Hon. Elaine Rushing (Ret.) served on the Sonoma County Superior Court bench for nearly two decades, including five years as Supervising Judge of the Civil Division. She was the first woman appointed as judge on the Sonoma County Superior Court in 1992. As a Judge, she heard major personal injury cases; real estate cases including real estate fraud, broker compensation, adverse possession, partition, boundary disputes, homeowners association disputes; CEQA litigation; business disputes including trademark infringement and trade secrets; trusts and estates litigation; agribusiness cases; and construction defect litigation. In addition, on the bench, Judge Rushing handled hundreds of settlement conferences in a variety of civil cases, including business litigation, construction, personal injury, employment, real estate, family law, and trusts, estates and probate matters.
Judge Rushing is known for being able to quickly grasp complex facts, for being well prepared, and for listening carefully to both sides to quickly synthesize the facts to achieve a fair resolution. She excels at bringing divergent points of view to a workable solution, as evidenced by her leadership in consolidating the Sonoma County Superior and Municipal courts while Presiding Judge of the Superior Court in 1994 and 1995.
Judge Rushing has served extensively as a faculty member for the Continuing Judicial Studies Program and has taught Probate to Judges New to the Assignment Program numerous times.
ADR Experience and Qualifications
- In 2005, Judge Rushing spearheaded the popular Superior Court-annexed Mediation Program, in which over 700 cases have been successfully mediated
- The ADR Section of the Sonoma County Bar Association presented Judge Rushing a Certificate of Recognition for her long and strong support of ADR in the Superior Court
- On the bench, Judge Rushing handled hundreds of settlement conferences for various civil cases, including business, construction, employment and real estate matters
Representative Matters
- Agribusiness
- Handled a breach of contract case for two major wineries against their distributor and its owner involving allegations of failure to provide service
- Business/Commercial
- Settled a case between the FDIC and numerous former officers, directors and investors of a company, with allegations of breach of fiduciary duty, conspiracy, and RICO violations
- Handled a case involving a dispute between a construction company and several commercial lenders
- Settled California lawsuit and similar case in Texas brought by California industrial equipment rental company which had delivered numerous generators to Texas company experiencing power outage. The cases had generated tens of thousands of dollars of attorneys fees in both states which made settlement very difficult
- Mediated commercial future rent case involving 5-year lease of professional office space
- Construction
- Resolved a multi-million dollar large construction defect case involving allegations of defects in a 228-room time-share resort consisting of nine three-story buildings, and settled follow up cases between contractors and subcontractors
- Employment
- Handled numerous wrongful termination and discrimination employment matters, some with millions of dollars in damages claims
- Mediated wrongful termination case alleging sex and race discrimination, hostile work environment, retaliation, and Labor Code section 1120.5 whistleblower protection
- Mediated 16-plaintiff, 3-county wage and hour dispute against major child care corporation in which plaintiff on-site managers alleged they were wrongfully classified as exempt, depriving them of millions of dollars of overtime pay
- Estates/Probate/Trusts
- Handled a sensitive and complicated matter between a local winery owner and his daughter involving various actions regarding the daughter’s tenancy on 160 acres of winery and her allegations of fraud against her father. The case involved the IRS, complex trust law and accounting issues
- Mediated conservatorship case involving an elderly conservatee, in which petitioner (one of the conservatee’s children) alleged that the institutional conservator had permitted the conservatee’s estate to suffer a severe decline of hundreds of thousands of dollars; excessive billing practices; poor investment decisions benefitting the conservator; and interfering with the conservatee’s ability to spend cherished time with his children
- Handled a bitterly contested trust petition in which there was a claim of a contract to make identical reciprocal wills, and allegations that the contract was breached
- Settled trust dispute involving an amendment to a trust that was patently ambiguous which had been altered over time to gift items to different family members. Involved complex relationships, emotions, as well as missing items that threatened the ability of parties to reach an agreement
- Mediated bitterly-contested trust dispute involving siblings' varying interpretations of their mother's intentions concerning distribution of her multi-million dollar trust assets to them
- Family Law
- Mediated palimony case in which plaintiff allegedly quit her job, sold her house and moved across the country based on defendant’s promises to support her for the rest of her life, employ her, include her in his will, and set aside $150,000 for her in a separate bank account. Defendant filed a cross complaint alleging elder abuse
- Settled contentious case between formerly married couple regarding ex-wife’s promise to share inheritance with ex-husband in return for yearly payments prior to receiving inheritance
- Handled the second phase of a complicated divorce matter concerning the valuation of the parties’ numerous assets, reimbursement claims by one party for separate property contributions in the form of money and labor to community property, and community reimbursement claims for the value of post-separation use of community property
- Personal Injuries/Torts
- Mediated and arbitrated numerous motor vehicle accident cases, some involving numerous plaintiffs and cross-complaints
- Real Estate
- Mediated a mortgage fraud case resulting in a new 40-year-term below market rate home loan
- Mediated major trespass/property damage case involving a 100,000 pound hydraulic telescoping crane that smashed through the roof of a family’s residence during a tree removal
- Resolved a real property dispute after a lengthy trial; case involved three separate owners of the property; resolution involved determining what portion of the property they each owned and determining ouster damages
- Mediated an intra-family boundary dispute involving all boundaries of a 107-acre rural parcel, mainly having to do with the doctrine of agreed boundaries
- Resolved case regarding default on a real estate loan and subsequent foreclosure on property
- Settled a case involving former real estate co-owners suing each other for specific performance, breach of contract, promissory estoppels, unjust enrichment, and quiet title
- Mediated an extremely acrimonious declaratory relief controversy which initially began as a dispute between two neighbors involving the use and overuse of a small hillside parking spaced between their properties, and involved complex insurance issues as well
- Mediated long-term residential tenancy case involving claims of breach of the covenant of habitability consisting of severe mold growth, flooding and rodent infestation
- Mediated 9-year residential tenant's claims of uninhabitable conditions, retaliatory eviction, and unlawful retention of security deposit