California

  • March 11, 2025

    Netflix Gets 'Surviving R. Kelly' Libel Suit Tossed, For Now

    Netflix Inc. and Lifetime Entertainment Services won dismissal Tuesday of a defamation lawsuit alleging the latest iteration of their hit documentary series "Surviving R. Kelly" defamed a former assistant to the now-imprisoned R&B singer, although a Delaware federal judge gave the plaintiff another shot at pleading actual malice.

  • March 11, 2025

    Zillow Investors Urge 9th Circ. To Uphold Class Certification

    A class of Zillow Group Inc. investors told the Ninth Circuit to reject the property listing company's bid to overturn the class certification of their suit accusing the company of making misleading statements about its home-flipping program and causing stock prices to drop.

  • March 11, 2025

    Post Hit With False Ad Suit Over Rachael Ray Brand Pet Food

    Post sells celebrity chef Rachael Ray's Nutrish brand of pet foods that are falsely labeled as being "natural" with "no artificial preservatives" despite containing citric acid, which is derived from heavy chemical processing, according to a proposed class action filed in California federal court Monday.

  • March 11, 2025

    Dairy Farmers File Class Claims Over 'Defective' Auto-Milker

    Three farming technology companies were hit with proposed class claims in Pennsylvania state court by farmers alleging they deceptively marketed a defective automatic milking system that fell below performance standards, leading to the harm or death of cows in some cases.

  • March 11, 2025

    FTC Defends Southern Glazer's Pricing Case

    The Federal Trade Commission is defending its price discrimination case against alcohol distributor Southern Glazer's, telling a California federal judge Monday that the company's move to dismiss the suit "misapprehends applicable case law, ignores key allegations, and overstates the factual detail required of the pleading standard."

  • March 11, 2025

    Appeals Court Nixes Ex-UCLA Worker's Promotion Bias Suit

    A Persian worker who served as interim director of UCLA's continuing education center's marketing department failed to show the school violated the law when it hired someone else as the department's permanent leader, a California appeals court held.

  • March 11, 2025

    DOJ's RealPage Antitrust Case Gets New Judge

    The U.S. Department of Justice's price-fixing lawsuit against algorithmic real estate pricing company RealPage is getting a new judge due to a conflict.

  • March 11, 2025

    Seyfarth Employment Litigator Joins McGuireWoods In LA

    McGuireWoods LLP is strengthening its California labor and employment team, announcing Tuesday it is bringing in a Seyfarth Shaw LLP employment litigator as partner in its downtown Los Angeles office.

  • March 11, 2025

    California Entities Escape State Judge's Underpayment Suit

    A California state judge threw out some claims in a proposed class action from a judge who alleges she was underpaid the last several years, saying the state's retirement agency and its controller showed they didn't have much authority over judges' pay.

  • March 11, 2025

    Sullivan & Cromwell Hires Ex-FTC Deputy Director In Palo Alto

    Sullivan & Cromwell LLP announced Tuesday the hiring of a former deputy director of the Federal Trade Commission's Bureau of Competition as a partner in its Palo Alto, California, office.

  • March 11, 2025

    Ex-Google AI Counsel Joins King & Spalding In San Francisco

    King & Spalding LLP announced Tuesday that it has hired for its business litigation practice group a former Google in-house attorney who helped steer the tech giant's artificial intelligence regulatory strategy.

  • March 11, 2025

    Business Owner Denies Evading Taxes In Sports Betting Ring

    The owner of an insurance salvage company denied accusations in a California federal court that he evaded taxes in connection with a multimillion-dollar illegal sports betting ring, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • March 11, 2025

    1st Circ. Upholds Block On Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order

    The First Circuit on Tuesday refused to disturb a Massachusetts federal judge's ruling that blocked the Trump administration's move to end birthright citizenship, rejecting the government's claim that states suing over the policy lacked standing.

  • March 11, 2025

    Trump Admin Must Restore $250M In Teacher Grants For Now

    A federal judge in Massachusetts late Monday ordered the Trump administration to temporarily restore $250 million in funding for teacher training grants that it had slashed over their ties to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

  • March 10, 2025

    Epic, Apple Duel Over App-Store Injunction Compliance

    Epic Games urged a California federal judge to find that Apple violated her order blocking the tech giant from enacting App Store rules that prevent developers from steering users to alternative payment methods while Apple argued in its own filing that it complied as it "reasonably understood" the injunction.

  • March 10, 2025

    Menendez Brothers 'Shouldn't Get Out Of Jail,' LA DA Says

    Erik and Lyle Menendez should remain imprisoned for the 1989 murder of their parents "in cold blood," since they haven't admitted their self-defense claims were "phony," and the only possible "pathway" to freedom is if they "completely" accept responsibility for their crimes, Los Angeles County's new district attorney said Monday.

  • March 10, 2025

    Meta Can't Ditch Authors' Copyright Claim In AI Tool Fight

    A California federal judge has refused to throw out group of authors' claim that Meta Platforms Inc. violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act claim with its large language model product, ruling that they've adequately alleged that Meta intentionally removed copyright notice information to conceal infringement.

  • March 10, 2025

    Realtek's Antitrust Claims Against MediaTek Pared Back

    A California federal judge on Friday dismissed Realtek Semiconductor's claims that MediaTek and two other companies conspired to restrain trade through a series of sham patent suits, while keeping claims tied to two 2021 federal cases in Texas that he said Realtek plausibly alleged to be baseless.

  • March 10, 2025

    Alsup Refuses To Vacate Hearing Into OPM Mass Firings

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Monday denied the Trump administration's request to vacate an upcoming evidentiary hearing into the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's mass firings of probationary federal employees, and required OPM director Charles Ezell to appear in person or else be deposed.

  • March 10, 2025

    Starbucks Owes Up To $125M For Hot Water Burns, Jury Told

    Starbucks should pay as much as $125 million for permanent disfigurement to a takeout driver that "changed who he is as a person," a jury heard Monday, after finding last week that the coffee giant was to blame for the spill of scalding water.

  • March 10, 2025

    Calif. Pharma Exec Pleads Guilty To Insider Trading

    A California medical doctor has pled guilty to insider trading in the securities of biopharmaceutical company Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. while serving on Acadia's drug safety team, admitting to trading on confidential information that helped him avoid $1.3 million in losses.

  • March 10, 2025

    Latham-Led Physical Therapy Startup Hinge Health Files IPO

    Artificial intelligence-focused physical therapy startup Hinge Health Inc. on Monday filed plans for an initial public offering, represented by Latham & Watkins LLP and underwriters counsel Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, joining a growing number of IPO prospects.

  • March 10, 2025

    DOJ Wants In On Invisalign Monopoly Arguments At 9th Circ.

    The U.S. Department of Justice wants to be there when orthodontists and consumers who purchased clear teeth aligners face off with the company behind Invisalign at the Ninth Circuit next month, so it can tell the appellate judges where the lower court went wrong in killing their monopoly suits.

  • March 10, 2025

    Miley Cyrus Says 'Glee' Ruling Wilts 'Flowers' Copyright Suit

    An attorney for Miley Cyrus and co-writers of her hit "Flowers" urged a California federal judge Monday to toss a music investment company's complaint alleging they ripped off a Bruno Mars song, arguing that a Ninth Circuit ruling clearing the school that inspired the show "Glee" of infringement supports the move.

  • March 10, 2025

    Ex-NFL Player Gets 2½ Years For $5.3M Ponzi Scheme

    A former NFL linebacker was sentenced to two and a half years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to running a Ponzi scheme in which he bilked $5.3 million from investors who believed they were buying into luxury real estate and gold mines in Alaska and Ghana.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • How Cos. Can Use Data Clean Rooms To Address Privacy

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    Implementing comprehensive administrative controls, security processes and vendor management systems are vital steps for businesses leveraging data clean rooms for privacy compliance, especially given the Federal Trade Commission's warnings of complicated user privacy implications, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • SEC Motion Response Could Reveal New Crypto Approach

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    Cumberland DRW recently filed to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against it for the unlawful purchase and sale of digital asset securities, and the agency's response should unveil whether, and to what extent, the Trump administration will relax the federal government’s stance on digital asset regulation, say attorneys at O'Melveny.

  • What Calif. Bill Could Mean For Battery Energy Storage

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    A newly proposed bill in the California Legislature would place major restrictions on the development of battery energy storage system projects in the state — but with Gov. Gavin Newsom's strong support for clean energy technology, the legislation will likely face significant obstacles, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 3 Ways Trump Can Nix SEC's Climate Disclosure Rules

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    Given President Donald Trump's campaign statements and agency appointments, it's likely that his administration will try to annul the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rules, but his options for doing so present unique opportunities and challenges, with varying levels of permanence and impact, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • Zuckerberg's Remarks Pose Legal Risk For Meta Amid Layoffs

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    Within days of announcing that Meta Platforms will cut 5% of its lowest-performing employees, Mark Zuckerberg remarked that corporations are becoming "culturally neutered" and need to bring back "masculine energy," exposing the company to potential claims under California employment law, says Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law Center.

  • Perspectives

    DC Circ. Cellphone Ruling Upends Law Enforcement Protocol

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    The D.C. Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Brown decision, holding that forcibly requiring a defendant to unlock his cellphone with his fingerprint violated the Fifth Amendment, has significant implications for law enforcement, and may provide an opportunity for defense lawyers to suppress electronic evidence, says Sarah Sulkowski at Gelber & Santillo.

  • Reg Waiver Eases Calif. Rebuilding, But Proceed With Care

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order suspending some environmental review and permitting requirements for the reconstruction of homes and businesses damaged by recent wildfires may streamline rebuilding efforts, but will require careful navigation of the evolving regulatory landscape, says Gregory Berlin at Alston & Bird.

  • The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.

  • AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

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    Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

  • A View Of The Shifting Insurance Regulatory Landscape

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland explore how the Federal Insurance Office's climate report, the new presidential administration and the California wildfires might affect the insurance regulatory landscape.

  • When Innovation Overwhelms The Rule Of Law

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    In an era where technology is rapidly evolving and artificial intelligence is seemingly everywhere, it’s worth asking if the law — both substantive precedent and procedural rules — can keep up with the light speed of innovation, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Engaging With Feds On Threats To Executives, Employees

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    In an increasingly polarized environment, where companies face serious concerns about how to protect executives and employees, counsel should consider working with federal law enforcement soon after the discovery of threats or harassment, says Jordan Estes at Gibson Dunn.

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