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Julius Janisse v. Martin Luther King, Jr. - Los Angeles (MLK-LA) Healthcare Corporation
Paid petition · Court of Appeal of California, Second Appellate District, No. B326593, B328707 · judgment September 3, 2025
Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.
Questions presented
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Whether a state appellate court may resolve a properly presented federal appearance-of-bias claim exclusively under state-law recusal doctrine without applying the governing Fourteenth Amendment standard articulated in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., 556 U.S. 868 (2009), and its progeny.
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Whether harmless-error doctrine may be used to affirm a judgment after a litigant has raised a federal structural-bias claim grounded in this Court’s precedent, where adjudicative neutrality is plausibly implicated. See Williams v. Pennsylvania, 579 U.S. 1 (2016).
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Whether the Fourteenth Amendment permits affirmance of a civil judgment where the jury’s special verdict simultaneously affirms and negates the same legally operative predicate of liability, thereby sustaining a judgment resting on irreconcilable findings.
Counsel of record
For petitioner
Twila White
Law Offices of Twila S. White
For respondent
Bradley S. Pauley
Horvitz & Levy LLP
Case
Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference
Proceedings
- Apr 20 2026Petition DENIED.
- Apr 01 2026DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 4/17/2026.
- Mar 25 2026Waiver of right of respondent Martin Luther King, Jr.—Los Angeles (MLK-LA) Healthcare Corporation to respond filed.
- Feb 23 2026Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due April 1, 2026)