Joseph Bui regularly briefs complex and novel legal issues before California and federal appellate courts, including the California Supreme Court.
Joseph joined GMSR after clerking for three federal judges: Judge Amos L. Mazzant in the Eastern District of Texas, Chief Judge M. Casey Rodgers in the Northern District of Florida, and Magistrate Judge David L. Horan in the Northern District of Texas. As a judicial law clerk, Joseph worked on complex civil actions that implicated contract law, class certification, and subject matter jurisdiction, among other areas of law. He was also an associate at a major commercial law firm’s San Francisco office, where he advised health insurers and providers on newly enacted statutes such as the Affordable Care Act often based only on the text, the legislative history, and first principles.
Joseph graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, earning a Prosser Prize in Constitutional Law. He also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Asian American Law Journal and Executive Editor of the Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law. Prior to law school, Joseph penned columns for the Youth Vote ’08 Blog, which was jointly published by the Washington Post and CBS News. Joseph’s work has also been featured on a nationally televised CNN segment, and published by Law 360, Politico, the Daily Californian, Current College Click TV, MoneyMix, and UWIRE, among other outlets.
Niedermeier v. FCA US LLC (2024) 15 Cal.5th 792
California Supreme Court: Vehicle consumers are entitled to full statutory restitution under California’s lemon law—without offset
California Supreme Court: Vehicle consumers are entitled to full statutory restitution under California’s lemon law—without offset
The Court of Appeal below held that the statutory restitution remedy under California’s Lemon Law (the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act) did not include the amount the plaintiff recovered after trading in a defective vehicle. The Supreme Court disagreed and reversed, making new law. It held that “neither a trade-in credit nor sale proceeds reduce the statutory restitution remedy set forth in [Civil Code] section 1793.2, subdivision (d)(2) at least where, as here, a consumer has been forced to trade in or sell a defective vehicle due to the manufacturer’s failure to comply with the Act.”
Figueroa v. FCA US, LLC (2022) 84 Cal.App.5th 708
Created split in published authority on the availability of offsets in Song-Beverly cases before the Supreme Court weighs in on the same issue
Created split in published authority on the availability of offsets in Song-Beverly cases before the Supreme Court weighs in on the same issue
Agreeing with GMSR, the Court of Appeal created a split in authority in holding that manufacturers may not offset damages for amounts that plaintiffs are credited when they must sell or trade-in their defective car on the market after the manufacturer failed to promptly fix the car or promptly buy it back.
Baral v. Schnitt (Jan. 28, 2022, B298050) 2022 WL 263108
Confirmed that damages may not be speculative
Confirmed that damages may not be speculative
The Court of Appeal directed judgment be entered in GMSR’s client’s favor, reversing a $3.5 million damages award on the basis that the plaintiff’s damages theory was impermissibly speculative.
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