount of property tax relief was adopted …

Insurance, Robert A. Seligson

Cal Law Trends and Developments

Possibly the most important decision in the insurance field in 1968 involved not the rights and obligations of an insurance carrier per se but rather those of an attorney selected by the carrier to protect and defend its insured. In Lysick v. Walcom, the appellate court held that an attorney who is employed by an insurance company to defend an action arising out of an accident involving an insured represents both the insured and the insurer and owes to both a high duty of care imposed both by statute and the rules governing professional conduct.

Trusts And Estates, Joseph S. Brock

Cal Law Trends and Developments

During the period covered by this review little in the way of trends or departures differing from established positions seems to have appeared; there is much repetition and emphasis of "black-letter law." There are, however, in several cases unusual factual patterns which are of interest. The results of these cases, interesting and of course contributing to the normal growth of case law, seem to flow naturally and quite easily from principles long-established and accepted, not departing from what could be expected. There were several statutory changes, prominent among which were the Revised Uniform Principal and Income Act, effective July 1, …

Real Property, Herbert I. Lazerow

Cal Law Trends and Developments

During the year, the California courts made the acquisition of property, either by adverse possession or possession as a result of the owner's abandonment, more difficult. While the courts did not change the rules of law they insisted on their pristine application. This demonstrates an understandable tendency, in an urbanizing society, toward restricting the transfer of title by possession alone to non-owners.

Torts, Frederick J. Moreau

Cal Law Trends and Developments

No abstract provided.