Moreno v. California State Teachers Retirement System (2020) 52 Cal.App.5th 547.

This was a case involving the State Teachers Retirement System law and particularly Education Code §22008 and the degree to which that section constitutes a statute of limitations on CalSTRS ability to “look back” after an employee has retired. The court finds that the date of retirement is not the operative date for the triggering of the statute of limitations which is instead to be the date when CalSTRS became actually aware (or on notice of) potential overpayments. Practically that meant that although the employee in this case had retired in 2008, and Education Code §22008 contains a three year statute of limitations, the statute of limitations didn’t begin to run until CalSTRS began an audit on the calculation of the employee’s retirement benefits in December 2014.

Alston v. Dawe (2020) 552 Cal.App.5th 706. This is a SLAPP case. The question presented to the Court was whether the plaintiff’s action for malicious prosecution met the requirement that the action was terminated in the plaintiff’s favor on the merits by a dismissal of the case based on collateral estoppel grounds. The court held that it was necessary to look behind the dismissal to determine the rationale of the collateral estoppel ruling. If in the earlier proceeding a party’s lack of culpability was argued, litigated and decided, then a favorable determination would work for the purpose of a later malicious prosecution claim. The matter was remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in that respect.

Related Attorney(s):
Gregory L. McCoy