Business Law

September 2024 Cathryn S. GawneBLS Chair Dear Business Law Section Members and Friends, While most of California is currently enjoying a glorious summer, the BLS, our fellow Sections and the CLA are focusing on next year.  It’s not that we’re skipping over the second half of 2024 (that would mean missing the college football season!), but rather that we’re getting ready for a new CLA term that begins immediately after the conclusion of the CLA Annual Meeting on September 8,… Read more

On July 23, 2024, U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) and representatives Emilia Sykes (D-OH) and Lance Gooden (R-TX) introduced the Ending Corporate Bankruptcy Abuse Act (“ECBA”).  The purpose of the ECBA is an attempt to end the so-called “Texas Two-Step” that has been pervasive in recent years.  One such use of this process can be found in the Johnson & Johnson bankruptcy cases dealing with talc-related injury claims.  For those unfamiliar with it, the "Texas Two-Step"… Read more

The Business Law Section is pleased to announce that Neil J Wertlieb has been selected to receive the Business Law Section’s 2024 Roland E. Brandel Lifetime Achievement Award. Read more

Overview of key business contract terms through the lens of a health care management service organization, how these same terms appear in other business relationships, and the litigated outcomes arising from business disputes involving these terms. Read more

The Nonprofit Organizations Committee and the Corporations Committee of the Business Law Section of the California Lawyers Association are pleased to announce that, on July 18, 2024, Governor Newsom signed their sponsored bill, AB 2908 (Assemblymember Chen). It had previously passed the Assembly and Senate unanimously and without opposition. Read more

Finding that in a corporate bankruptcy case a person or entity can be held in civil contempt for an automatic stay violation when “there is no fair ground of doubt” that its conduct violated the stay, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that false and misleading advertising focused against the debtor by a competitor was not an exercise of control over estate property and therefore not a stay violation.  In re Windstream Holdings, Inc., 2024 WL 3195997 (2d Cir. June 24, 2024). Read more

In a case of first impression for the circuit, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (the Ninth Circuit) ruled that the two-year limitations period to sue to recover an erroneous refund starts on the date the refund check is cashed, not when it is received, reversing the district court.  United States of America v Page, ___ F. 4th ___, 2024 WL 3169963 (9th Cir. June 26, 2024).  Read more

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals (the Circuit Court) recently ruled that a debtor who suffered two different work-related injuries after he filed a chapter 13 case had standing to assert a claim against his employer based on the injury which occurred after he had completed payments under his plan, but was barred by the doctrine of judicial estoppel from asserting a claim based on the injury which happened before he completed his plan payments.  Hughes v. Wisconsin Central, Ltd., ___ F. 4th ___, 2024 WL 3154627 (8th Cir. June 25, 2024). Read more

June - July 2024 The following published decisions may be of interest to attorneys practicing insurance law: UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT An insurer with financial responsibility for claims has standing to assert objections to an insured’s bankruptcy plan. Truck Insurance Exchange v. Kaiser Gypsum Co., Inc., et al. (2024) 602 U.S. __; 144 S.Ct. 1414. Kaiser Gypsum filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sought to establish an asbestos bankruptcy trust to respond to its ongoing liability for asbestos claims.  Its… Read more

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (the Circuit Court) recently ruled that a probation before judgment qualifies as a conviction and that a sentence includes probation granted before judgment, such that restitution debt based on the probation is excepted from discharge under 11 U.S.C. § 1328(a)(3).  Feyijinmi v. Central Collection Unit, ___ F. 4th ___, 2024 WL 3209930 (4th Cir. June 28, 2024).  Read more