In January the California Supreme Court in Aryeh v. Canon Business Solutions, 55 Cal.4th 1185, ruled that equitable exceptions can be applied to the four-year statute of limitations under the state’s unfair competition law, Business & Professions Code §17200. The decision resurrected the plaintiff’s UCL claim, which lower courts had dismissed as time-barred. It also potentially opened the door to UCL claims in other cases asserting unfair acts that fall under common-law equitable exceptions that either delay accrual of claims or toll the statute of limitations. Most significantly, Aryeh may signal a new course for California antitrust jurisprudence in general, and UCL jurisprudence in particular, that could diverge from prior interpretations of analogous federal statutes.
Aryeh was brought by Jamshid Aryeh, the owner of a copy business, who had entered into a 60-month lease for Canon copy machines. The lease included monthly copy limits that Canon monitored during regularly scheduled service visits. Aryeh allegedly noticed that Canon employees ran test copies during these visits and counted them towards the monthly limit. According to the complaint, Canon made in excess of 5,000 test copies over the course of 17 months, allegedly causing Aryeh to exceed his monthly limit and incur excess copy charges and late fees. Aryeh sued Canon on a single claim of unfair and fraudulent business practices under the UCL.
