23 results for 'judge:"Hull"'.
J. Hull holds that an appeals board properly overturned an adminstrative court's denial of workers' compensation benefits for injuries a worker suffered in a traffic collision while off duty. His work at a temporary, remote firefighting camp made him a commercial traveler, exempt from the going and coming rule. He was traveling to find cell service during off hours, which was an activity for comfort or leisure that was incident to his employment. The employer contemplated workers would leave the camp in their personal vehicles and was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of being employed away from home.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: May 10, 2024, Case #: C098711, Categories: Workers' Compensation
J. Hull finds that the district court properly sentenced defendant to 96 months in prison following his guilty plea to possession of a firearm by a felon. The district court correctly calculated the base offense level in determining the advisory guidelines range for defendant's sentence. Defendant's two prior Georgia convictions for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon qualified as crimes of violence under the enumerated offenses clause of the statute. Defendant's argument that the Georgia offense is broader than the generic offense of aggravated assault is foreclosed by the earlier 11th Circuit panel ruling in United States v. Morales-Alonso. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: April 30, 2024, Case #: 23-10280, Categories: Firearms, Sentencing
J. Hull finds that the district court properly sentenced defendant to 840 months in prison following his guilty plea to using a minor to produce child pornography and distributing and possessing child pornography. The district court correctly applied a sentencing enhancement based on images and video defendant created of the same victim, his four-year-old daughter, at around the same time. The videos showed separate instances of sexual abuse and were recorded over two days. The district court also did not commit any error in viewing defendant's active-duty military status as an aggravating rather than mitigating factor for sentencing purposes. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: April 9, 2024, Case #: 22-11153, Categories: Sentencing, Child Pornography
J. Hull finds the trial court properly sustained Governor Newsom's demurrer to defendant's petition seeking to compel the processing of his applications for clemency or commutation. Defendant does not have a due process right that would require that the applications are processed in a particular time frame. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: April 8, 2024, Case #: C096274, Categories: Sex Offender, Due Process
J. Hull finds that the district court properly dismissed the insured's class action breach of contract claim premised on the theory that the insurer had a duty to periodically reassess its cost of insurance rates but did not do so during the class period. The claim arose out of a dispute over a life insurance policy. However, the district court improperly dismissed the breach of contract claim premised on an alternative theory that the insurer chose to reassess its rate scale during the class period and violated the policy by ignoring its expectations as to future mortality experience and failing to base the insured's rates on those improving expectations. Reversed in part.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: March 1, 2024, Case #: 22-12991, Categories: Insurance, Contract
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J. Hull finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the employer in a disability discrimination action brought by the former employee alleging that the employer violated the ADA by firing her to avoid paying healthcare costs associated with her multiple sclerosis and severe migraines. The employee failed to show that the employer's non-discriminatory reasons for firing her after her job became automated were pretextual. The district court correctly awarded $1,000 in discovery sanctions in the employer's favor. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: February 16, 2024, Case #: 22-12045, Categories: Ada / Rehabilitation Act, Sanctions, Employment Discrimination
J. Hull finds that the trial court properly consolidated three cases against defendant that each included the possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell. Uncharged act drug and firearm evidence found during a search was within the trial court's discretion to admit. However, it was error to impose more than one enhancement for an offense defendant committed while on bail. Reversed in part.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: January 22, 2024, Case #: C096740, Categories: Drug Offender, Sentencing, Bail
J. Hull finds that the trial court erroneously held that decedent's roommate who received free room and board was not a care custodian under probate law. Free room and board constitute remuneration in exchange for the care of a dependent adult. So, the statutory presumption that a donative transfer to a care custodian is the product of fraud or undue influence applies to the changes decedent made to her trust, will and grant deed that passed all of her property to the roommate. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: December 26, 2023, Case #: C097301, Categories: Wills / Probate
J. Hull finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the insurer in a declaratory judgment action arising after the insurer denied a damages claim for two residential homes destroyed by a wildfire while under construction. The district court also ruled in favor of the insurer on the insured’s breach of contract counterclaim. The district court correctly found that the policy did not cover the construction of the homes because they were not related to the insured’s underground utility work or site development work. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: December 20, 2023, Case #: 22-13547, Categories: Insurance, Contract
J. Hull finds the trial court improperly dismissed the unlawful gun possession charges on constitutional grounds. Though defendants had standing to raise the defense by demurrer, the cited case that establishes laws requiring "good cause" to carry weapons are unconstitutional does not render California’s entire gun licensing scheme unconstitutional. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull , Filed On: November 20, 2023, Case #: C097326, Categories: Constitution, Firearms
J. Hull certifies two questions to the Florida Supreme Court related to Florida’s Motor Vehicle Repair Act in a RICO, fraud and declaratory judgment action brought by the insurer against the windshield repair shop arising from the shop's alleged violations of the Act. The insurer claimed the shop was not entitled to payment for completed windshield repairs because it subcontracted repair work without insureds' knowledge or consent and failed to give insureds written repair estimates, invoices or odometer readings on work orders. The district court ruled in favor of the shop. The questions certified to the Florida Supreme Court ask whether the statute grants an insurer a cause of action when a repair shop does not provide a written repair estimate and whether the violations alleged in the case void a repair invoice for completed repairs.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: November 7, 2023, Case #: 23-11056, Categories: Insurance
J. Hull finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the city in a civil rights action brought by the artist and curators alleging that their First Amendment rights were violated when the city removed an artwork from a city-funded exhibit. The artwork was a painting of Raymond Herisse, a Haitian American man who was fatally shot by Miami police officers in 2011. The district court correctly found that the removal constituted government speech immune from First Amendment scrutiny. The city contracted to commission the artwork, provided the exhibition space, and owned the artwork under the agreements with the artist and curators. The city's decision to display or not display the artwork was "classic" government speech. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: October 27, 2023, Case #: 22-12863, Categories: Civil Rights, First Amendment
J. Hull finds that the district court properly denied defendant's motion to dismiss his indictment for charges related to possession of child porn. Defendant later entered a conditional guilty plea. Defendant was arrested in March 2020 but was not formally indicted by a grand jury until December 2020 due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The five pandemic-related continuances were not an abuse of discretion and were within the ends-of-justice exception to the Speedy Trial Act. Administrative orders did not preclude magistrate judges from granting ends-of-justice continuances due to difficulties presented by the pandemic. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: October 10, 2023, Case #: 22-11731, Categories: Speedy Trial, Child Pornography
J. Hull finds the trial court properly entered summary judgment in favor of the school district in this personal injury suit brought by the volunteer worker who was injured in a fall off the school’s auditorium stage during a spelling bee. A governing resolution converts the volunteer’s status to that of an employee under the Workers Compensation Act, rendering workers’ compensation the volunteer’s sole and exclusive remedy. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: October 5, 2023, Case #: C092691, Categories: Tort, Negligence, Workers' Compensation
J. Hull holds that the trial court properly treated a couple's separate and community assets that were commingled after separation as community property. The husband, who sought to claim some commingled assets as separate property, failed to meet his burden since his aggregate analysis method of tracing the commingled assets was not sufficiently detailed. Also, the trial court was not required to make findings about the value of the community property at separation. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: September 26, 2023, Case #: C095193, Categories: Family Law
J. Hull finds that the district court properly ruled in favor of the consulting firm in an action against the former employee for misappropriating trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. There is sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that the firm owned the trade secret documents at issue. The pages in two documents are all stamped with the firm's logo. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: July 27, 2023, Case #: 22-11516, Categories: Trade Secrets
[Consolidated.] J. Hull finds that defendant was properly convicted of sex trafficking charges. There was “ample” evidence supporting his coercion conviction and defendant has not shown that any error in the government’s amended notice of its expert testimony prejudiced him on that conviction. Affirmed.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Hull, Filed On: July 13, 2023, Case #: 22-10164, Categories: Evidence, Sex Offender
[Modified.] J. Hull modifies a short-term rental opinion and denies a petition for rehearing with no change in judgment. The trial court, which rejected a challenge to a city measure that prohibits short-term rentals in parts of South Lake Tahoe, properly found that property owners did not have vested property rights in short-term rental permits. However, resident property owners sufficiently pleaded that the measure facially discriminates against interstate commerce, so the trial court must determine if the city can show that a carve-out that allows residents to rent out their homes for 30 days per year cannot be adequately satisfied by nondiscriminatory alternatives. Reversed in part.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: July 12, 2023, Case #: C093603, Categories: Municipal Law, Zoning, Housing
J. Hull finds that the trial court properly sustained a homeowners' association's demurrer to a complaint seeking to stop a subdivision from becoming subject to the Davis-Stirling Act, to cancel a recorded declaration of CC&Rs and to enjoin association from adding real property as a common area for which it would impose assessments. The attempt to cancel the instrument was time-barred by a four-year statute of limitations that began to run in 1995, when it was recorded and when allegedly fraudulent signatures could have been discovered. And the business judgment rule protects the association's acquisition of the additional real property. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: June 23, 2023, Case #: C095490, Categories: Real Estate
J. Hull finds that the trial court, which rejected a challenge to a city measure that prohibits short-term rentals in parts of South Lake Tahoe, properly found that property owners did not have vested property rights in short-term rental permits. However, resident property owners sufficiently pleaded that the measure facially discriminates against interstate commerce, so the trial court must determine if the city can show that a carve-out that allows residents to rent out their homes for 30 days per year cannot be adequately satisfied by nondiscriminatory alternatives. Reversed in part.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: June 20, 2023, Case #: C093603, Categories: Municipal Law, Zoning, Housing
J. Hull finds that the trial court failed to make record findings that defendants had previously been convicted of serious felonies under the three-strikes law before sentencing them for an attack on a fellow inmate. On remand, the trial court may either hold a new hearing on the required elements of the law, or correct the record if the omission was a clerical error. Vacated.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: June 14, 2023, Case #: C094195, Categories: Sentencing, Assault
J. Hull finds the trial court properly denied the petitioner’s request for a writ of mandate seeking a manual recount of ballots that had been early “machine read,” by jurisdictions “having the necessary computer capability,” which the petitioner claims violate election code prohibiting accessing and releasing a vote count prior to the day of an election. Election code allows counties to begin scanning ballots on the 10th business day before the election. This is not a process of tabulation. The petitioner has failed to demonstrate any law violation. Other claims lack merit. Affirmed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: May 26, 2023, Case #: C093916, Categories: Administrative Law, Elections, Technology
J. Hull finds the trial court improperly disapproved certain disbursements made by the trustee of a special needs trust, surcharging the trustee. The trust instrument defines “special needs” as including more than those reasonably related to the beneficiary’s disability. This definition is consistent with the interpretation of the relevant statute and the Social Security Administration’s treatment of special needs trusts, and so the trial court abused its discretion by defining “special needs” more narrowly than allowed under the instrument and special needs trust law. Reversed and remanded.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Hull, Filed On: May 24, 2023, Case #: C093796, Categories: Civil Rights, Health Care, Trusts