CALIFORNIA CASE SUMMARY UPDATE: January 2026 Real Property Case Summaries

January 2026

By: Monty A. McIntyre, Esq.

Monty A. McIntyre, Esq.
Helping Attorneys Get Excellent Results

Publisher: California Case Summaries™: Know More. Win More.
Mediator at ADR Services, Inc.: Business, employment, insurance, probate, real property and torts cases.
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California Case Summaries™:

California Case Summaries™: California attorneys can win more cases by always knowing the new published civil in their practice areas. California Case Summaries™ makes this easy with one-paragraph case summaries, organized by legal topic, of every new civil case published by California courts in monthly issues, quarterly issues, annual issues, or all three. Individual Attorney and Law Firm Unlimited (lets the firm send summaries to every lawyer) subscriptions are available. To subscribe, click here.

Here are the case summaries from last month:

CALIFORNIA COURTS OF APPEAL

Real Property

Berstein v. Sebring (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3628026: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment for plaintiff, following a bench trial, in plaintiff’s action for declaratory relief and a permanent injunction prohibiting defendant from paving a gravel/dirt roadway in an easement that defendant used for access to his property. Plaintiff sued defendant in an earlier action over the easement that was settled. In this action, after the bench trial the trial court found for plaintiff and enjoined defendant from paving the gravel/dirt portion of an ingress/egress road easement on plaintiff’s property. Earlier in this case the trial court denied defendant’s motion for judgment on the pleadings challenging the suit as improper claim-splitting and legally insufficient. The Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that plaintiff’s second action was not an improper splitting of causes of action and rejecting defendant’s contention that a “road” easement necessarily included, as a matter of law, the right to pave. The Court of Appeal concluded the scope of any secondary easement right to improve the surface is governed by reasonableness and the trial court properly found that paving was not reasonably necessary for safe and convenient travel. (C.A. 3rd, December 15, 2025.)

Cal. Apartment Assn. v. City of Pasadena (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3676957: The Court of Appeal reversed, in part, the trial court’s decision that had rejected most of plaintiffs’ challenges to defendant’s voter-adopted rent-control/just-cause initiative (Measure H), granting only limited relief on preemption grounds and otherwise allowing defendant to implement and enforce the new charter provisions. The Court of Appeal held Measure H was a permissible charter amendment (not an impermissible charter revision) and rejected the claimed state “property qualification” and federal equal protection defects in the Rental Housing Board’s tenant-seat requirements. However, the Court of Appeal concluded two Measure H provisions were preempted by state law—section 1806(b)(C)’s relocation-assistance requirement (preempted by the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act) and the additional nonpayment-of-rent notice/cure requirement under sections 1803(cc) and 1806(a)(1) (preempted by the Unlawful Detainer Act). The trial court was directed to enter a new judgment granting petitioners relief on their claims that state law preempts the relocation assistance requirement under section 1806(b)(C) and the notice requirement for evictions and other proceedings based on nonpayment of rent under sections 1803(cc) and 1806(a)(1), and denying all other previously denied relief. (C.A. 2nd, December 18, 2025.)

Salazar v. Majestic Realty Co. (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3484623: The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s order denying plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction in plaintiff’s action alleging that under the California Constitution’s liberty of speech provision he had a right to leaflet at private shopping centers proclaiming his view that “[m]en are not legally and financially responsible for supporting a child” born outside of marriage, and inviting the public to attend a meeting on the subject. The trial court denied plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, concluding he was unlikely to prevail because his deposition testimony purportedly limited his request to leafletting at store entrances (which was not protected under Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center (1979) 23 Cal.3d 899 (Pruneyard) and because his flyers were unprotected as unlicensed legal advice, even though the trial court also found a blanket ban on leafletting unconstitutional and the balance of harms favored him. The Court of Appeal disagreed and reversed, concluding that plaintiff had standing to mount a facial challenge, his deposition did not confine the claim to unprotected store-apron areas, his flyers did not constitute unlicensed legal advice, and defendants’ total ban on expressive activity and unfettered permitting requirement were unconstitutional under Pruneyard. The Court of Appeal directed the trial court to issue a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of those policies (while allowing reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions). (C.A. 2nd, December 4, 2025.)

Villa Zinfandel v. Bearman (2025) _ Cal.App.5th _ , 2025 WL 3485216: The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment for plaintiff. After consolidating a limited unlawful detainer action with an unlimited action by defendant challenging a statutory foreclosure of the real property, the trial court granted summary adjudication against defendant foreclosure challenger and, following trial on the unlawful detainer claim, entered judgment for plaintiff and awarded holdover damages of $340,000 (plus a daily rate), rejecting the argument that damages were capped at the limited-jurisdiction maximum of the unlawful detainer proceeding. The Court of Appeal affirmed, ruling that the recorded foreclosure notices and trustee’s deed were properly judicially noticed and admitted to establish the sale’s formal validity under Code of Civil Procedure section 1161a, and further holding that complete consolidation required the matter to proceed as a single unlimited action such that the limited-case damages cap did not apply, so the damages award was proper. (C.A. 1st, December 4, 2025.)

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