California

  • February 28, 2025

    Software Engineer Faces Prison For Sharing Info With China

    A Southern California man has pled guilty to downloading sensitive technology from a former employer and using it to market his own competing business to a company in China, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • February 28, 2025

    NY Man Found Guilty Of $7M Crypto Investment Scheme

    A New York man has been found guilty by a California federal jury of 14 counts related to allegations that he stole millions of dollars' worth of investment funds and moved them to sports betting sites located outside the U.S.

  • February 28, 2025

    Online Test Proctor Sued Over Calif. Bar Exam Malfunctions

    ProctorU Inc., which does business as Meazure Learning, was hit with a nationwide class action in California federal court Thursday for its alleged failure to properly administer the state's February bar exam, despite mounting technical issues during the run-up to the test.

  • February 28, 2025

    DA Eyes Type Of Weinstein Evidence That Sank 1st Verdict

    Manhattan prosecutors preparing to retry Harvey Weinstein want a jury to hear about alleged sexual assaults by the jailed Hollywood mogul that are not part of his indictment — the same kind of testimony that doomed his original conviction on appeal.

  • February 28, 2025

    Audit Finds Calif. Bar Backlog Growing Amid Budget Crunch

    With more than one in three attorney discipline cases considered "backlogged" as of late 2023, the State Bar of California must do more to move cases forward while continuing belt-tightening to shore up finances after years of general fund deficits put it into a "strained financial position," the California State Auditor reports.

  • February 28, 2025

    Adobe Hit With Age Bias Claim By Former Sales Manager

    A former Adobe sales manager was sidelined and then fired after reporting a supervisor's comments on his age to human resources, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts state court.

  • February 28, 2025

    GOP Rep. Reintroduces The JUDGES Act

    The chair of the House Judiciary Committee's courts panel has reintroduced a bill to create 66 new and temporary federal judgeships, which former President Joe Biden vetoed at the end of last year.

  • February 28, 2025

    Goodwin, White & Case Build BridgeBio's $949M SPAC Deal

    Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, advised by Goodwin Procter LLP, on Friday announced plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Helix Acquisition Corp. II, advised by White & Case LLP, in a deal that gives the combined business an implied pro forma enterprise value of $949 million.

  • February 28, 2025

    Calif. Man To Admit $1.2M Stan Lee Merch Tax Fraud

    A California man has agreed to plead guilty to filing false tax returns related to $1.2 million in income he made from selling memorabilia signed by late Marvel Comics writer and publisher Stan Lee.

  • February 27, 2025

    Split 9th Circ. Won't Let ClassPass Arbitrate Auto-Renew Fight

    A split Ninth Circuit panel Thursday refused to send a proposed class action challenging ClassPass' subscription auto-renewal practices to arbitration, with the majority concluding that its online notices are too "muddled" while a dissenting judge slammed the majority's opinion for purportedly sowing "great uncertainty" in what constitutes a conspicuous notice.

  • February 27, 2025

    Ford's Electric Mustang Can Trap Occupants, Drivers Say

    The Ford Motor Co.'s electric Mustang's electronically latched doors could pose a significant danger and trap the car's occupants in the event of a battery failure or loss of power to the vehicle, according to a proposed class action filed Thursday in California federal court.

  • February 27, 2025

    Meta's Held-Back Docs In AI Suit Merit Discovery, Authors Say

    The California federal judge overseeing a proposed class action claiming Meta Platforms Inc. is using copyrighted material to train its large language model product said Thursday he will consider allowing the author plaintiffs more discovery in response to the tech giant's assertion that it had "inadvertently" held back up some 18,000 documents.

  • February 27, 2025

    States Say DOD Transgender Ban Puts Public Safety At Risk

    Twenty-one states on Wednesday threw their support behind transgender service members and human rights organizations challenging the Trump administration's executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military, arguing that it will harm their efforts to protect their communities.

  • February 27, 2025

    Apple Falsely Touted Watches As 'Carbon Neutral,' Buyers Say

    Apple Watch purchasers on Wednesday lodged a proposed class action in California federal court, claiming that the tech giant marketed various smartwatch products as "carbon neutral" despite Apple not actually providing "genuine, additional carbon reductions."

  • February 27, 2025

    PennyMac Can't Avoid Investors' Suit Over Post-Libor Rate

    A California federal judge has ruled PennyMac's mortgage investment arm must face a suit accusing it of using last year's discontinuation of Libor to unlawfully lock in a lower dividend for some of its preferred stock, saying the plaintiffs have adequately pled that the company violated the LIBOR Act when it issued dividends at a fixed rate.

  • February 27, 2025

    Safeway Peanut Butter Cookies Caused Death, Suit Says

    Albertsons and Safeway are facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of an elderly Washington woman who allegedly bought supermarket cookies mislabeled as oatmeal raisin that contained undeclared peanuts, which triggered a fatal allergic reaction.

  • February 27, 2025

    Food Startup Owes $575K In TM Fight With Jaden Smith's Co.

    A disagreement over how food startup Eat Just capitalized on the word "Just" in branding will cost it over half a million dollars after a California federal court decided its conduct went against the company's agreement with the Just Water brand started by celebrity Jaden Smith and his actor dad, Will Smith.

  • February 27, 2025

    SEC Says Meme Coins Are Not Securities

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff declared Thursday that so-called meme coins do not fall under the agency's jurisdiction and that purchasers of the coins should not expect to be protected by federal securities laws.

  • February 27, 2025

    Artist Immediately Knew 'Moana' Was A Ripoff, Jury Hears

    An artist testified in California federal court Thursday that he was "shocked" upon taking his stepson to see "Moana" in a movie theater in 2016, saying he was certain the first time he saw the blockbuster film that The Walt Disney Co. had copied his own animated work.

  • February 27, 2025

    Alsup Halts 'Illegal' Firings Of Probationary Federal Workers

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday temporarily blocked the mass firings of probationary federal employees ordered by President Donald Trump's administration, determining that the Office of Personnel Management illegally directed government agencies to terminate the probationary employees without authority to do so from Congress.

  • February 27, 2025

    9th Circ. Partially Upholds Ruling In Ariz. Voting Rights Row

    A Ninth Circuit panel upheld a lower court's ruling that certain provisions of two Republican-backed Arizona voting laws requiring residents to provide proof of citizenship to vote by mail and in presidential elections violated federal law, saying several of the measures are examples of voter suppression.

  • February 27, 2025

    Judge Urges $15.5M Tax Judgment Against Ex-NFL Champ

    A federal magistrate judge recommended a default judgment against four-time Super Bowl champion Bill Romanowski and his wife for $15.5 million in taxes, saying in a report Thursday that the couple failed to respond to the underlying government complaint against them.

  • February 27, 2025

    Trump Admin Asks 1st Circ. To Let It Enforce Birthright Ban

    President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday asked the First Circuit to let it begin enforcing its executive order restricting birthright citizenship while it appeals a Massachusetts federal judge's preliminary injunction.

  • February 27, 2025

    Calif. Data Broker Gets 3-Year Ban For Not Registering

    The California Privacy Protection Agency has notched another settlement in its investigative enforcement of data broker registration compliance, announcing Thursday it had secured a deal that requires a company touting its ability to unearth "scary" amounts of consumer information to cease operations for the next three years.

  • February 27, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Upholds Netflix PTAB Win Over Chip Patent

    Netflix persuaded the Federal Circuit to sign off Thursday on another one of the streaming company's wins at the patent board in its fight with a Broadcom subsidiary over chip technology.

Expert Analysis

  • The Fashion Industry Should Prep Now For State PFAS Bans

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    New York and California have each passed legislation regulating PFAS in apparel and other textiles, so retailers should consult with manufacturers and suppliers and obtain the requisite certification documents as soon as possible to avoid disruptions in supply chains, say attorneys at Venable.

  • Rank-And-File DOJ Attorneys Will Keep Calm And Carry On

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    Career prosecutors at the U.S. Department of Justice often pride themselves on their ability to remain apolitical in order to ensure consistency and keep the department’s mission afloat, and the incoming Trump administration is unlikely to upend this tradition, says Michael Landman at Bird Marella.

  • Expect More State Scrutiny Of PE In Healthcare M&A

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    While a California bill that called for increased antitrust scrutiny of many healthcare private equity transactions was recently vetoed by the governor, state legislatures are likely to continue introducing similar laws, particularly if the Trump administration eases federal enforcement, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • California Supreme Court's Year In Review

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    Attorneys at Horvitz & Levy highlight notable decisions on major questions from the California Supreme Court's last term, including voter initiatives, hostile work environment and the economic loss rule.

  • DC Circ. Decision Opens Door To NEPA Regulation Litigation

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    A recent D.C. Circuit decision in Marin Audubon Society v. Federal Aviation Administration could open the door to more litigation over the White House Council on Environmental Quality's National Environmental Policy Act regulations, and could affect how many agencies conduct and interpret environmental assessments, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Calif. Ruling May Shield Public Employers From Labor Claims

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    In Stone v. Alameda Health System, the California Supreme Court recently exempted a county hospital from state-mandated rest breaks and the Private Attorneys General Act, granting government employers a robust new bulwark against other labor statutes by undermining an established doctrine for determining if a law applies to public entities, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • Service Providers Must Mitigate 'Secondary Target' Risks

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    A lawsuit recently filed in an Illinois federal court against marketing agency Publicis over its work for opioid manufacturers highlights an uptick in litigation against professional service providers hired by clients that engaged in alleged misconduct — so potential targets of such suits should be sure to conduct proper risk analysis and mitigation, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • Series

    Flying Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Achieving my childhood dream of flying airplanes made me a better lawyer — and a better person — because it taught me I can conquer difficult goals when I leave my comfort zone, focus on the demands of the moment and commit to honing my skills, says Ivy Cadle at Baker Donelson.

  • 9th Circ.'s High Bar May Limit Keyword Confusion TM Claims

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    A recent Ninth Circuit ruling that a law firm did not infringe upon a competitor’s trademarks by paying Google to promote its website when users searched for the rival’s name signals that plaintiffs likely can no longer win infringement suits by claiming competitive keyword advertising confuses internet-savvy consumers, say attorneys at Mitchell Silberberg.

  • Post-Election Implications For The EPA's Methane Rules

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    Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's recent denial of requests to halt implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's methane rule in two suits, and given the outcome of the election, a complete reversal of the methane rule is expected, but state-level policymaking and enforcement will continue, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.

  • Nvidia Supreme Court Case May Not Make Big Splash

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    The skeptical tenor of the justices' questioning at oral argument in Nvidia v. Ohman Fonder suggests that the case is unlikely to alter the motion to dismiss pleading standard in securities class actions, as some had feared, say attorneys at WilmerHale.

  • Defense Insights As PFAS Consumer Product Claims Rise

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    Amid the recent proliferation of lawsuits seeking damages for failure to disclose the presence of PFAS in consumer products, manufacturers, distributors and consumer product companies should follow the science and consider a significant flaw in many of the filings, say attorneys at Farella Braun.

  • Series

    Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Performing circus arts has strengthened my ability to be more thoughtful, confident and grounded, all of which has enhanced my legal practice and allowed me to serve clients in a more meaningful way, says Bailey McGowan at Stinson.

  • How D&O Coverage Can Aid Against Increased AI Scrutiny

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    The recent increase in regulatory enforcement and securities class actions stemming from corporate use of artificial intelligence should prompt companies to ensure that their directors and officers liability insurance coverage is appropriately tailored to AI-related risks, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights

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    A federal court's finding that "MetaBirkin" nonfungible tokens infringed on Hermes' iconic Birkin bag imagery is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and the order will have a lasting effect on how courts balance trademark rights and the First Amendment, say attorneys at Venable.

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