Jean-Paul Cart

Cart is one of the University of California’s go-to attorneys for commercial litigation. He also represents the regents in matters unique to public entities, such as public-records disputes, some constitutional questions and even equitable treatment of men’s and women’s sports teams.

But he says most of his UC cases are little different from those he handles for other clients, such as breach of contract or insurance litigation.

Early this May, Cart worked out a favorable settlement to what had begun as a putative class action accusing UCLA of improperly recording certain phone calls made to its health service. After he successfully demurred on a tricky question of which phone-recording statutes applied, “we convinced them to walk away from the class portions of the case,” he said. Kharrazi v. The Regents of the University of California, 18STCV02119 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Oct. 22, 2018).

Previously, he won a demurrer, and an appeal affirming it, from a potential class action alleging the university had not paid properly for certain supplemental disability benefits. Yalley v. Liberty Life Assurance Company of Boston, A154076 (Cal. App. 1st Dist., filed June 28, 2019).

A newer appellate victory dealt with a question unique to education: terminating a tenured professor. “He was dismissed based on findings that he had basically refused to teach,” Cart said. Akella v. The Regents of the University of California, 21 DJDAR 2243 (Cal. App. 6th Dist., March 11, 2021).

In addition to his University of California litigation, Cart represents businesses in advertising and trademark matters. He counsels some clients on trademark issues, and he has handled litigation before the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, he said.

He blocked class certification a few years ago in an unusual false-advertising “slack-fill” case that accused a company of selling a product in overly large packaging, tricking consumers into believing they were purchasing more of the product than they were. “It was a pretty important case, one of the first of its kind denying class certification in that type of case,” he said.

Cart won in part because of what he described as “the most fun deposition in my life.” Toward the end of the seven-hour deposition, the lead plaintiff made statements that were inconsistent with statements he had made earlier in the day. Taken together, those inconsistencies indicated the man had individual issues that meant he lacked standing to serve as the class representative. Spacone v. Sanford LP, 2:17-cv-02419 (C.D. Cal., filed March 28, 2017).

“It was a very interesting case,” he said.

— Don DeBenedictis