Justice Gregory J. Weingart

LAist's guide to the LA and Orange County appellate retention races explains what Court of Appeal justices do and lists each candidate with a State Bar evaluation rating. It lists Gregory J. Weingart as an Associate Justice appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and rated "Exceptionally well qualified" by the State Bar (2022).

• State Bar evaluation rating for Gregory J. Weingart: Exceptionally well qualified (2022).
• Appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
• Retention votes are yes/no; justices serve 12-year terms, and new justices may first serve the remainder of a predecessor's term.
• Voters elect appellate justices by district, not division.

The Secretary of State's list of judicial ballot questions for the Nov. 3, 2026 election includes "Shall Associate Justice GREGORY J. WEINGART be elected to the office for the term provided by law?" under the Second District, Division One. This confirms the justice is on the ballot.

• Gregory J. Weingart appears as a yes/no retention question for Associate Justice, Second District, Division One.
• Second District voters: Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura counties.

The Secretary of State's official 2026 voter guide lists Gregory J. Weingart as an Associate Justice of the Second District, Division One, among the 18 Second District justices on the retention ballot. The page is a roster only; it links to court biographies and gives no qualifications or evaluations.

• Lists Gregory J. Weingart, Associate Justice, Division One, Second District.
• Second District sits in Los Angeles (Divisions 1-5, 7, 8) and Ventura (Division 6).

Census of Weingart's published opinions for Division One from October 2024 to October 2026: 18 authored majority opinions and no dissents or concurrences.

• Mix of civil, family, juvenile and criminal work: at least five criminal matters (four People v. cases and the Melson habeas petition).
• Civil topics include partnership litigation (Jogani), consumer law (Arterberry), insurance (Jacobson, Arzate), land use (Fix the City) and an employment-privilege dispute (Torrance).
• Two cases appear twice (Melson, Jacobson), apparently as a modified or reissued opinion.

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Rothschild, P.J., Bendix, J.). Affirmed an order compelling Torrance to give the Civil Rights Department its Fair Chance Act assessment files: by telling the Department it complied with the law, the City put the adequacy of its counsel-assisted assessments at issue and waived privilege.

• Applies the Wellpoint at-issue waiver doctrine; does not decide whether the documents were privileged in the first place.
• Agrees with the trial court that otherwise an employer could avoid the law by 'delegating that task wholesale to in-house counsel.'
• Rejects a document-by-document demand: the City bears the burden on privilege and drew no distinctions.
• On the City's claim it never put its assessments at issue: 'Both things cannot be true.'

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Bendix, Acting P.J., M. Kim, J.). Affirmed dismissal of a class action under California's 'Yelp law': a consumer may sue for civil penalties only when a seller threatens or seeks to enforce a non-disparagement clause, not merely for including one in website terms.

• Adopts the trial court's textual reading: only subdivision (a)(2) defines an act by a person that can be 'violated.'
• Contrasts statutes where the Legislature expressly penalized entering a void contract (Bus. & Prof. Code 16600.5).
• Legislative history used only to confirm the plain meaning.
• Notes the plaintiffs' reading could expose a small business to $25 million in penalties for fine print but only $5,000 for actually penalizing a review.

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Rothschild, P.J., Bendix, J.). On a second appeal, affirmed termination of a mother's parental rights after a remand for Indian Child Welfare Act inquiry, holding the agency's renewed inquiry of relatives adequate and formal tribal notice unnecessary.

• Sidesteps the split on forfeiture in repeat ICWA appeals: no error either way.
• Agency need contact only relatives 'reasonably available' and was 'not required to stalk them' after refusals.
• Mere suggestion of ancestry does not trigger notice; the court could find the mother's tribal-enrollment claim not credible after the Comanche Nation said she was not enrolled.
• Comments that this case shows incentives for delay after a conditional ICWA reversal, while the children 'waited for permanency.'

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Rothschild, P.J., Bendix, J.). Granted habeas corpus and vacated a Watts gang-shooting murder conviction: at the retrial the only two eyewitnesses gave false testimony about what they told police, the prosecutor failed to correct it and repeated it in closing, and defense counsel was unprepared to impeach them.

• Applies Napue and Glossip v. Oklahoma (2025): materiality is presumed, and the People must show beyond a reasonable doubt the false testimony could not have contributed to the verdict.
• Rejects forfeiture: Glossip puts the duty to correct false testimony on the prosecution, not defense counsel.
• Treats counsel's lack of preparation as part of materiality rather than a standalone Strickland ruling.
• Stresses that the first trial hung 9-3 on essentially the same evidence.

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Rothschild, P.J., Bendix, J.). Reversed both orders in dueling domestic-violence restraining-order requests: the trial court wrongly ignored the ex-boyfriend's indirect contact (demeaning social-media usernames, calls to the woman's mother), and mutual requests require a primary-aggressor analysis of both parties together.

• DVPA 'disturbing the peace' reaches conduct 'directly or indirectly,' including through electronic means and third parties.
• Civil-harassment standards do not govern DVPA requests, which are construed liberally.
• Vacates the order for R.M. even though substantial evidence supports it in isolation, so the court can apply section 6305.
• Directs the court to consider abuse during the relationship, not just after it ended.

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Rothschild, P.J., and Bendix, J., concurring) in the 23-year Jogani brothers' partnership litigation. It largely affirmed a roughly $6.85 billion judgment against Haresh Jogani and partnership entities. It held the trial court abused its discretion by admitting an undisclosed expert opinion that investments sold in 2008 would have grown to $1.98 billion, and ordered a remittitur or, if refused, a new trial on real estate damages and punitive damages.

• Rejects six of seven challenges, mostly on evidentiary rulings (discovery inferences, hearsay, translations, former joint counsel's testimony).
• Faults appellants' "stilted factual narrative" but declines to treat the appeal as forfeited.
• The expert's $1.98 billion S&P 500-based projection was not disclosed in his declaration or deposition, so defendants had no fair chance to respond.
• Removes the full lost-gain component rather than guessing a lesser amount, citing precedent that "we may not insert our own assessment for that of the jury."
• Reduced real estate economic damages, if accepted: Shashi $808,846,000; Rajesh $161,769,200; Chetan $105,149,980.

Long document: only the first 25,000 characters were summarized.

Opinion by Weingart, J. (Chaney and Bendix concurring). Affirmed denial of a motion to compel arbitration: a "browsewrap" link to terms of use at the bottom of an e-commerce site did not give a consumer inquiry notice, so no agreement to arbitrate was formed. The court declined to depart from Long and Nguyen and held the Federal Arbitration Act does not preempt California browsewrap law.

• Calls the seller's claim about consumer expectations "pure speculation" and places the burden on website designers, who can use clickwrap.
• Keeps the "reasonably prudent user" standard and declines to raise the duty of inquiry for supposedly sophisticated consumers.
• Preemption: California formation law applies to all contract terms, not only arbitration; cites a non-arbitration browsewrap case.
• Says the FAA makes arbitration agreements as enforceable as other contracts, "but not more so."

Opinion by Weingart, then a Superior Court judge sitting by assignment (Rothschild, P.J., and Chaney, J., concurring), with an April 2019 modification order. The published part held it was error to give a "kill zone" instruction in a gang shooting into a crowd because there was no evidence of a primary target or of intent to kill everyone in the zone. The unpublished part found the error harmless, affirmed the convictions, and remanded on sentencing. The header says the Supreme Court granted review.

• Kill-zone theory requires a primary target and specific intent to kill everyone around that target, "not some or most, but everyone."
• Respectfully disagrees with other appellate courts that allowed the instruction on a natural-and-probable-consequences basis, saying it substitutes implied malice for the required express malice.
• Notes a defendant who shoots into a crowd without a primary target can still be convicted of attempted murder without the instruction.
• Defendant-favorable on the legal rule; the error was held harmless, so the convictions stood.

Long document: only the first 25,000 characters were summarized.

Trade-press account of Jogani v. Jogani (Feb. 24, 2026): the Second District, Division One, largely upheld a $6.85 billion family partnership judgment but cut the undisclosed $1.98 billion expert projection through a conditional remittitur. It does not name the authoring justice.

• Recounts the 1995 oral real estate partnership and Haresh's later denial of it.
• Reports the court upheld the partnership finding and evidentiary rulings but found the S&P 500-based lost-gain opinion was not properly disclosed.
• Gives the reduced damages figures and the new-trial option.

Judicial Council release: the Commission on Judicial Appointments unanimously confirmed Weingart as Associate Justice, Second District, Division One, filling the vacancy left by the removal of Justice Jeffrey Johnson. It notes he served as a Justice Pro Tem in Division One in 2019-2020.

• LA Superior Court judge 2018-2019 and since 2020; Justice Pro Tem, Division One, 2019-2020.
• Munger Tolles partner 2004-2018; AUSA 1995-2004; J.D., Harvard.
• Confirmed by Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye, AG Bonta and Presiding Justice Gilbert.

Official court biography. Weingart, on Division One since 2022, was a federal prosecutor (1995-2004, chief of Major Frauds), a Munger Tolles & Olson partner for nearly 15 years in complex civil litigation, criminal defense and investigations, and an LA Superior Court judge (from 2017, mainly family law).

• Nominated by Gov. Newsom in October 2022; rated "exceptionally well qualified" by the JNE Commission; unanimously confirmed November 2022.
• Clerked for U.S. District Judge Wm. Matthew Byrne, Jr.
• Twice won the DOJ Director's Award; argued frequently in the Ninth Circuit.
• Superior Court work focused on family law and domestic-violence initiatives.
• Pomona College; Harvard Law School, magna cum laude.