Unzueta v. Akopyan
Annotate this Case
Plaintiff appealed from a judgment entered in favor of Defendant, on Plaintiff’s action for medical malpractice after the trial court denied her motion under Batson v. Kentucky (1986) 476 U.S. 79 (Batson) and People v. Wheeler (1978) 22 Cal.3d 258 (Wheeler). At issue on appeal is whether under California law an attorney may properly strike a prospective juror based on the disability of the juror’s family member. Historically Batson/Wheeler motions have been analyzed, as the trial court did here, in terms of whether the justification for excusing a prospective juror is race-neutral. However, in 2015 the Legislature expanded the scope of cognizable groups protected under Batson/Wheeler by its enactment of Assembly Bill No. 87 (2015-2016 Reg. Sess.) Section 1 (Assembly Bill 87).
On appeal, Plaintiff argued that Defendant’s striking of the two prospective jurors based on the disabilities of their family members was itself based on protected characteristics. The Second Appellate District reversed the trial court's judgment. The court explained that there is no dispute that the justifications provided for excusing the two jurors were their association with disabled family members. Defendant’s attorney stated that because one of the juror’s children was disabled, Defendant’s attorney “felt that this particular juror may be too sympathetic to this particular plaintiff to make a reasonable decision on the evidence.” Accordingly, the Second Appellate District agreed with Plaintiff and reversed the trial court’s ruling and direct the trial court to vacate its order denying the Batson/Wheeler motion and to enter a new order granting the motion and setting the matter for a new trial.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.