Earlier this month, the California 4th District Court of Appeals encountered a bizarre situation in Coastline Corp. v. Famers & Merchs. Bank of Long Beach.

The September 21, 2012 unpublished decision wrestles with the "sham doctrine" in California, which loosely instructs the courts to ignore any supplemental pleadings that state facts that are inconsistent with previously stated facts. If, for example, a plaintiff files a lawsuit and claims that he saw an opposing driver paying attention at the wheel right before an accident, he couldn't later file a pleading saying he saw the same driver texting before the accident.