Due process prevails. A common mistake is pleading damages (other than as limited in Family/PI/wrongful death cases) according to proof without providing the defendant with a number of possible damages. The result is a default but no money to the plaintiff. The law states a default judgment cannot exceed the type and amount of relief sought in plaintiff’s operative pleading. (Code Civ. Proc., § 580, subd. (a).) A similar problem occurs in an accounting action seeking damages related to the valuation of a business without stating what the damages may be. Now, the courts clearly require a clear statement of what the total amount of the judgment could be. E.g. $1,000,000 or according to proof even on an accounting cause of action.
The courts have now held that if you only allege a certain dollar amount of damages, (e.g. 50% of a million dollar home) then that is what you are limited to. If you only say 50% of the value of the business without stating what is the approximate value of the business, that may be a problem for the plaintiff on default. This applies even if you allege in excess of $25,000 or according to proof, you cannot obtain relief greater than $25,000. The Court of Appeal held: “We hold that actions alleging an accounting claim or otherwise involving the valuation of assets are not excused from limitations on default judgments and, in so doing, add our voice to the growing chorus of cases so holding. We also hold that the amounts of damages awarded and demanded are to be compared on an aggregate basis.” (Sass v. Cohen (Cal. App. 2nd Dist., Div. 2, Mar. 7, 2019) 32 Cal.App.5th 1032.) Note, this case is a Marvin v. Marvin (1976) 18 Cal.3d 660, 674-675, 684 type of case. The Plaintiff in this case was the woman the [married] man imported from London to be his life time lover and business partner. Just after meeting the woman the defendant asked her to move to California, seven years later he dumped her.
The Sass v. Cohen case does a nice job analyzing the issue. I am also pleased it mentioned this cite in a footnote: “In such instances, the default is less of an affirmative “tactical” choice not to participate in the lawsuit in the first place (Stein v. York (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 320, 325) and more of a sanction for making bad “tactical” choices in how to litigate a case in which the defendant initially decided to participate.”
The Court held that a broker must disclose that the seller’s neighbor told him he planned to remodel and his remodeled house would overlook the seller’s pool and interfere with the view. This case case also found expert broker testimony is not always necessary to find breach of a broker’s duty care. The Court stated that a layman (the jury) can also decide if a fact requires disclosure. This will save at least $5,000 in expert witness fees!
January 1, 2017, Civil Code § 1938 was expanded to require:
The trial court research attorneys s are now happier! No longer can an amended pleading be filed the morning before the demurrer hearing! As of 2018, amended Code of Civil Procedure §472 now provides:
The moral fiber of our society continues to degrade. The following is an attorney ethics issue and as a reminder attorney’s are held to a higher standard.
A homeowner’s liability insurer does not have duty to defend a lawsuit after the insured intentionally pruned trees on another’s property without permission. The intentional act of hiring a contractor to prune is not an “accident” within the meaning of the policy’s coverage provision, even if the insured mistakenly believed the trees were on the boundary of her property. While the insured’s negligent supervision of the contractor, or tree damage resulting from a malfunction of the contractor’s equipment may have constituted an accident, neither the complaint nor evidence extrinsic to the complaint gave rise to liability on these grounds. The court refused to speculate about how unpled facts may affect liability or how the neighbor might amend his complaint. See Albert v. Mid-Century Ins. Co. (2015) 236 Cal.App.4th 1281
In California while recreational cannabis is all the rage after January 1, 2018, the California. Medical marijuana laws under California’s “Compassionate Use” Act still provide some benefits. Including:
Intimate Sexual Contact Alone Does Not Constitute Minimum Contacts. A California woman conceived a child in Connecticut but filed a paternity and child support suit in California against the father living in Connecticut. The trial court denied his man moved to quash service of summons based on lack of personal jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding the man’s knowledge that the mother resided in California and the foreseeability that unprotected sex may lead to birth of a child were insufficient to establish the requisite minimum contacts. The appellate court explained that jurisdiction must be based upon facts showing a “substantial connection” to California following Walden v. Fiore (2014) 571 U.S. 277, 289. (David L. v. Superior Court (Cal. App. 4th Dist., Div. 1, Nov. 26, 2018) 2018 Cal. App. LEXIS 1067.) The father seems to regularly travel to California on business trips, and he and the woman had sex on those trips including a prior pregnancy. However, the Court dismissed these as insufficient contacts for the paternity issue. For more salacious details, which may have influenced the Court, look here … 
In an article by Sanford Gage, who is a very good mediator, 9,000 California settlement decisions were analyzed over 41 years comparing rejected pretrial settlement offers and actual trial results. Sixty-one percent of the time, the plaintiffs obtained an award that was the same or worse than the result the plaintiff would have achieved by accepting the defendant’s pretrial settlement offer. The defendant decision error was only 24 percent, and where there was insurance, the error rate was only 21 percent.
In law school you are taught “if you are a defendant remove the case to the Federal Court”. University of Connecticut law professors Alexandra Lahav and Peter Siegelman studied 30 years of data from the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts supporting that directive. According to the law profs, the winning rate for plaintiffs in civil litigation in federal courts declined drastically and steadily between 1985 and 1995, from about 70 percent to 30 percent.