Plaintiffs, a husband and a wife, sued defendants, a neighbor and two of his sons, alleging both contract and tort claims. In part, plaintiffs sought recovery for the emotional distress they suffered when the neighbor injured their dog. The Superior Court of Orange County (California) entered an amended judgment on jury verdicts that awarded the husband damages against all defendants and the wife damages against the neighbor. Defendants appealed.
The awards to plaintiffs included emotional distress damages resulting from the dog's injury. The court held that the evidence supported the verdicts on plaintiffs' claims alleging that the neighbor had breached a mutual restraint clause in the parties' prior settlement agreement by engaging in repeated acts of harassment. Regarding plaintiff husband's claim that the neighbor's sons assaulted him, the evidence fell short of that required for an assault. Because California law allowed a pet owner to recover for mental suffering caused by another's intentional act that injured or killed his or her animal, the emotional distress damages that plaintiffs recovered for trespass to personal property arising from the neighbor's act of intentionally striking their dog with a bat were proper. The jury's special verdicts that allowed recovery of emotional distress damages for the neighbor's injuring the dog under theories of negligence and trespass to personal property, plus potentially as part of the damages awarded for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, constituted duplicative damages for the same transactional event, thus violating the rule against double recovery.
The court modified the judgment by reducing the amount of damages awarded to plaintiffs. The parties were represented by their own California small business attorney.
Plaintiff employee challenged the decision of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County (California), which sustained defendant employer's demurrers to causes of action for tortious wrongful discharge, breach of an implied contract or of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, defamation, unpaid compensation, and prima facie tort.
After the trial court sustained defendant employer's demurrers, plaintiff employee appealed. The court affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court first held that the trial court erred because the existence of a contract between private parties cannot be established by judicial notice under Cal. Evid. Code § 452(h). Next, the court concluded that plaintiff properly pled causes of action for wrongful discharge because avoiding payment of amounts earned and retaliation for reporting violations of the overtime wage law were fundamental public policies. However, plaintiff did not state a claim for breach of an implied contract or an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing because he failed to allege sufficient to find an implied-in-fact agreement not to discharge him except for good cause. As for plaintiff's defamation claim, one of the statements made by defendant suggested a lack of honesty, integrity or competency on plaintiff's part and therefore stated a cause of action. And finally, plaintiff stated a cause of action for breach of contract even though he did not allege facts which would support a criminal charge of failure to pay wages due.
The court reversed in part and affirmed in part, remanding to the trial court and holding that plaintiff stated causes of action for wrongful discharge, defamation and unpaid compensation, but that the trial court properly sustained defendant's demurrer to plaintiff's causes of action for breach of an implied contract and prima facie tort.
