California

  • May 14, 2026

    Squires Walks Back 5 More IPR Grants Over Inconsistent Args

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has reversed earlier decisions granting five petitions for patent review, citing what he called the challengers' inconsistent positions in parallel proceedings and explaining that four petitions he denied in previous bulk orders were also rejected for the same reasons. 

  • May 14, 2026

    Google Says DOJ's Search Win Can't Help Yelp Suit

    Google urged a California federal judge on Wednesday not to let Yelp invoke the U.S. Department of Justice's D.C. search monopoly win in the local search provider's own antitrust case, arguing that the two lawsuits look at the interconnection between local and general search through fundamentally different lenses.

  • May 14, 2026

    Newsom's Budget Change Targets Credits, SaaS, LLC Tax

    California would make permanent its business tax credit limit, apply the sales tax to digital prewritten software and cut in half the $800 minimum tax for limited liability companies under a revised budget announced Thursday by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

  • May 14, 2026

    Farmworkers Lose Early Bid To Halt DOL H-2A Wage Rule

    A California federal judge declined Thursday to block a U.S. Department of Labor regulation reducing wages for H-2A seasonal farmworkers, ruling that United Farm Workers failed to show there is an immediate injury that warrants court intervention now.

  • May 14, 2026

    Ex-Newsom Aide Cops To Campaign Fund Theft, False Taxes

    A former chief of staff to California Gov. Gavin Newsom pled guilty in federal court in Sacramento for her part in a scheme to divert some $225,000 from a dormant political campaign to a former Biden administration official's chief of staff, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Calif. Cannabis Distributor Gets $1.35M In Delivery Row

    Cannabis company Magnolia Extracts LLC must pay a distributor $1.35 million for delivered products, a California state court judge has ruled, saying the retailer waived any opportunity to claim the products were defective after accepting the shipment and then reselling it.

  • May 14, 2026

    Honda Buyers Say 440K Odysseys Have Faulty Side Airbags

    Honda hid safety defects for years in its 2018-2022 Odyssey minivans where side airbag systems would suddenly deploy when traveling on flat roads, slowing down to a stop or going over a speed bump, according to a proposed class action filed in California federal court.

  • May 14, 2026

    Insider Trading Case Shows BigLaw Associate Vetting Gaps

    A BigLaw attorney who was able to move through three major firms while allegedly orchestrating a massive insider trading scheme may have been aided by relatively loose hiring practices for associates that firms may consider strengthening moving forward, recruiting experts told Law360.

  • May 14, 2026

    Fortive, Subsidiary Seek Early Win In Wrongful Firing Suit

    Technology company Fortive and a medical equipment subsidiary asked a Colorado federal judge for an early win in a former regional sales director's lawsuit alleging she was fired for raising concerns about compliance with anti-kickback rules, contending the subsidiary terminated her due to a restructuring and that Fortive wasn't her employer.

  • May 14, 2026

    OpenAI Seeks To Overturn Injunction In 'IO' TM Fight

    OpenAI is urging a California federal judge to overturn a preliminary injunction barring the company from using "IO" as a trademark for AI hardware, arguing it has abandoned all federal applications for the mark and has no plans to use it.

  • May 14, 2026

    Carbon Health Strikes $12M Creditor Deal In Ch. 11

    Urgent care facility operator Carbon Health Technologies has reached a $12 million settlement with its official committee of unsecured creditors, the debtor's counsel said Thursday.

  • May 14, 2026

    Squires Ends AMD Challenges At PTAB Over Sotera Issues

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has terminated reviews of three data processing patents challenged by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. after finding AMD violated a stipulation to limit its invalidity arguments in court.

  • May 14, 2026

    Pierson Ferdinand Cybersecurity Litigator Joins Clark Hill

    Clark Hill PLC announced Thursday that an experienced cybersecurity and privacy litigator has joined the firm's San Francisco office from Pierson Ferdinand as a partner.

  • May 14, 2026

    Volkswagen Hit With Class Claims Over EV Battery Fire Risk

    Volkswagen has been hit with a proposed class action in New Jersey federal court alleging that tens of thousands of its ID.4 electric vehicles contain defective high-voltage batteries that can spontaneously catch fire because of misaligned electrodes.

  • May 14, 2026

    Calif. Judge Admonished For Disparaging Pro Se Litigants

    A California state judge in Los Angeles has been publicly admonished for repeatedly "displaying poor demeanor" toward self-represented small claims litigants, including making disparaging remarks, interrupting litigants and walking out of the courtroom in the middle of proceedings.

  • May 13, 2026

    Rebel Wilson Can't Defeat Calif. Defamation Suit On Appeal

    California appellate justices upheld an order denying Rebel Wilson's bid to ax a defamation suit alleging she spread lies about producers of the movie "The Deb," and whom she accused of embezzlement and sexually harassing the lead actress, ruling Wednesday there's evidence to support Wilson knew her statements were likely untrue. 

  • May 13, 2026

    Tattooed Chef Investors Ink $4.75M Deal Over Growth Claims

    Tattooed Chef Inc. investors Wednesday asked a California federal judge to greenlight a $4.75 million settlement resolving claims that the plant-based meal-maker issued false statements about its revenue growth, causing investors to buy stock at inflated prices before it came crashing down when the truth came out.

  • May 13, 2026

    Toyota Foundation Accused Of 'Ugly Injustice' In IP Theft Suit

    A Toyota mobility systems foundation stole trade secrets from a small Zimbabwean social enterprise by inducing the enterprise to share its proprietary mobility solutions through a joint venture agreement before excluding the enterprise from a "Smart Village" program they collaborated on, the enterprise has alleged in California federal court.

  • May 13, 2026

    Microsoft Exec Backed OpenAI Deal Amid Concerns, Jury Told

    Microsoft's chief technology officer testified in a California federal jury trial Wednesday over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion, recalling that he proposed Microsoft invest significant resources into OpenAI's for-profit arm to stay competitive despite his initial concerns over whether OpenAI's nonprofit donors had agreed to the for-profit partnership.

  • May 13, 2026

    EPA Must Reconsider Flame Retardant Regs, 9th Circ. Says

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must revisit rulemaking on a flame retardant known as decaBDE, a Ninth Circuit panel said Wednesday, agreeing with a Native American tribe and environmental groups that the federal agency failed to adequately explain its past decisions declining to further regulate the chemical's disposal.

  • May 13, 2026

    Derailed BIC Razor Blade Deal Leads To $291M Award

    An investment company registered in Mauritius has asked a California federal court to enforce approximately $291 million in arbitral awards it won against the son of the founder of Super-Max Group, an international group of companies that manufactures razor blades.

  • May 13, 2026

    Judge Says LegalForce Must Pay $93K After Losing TM Suit

    A California federal judge on Wednesday ordered LegalForce RAPC Worldwide PC to pay nearly $93,000 in fees and costs to the company that operates LawFirms.com, finding the case to be exceptional because LegalForce alleged facts it knew were false and took steps to obscure other facts that showed its case was meritless.

  • May 13, 2026

    Entertainment Website 'Tester' Can Proceed With Tracking Suit

    A California federal judge has refused to toss a proposed class action accusing Anschutz Entertainment Group of illegally using tracking tools that transmitted website visitors' data to third parties, finding that two of the plaintiff's three wiretap and privacy claims could move forward and that her status as a website "tester" did not preclude her from pressing the suit.

  • May 13, 2026

    Army Contractor, Cable Co. Settle Missed-Delivery Suit

    A Texas federal judge agreed Wednesday to toss a lawsuit a U.S. Army contractor filed against a custom cable maker in California over undelivered cable sets after the companies reported that they had settled their dispute.

  • May 13, 2026

    'Powerful' Risk For Women Using Talc, UC Prof Tells Jury

    An epidemiology professor at the University of California, San Francisco testified Wednesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused deadly ovarian cancer in three women, saying there are multiple studies concluding the product increases the risk of the disease, including one finding a "very powerful" risk.

Expert Analysis

  • AI Recruiting Suit Shows Old Laws May Implicate New Tools

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    The Fair Credit Reporting Act allegations recently filed in Kistler v. Eightfold AI, are the latest example of broad definitional language in legacy statutes proving far more dangerous to companies deploying artificial intelligence – particularly in hiring – than any purpose-built artificial intelligence regulation, say attorneys at Ogletree.

  • What Voluntary Calif. Carbon Reports Show About Compliance

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    While the enforcement of California's S.B. 261 is currently paused due to a Ninth Circuit injunction, more than 130 companies have nonetheless chosen to voluntarily publish climate-related financial risk disclosures, providing a useful snapshot of how the market is interpreting the law's requirements in practice, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Pivotal 6th Circ. Ruling Threatens Decades Of NLRB Decisions

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    The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Brown-Forman v. National Labor Relations Board fundamentally challenged the NLRB's long-standing practice of establishing policies through adjudication rather than formal rulemaking, giving employers and unions a new avenue to procedurally attack the vast majority of its rules, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

  • Why MDLs Slow Down — And How To Speed Them Up

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    Multidistrict litigation has become central to mass tort practice, but as MDLs grow in size and complexity, so do delays and costs — so tools like the new federal rule governing MDLs, targeted use of special masters and strategically deployed Lone Pine orders are more essential than ever, say attorneys at Ice Miller.

  • What A Court Doc Audit Reveals About Erroneous Filings

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    My audit of 1,522 court documents from last month found that over 95% contained at least one verifiable error, with fewer than 1% showing clear indicators of artificial intelligence use — highlighting above all else that lawyers may want to focus most on strengthening their review processes, says Elliott Ash at ETH Zurich.

  • Opinion

    FTC Case Risks Redefining Price Discrimination

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    Federal Trade Commission v. Southern Glazer puts a spotlight on the blurry line between illegal price discrimination and ordinary competition, and could potentially set a precedent that puts nearly any manufacturer at risk of Robinson-Patman Act enforcement, says Jeremy Sandford at Econic Partners.

  • Parsing Rule 12(c) Motion Overuse In Securities Class Actions

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    Defendants in securities class actions have more frequently been filing motions for judgment on the pleadings following the denial of motions to dismiss, but courts have recently demonstrated an increasing willingness to reject these previously rare motions, finding them transparent attempts to relitigate already-decided issues, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

  • Preparing For New Calif. Pay Data Reporting Requirements

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    California's S.B. 464 overhauls the state's pay data reporting framework by requiring employers to use job categories that are based on the Standard Occupational Classification system, increasing both the potential visibility of pay disparities and the complexity of compliance, say attorneys at Kaufman Dolowich.

  • Pension Case Offers Entertainment Work Exception Insights

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    A recent Ninth Circuit decision clarified that any amount of entertainment work can satisfy the entertainment industry exception under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act, reinforcing that statutory language, rather than evolving business models, dictates withdrawal liability outcomes, say attorneys at Seyfarth.

  • Justices' Ruling Stresses Quick Action Against Absconders

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    Following the U.S. Supreme Court's recent holding in Rico v. U.S. that a supervised release term is not automatically extended when a defendant absconds, probation officers and prosecutors risk being unable to address later violations if they don't act promptly to secure warrants, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

  • How Cos. Can Navigate The Patchwork Of AI Safety Bills

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    In the first few months of 2026, state and federal lawmakers introduced hundreds of bills to address the perceived safety risks of artificial intelligence, so companies should assess whether existing or planned services could be scoped into AI safety legislation across jurisdictions, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.

  • Series

    Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1

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    As usual, California remained a hub for financial services activity in the first quarter of 2026, with key developments including the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation's eye on consumer issues, a bill targeting "pig butchering" schemes, and jam-packed courts, say attorneys at Joseph Cohen.

  • Series

    Ultramarathons Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Completing a 100-mile ultramarathon was tougher, more humbling and more rewarding than I ever imagined, and the experience highlighted how long-distance running has sharpened my ability to adapt to the evolving nature of antitrust law and strengthened my resolve to handle demanding, unforeseen challenges, says Dan Oakes at Axinn.

  • When AI Puffery Becomes Actionable Securities Fraud

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    Though courts usually hold that vague but optimistic corporate statements don’t constitute securities fraud, signs suggest that investors may give enough economic weight to references to artificial intelligence in public company disclosures that broad feel-good statements could cross into actionable misrepresentation, says Christine Polek at Keystone Strategy.

  • State FARA Laws Pose Unique Constitutional Challenges

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    Several states have recently enacted foreign agent registration and disclosure regimes that were modeled after the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but these state laws raise several constitutional questions, including concerns about preemption, speech and petition, and vagueness, says Alexandra Langton at Covington.

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