Another Supreme Court argument of interest: Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney

On June 1, 2006, the day after the Mervyn's/Branick oral argument, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, case no. S124739. This case presents the following question:

Can a claim for violation of the Invasion of Privacy Act (Pen. Code, section 630 et seq.) or the Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code, section 17200 et seq.) be premised on the recording of a telephone call without the consent of all parties to the conversation (see Pen. Code, section 632) where the telephone call in question is between California and a state that requires the consent of only one party to the conversation and the call is recorded in the other state?

The Court of Appeal (First Appellate District, Division Two) approached the case from a conflicts-of-law standpoint, rather than a UCL standpoint. Kearney v. Salomon Smith Barney, Inc., 117 Cal.App.4th 446 (2004). My original posts on this decision are here, here, and here.

Comments

[Beth Ross]

Great summary Kimberley. I was there, and I think you got it exactly right.

I expect we will get a ruling holding that Prop 64 does apply to pending cases, accompanied by a ruling allowing those of us who got caught in the worlds between the old and new law to amend our complaints (if we can) to substitute plaintiffs with standing and to comply with CCP 382.

It was not my impression that any of the Justices -- apart from Kennard and perhaps George -- were disposed to the view that initiatives should be reviewed under a different standard than other legislative acts.

At the same time, it is hard to believe that any of them really believe that voter "intent" could actually be gleaned from the fictional presumption that voters "know the law" -- as opposed to what the voters are actually told in the ballot materials about the effect of an initiative. It will be very interesting to see what, if anything, the opinion(s) say about that!

Thanks again.