California

  • February 07, 2025

    SF, Other Sanctuary Cities To Sue Trump Over Threats

    A nationwide coalition of sanctuary jurisdictions led by San Francisco plans to file a lawsuit Friday challenging the constitutionality of the Trump administration's threats to defund these localities and prosecute officials.

  • February 07, 2025

    Oakland Appeals To Keep 'San Francisco Bay' In Airport Name

    The Port of Oakland has asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse a magistrate judge's order barring it from using "San Francisco Bay" in its airport name, arguing that the court's decision placed too much weight on travelers' potential confusion about who owns the airport when buying a flight.

  • February 06, 2025

    Meta AI Used 'Astonishing' Load Of Pirated Works, Writers Say

    Meta Platforms allegedly downloaded tens of millions of pirated copyrighted works from peer-to-peer networks to train its Llama artificial intelligence product, and its employees repeatedly discussed this "illegal" strategy with lawyers, with one engineer writing, doing so "from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right," according to internal communications unsealed in copyright infringement litigation Wednesday.

  • February 06, 2025

    State AGs To Sue Over DOGE Access To Payment Systems

    Over a dozen state attorneys general are set to file suit challenging Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency staffers' access to people's sensitive personal information through government payment systems, New York Attorney General Letitia James' office announced Thursday.

  • February 06, 2025

    Block's Dorsey, Others Face Derivative Suit Over AML Woes

    Officers and directors of Square and Cash App parent company Block Inc. face a shareholder derivative complaint over alleged anti-money laundering compliance failures weeks after the company reached an $80 million settlement of related claims with state banking regulators.

  • February 06, 2025

    Credit Union's Arb. Pact Not Unconscionable, Court Says

    A California state appeals court has reversed a ruling finding an arbitration agreement contained in a credit union's employment contract to be unconscionable, saying the JAMS rules incorporated in the pact permit an arbitrator to allow for necessary third-party discovery.

  • February 06, 2025

    Courts Are Getting Alice Wrong, Google Foe Tells Justices

    A tech startup that lost an advertising technology patent case against Google is the latest party to tell the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its legal precedent covering patent eligibility.

  • February 06, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Premera Teen Treatment Coverage Case

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Thursday declined to renew a family's suit against Premera Blue Cross for refusing to cover extensive residential mental health treatment for a Washington teen, backing the insurer's determination that the treatment was not medically necessary.

  • February 06, 2025

    Kraken Co-Founder Accuses 'Elite' SF Condo Of Political Bias

    Crypto-exchange Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell sued the owner of a landmark condominium — dubbed "Susie's Building" — in California state court Wednesday, claiming the property's allegedly "elite" Democratic shareholders discriminated against him by blocking his efforts to buy a condo due to his conservative views and role in the crypto industry.

  • February 06, 2025

    Sony Blocked From Axing CBS Deals Amid Game Show Battle

    A California state judge has issued a temporary restraining order blocking Sony Pictures Television from terminating its distribution agreements for popular game shows "Jeopardy!" and "Wheel of Fortune" with CBS while the pair dukes it out in Los Angeles County Superior Court, according to a minute order.

  • February 06, 2025

    Buyers Want Kratom Cos. Addiction Suit To Go On

    Two California kratom manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to escape a lawsuit claiming they failed to warn about the "highly addictive" nature of their products, a proposed class of consumers argued, pointing to a podcast where a company executive suggested their products were more potent than morphine.

  • February 06, 2025

    TikTok Moderators Alleging Harm Face Uphill Cert. Battle

    A California federal judge suggested on Thursday there might be too many individualized issues to certify a class of thousands of current and former TikTok content moderators in a suit alleging the social media platform is responsible for mental health issues the workers developed after being exposed to graphic content.

  • February 06, 2025

    In Microchip Feud, Fed. Circ. Says PTAB Error Was 'Harmless'

    The Federal Circuit handed down a precedential decision Thursday finding that a claim construction error made by patent board judges was "harmless," declining to breathe new life into claims asserted against Microchip Technology.

  • February 06, 2025

    Judge Questions Firm's Candor In Apple, Amazon Docs Row

    A Washington federal judge said on Thursday there was "troubling shifting" around Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP's explanation of texts and emails with a client who disappeared from a proposed class action targeting Amazon and Apple, while also saying it might not matter because the firm found substitute plaintiffs.

  • February 06, 2025

    Sam Altman Calls Musk's Claim Of Ban On Rivals 'False'

    OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the key claim made in a preliminary injunction request from Elon Musk in their ongoing investment spat is false, saying in a new declaration that he never told OpenAI investors that they wouldn't be able to invest in the company if they also invested in Musk's xAI.

  • February 06, 2025

    Amazon Patent Suit Was Wrongly Sent To Calif., Tech Co. Says

    Software company VirtaMove Corp. has argued that its patent infringement lawsuit against Amazon and two affiliates was wrongly transferred from Texas to California, saying it dismissed the case against two of the three defendants before the court's order went out.

  • February 06, 2025

    Western Digital Seeks To Toss SPEX $553M Patent Verdict

    Western Digital asked a California federal judge Wednesday to throw out a jury's $316 million verdict that was later increased to $553 million, which held that the data storage company infringed a SPEX Technologies' patent related to hardware encryption technology, saying SPEX did not prove infringement.

  • February 06, 2025

    Papa John's Franchisee Fails To Pay All Wages, Worker Says

    A Papa John's franchise owner failed to properly pay workers minimum wage and overtime pay and did not provide workers with meal and rest periods, according to a lawsuit filed in California state court.

  • February 06, 2025

    Calif. Firm Settles Photographer's IP Claim Over Photo Use

    A New Mexico photographer told a California federal judge on Thursday that he was ending his copyright infringement suit against Santa Monica immigration law firm Wolfsdorf Rosenthal LLP over ownership of a photograph on the firm's website, as the two sides have reached a settlement.

  • February 06, 2025

    MLB Star Ohtani's Ex-Interpreter Gets 57 Months For $17M Theft

    A California federal judge on Thursday ordered Shohei Ohtani's former interpreter to serve 57 months in prison for stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar to pay off massive gambling debts, remarking that he found the defendant's claims regarding his financial stress "to be a bit misleading."

  • February 06, 2025

    Judges Balk At CFPB's Stay Bids In Capital One, SoLo Suits

    Two federal judges have turned down requests from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to suspend activity in ongoing enforcement lawsuits amid its acting director's litigation freeze, including in the agency's case against Capital One NA.

  • February 06, 2025

    House Committee Weighs Wildfire Strain On Calif. Insurers

    A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee met Thursday to discuss the recent California wildfires and how regulatory policy may aid future prevention of natural disasters, as experts emphasized that the fires only further exposed the state's ongoing insurance crisis.

  • February 06, 2025

    Nixon Peabody Adds Greenberg Glusker Cannabis Co-Chair

    Nixon Peabody LLP is boosting its West Coast litigation team, bringing in a former federal prosecutor, who was most recently the founder and co-chair of the cannabis practice at Greenberg Glusker LLP, as a partner in its Los Angeles office.

  • February 06, 2025

    Girardi's Mental Evaluation At NC Prison Extended By 15 Days

    A California federal judge Thursday ordered Tom Girardi's psychiatric evaluation at a North Carolina federal prison to be extended by 15 days, and she also lectured Girardi's public defender while saying she "could not have imagined" why it took 17 days to get his client's medical records sent to the facility.

  • February 06, 2025

    HP Defeats Ex-Worker's Suit Over 401(k) Forfeitures

    A California federal judge dismissed a proposed class action claiming HP Inc. should have used forfeited funds in its 401(k) plan to pay down administrative fees instead of its own contributions, stating the former worker behind the case hasn't shown the tech company did anything wrong.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    6 Changes I Would Make If I Ran A Law School

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    Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner identifies several key issues plaguing law schools and discusses potential solutions, such as opting out of the rankings game and mandating courses in basic writing skills.

  • Firms Still Have The Edge In Lateral Hiring, But Buyer Beware

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    Partner mobility data suggests that the third quarter of this year continued to be a buyer’s market, with the average candidate demanding less compensation for a larger book of business — but moving into the fourth quarter, firms should slow down their hiring process to minimize risks, say officers at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.

  • Reviewing 2024's State Consumer Privacy Law Enforcement

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    While we are still in the infancy of state consumer privacy laws, a review of enforcement activity this year suggests substantial overlaps in regulatory priorities across the most active states and gives insight into the likely paths of future enforcement, says Thomas Nolan at Quinn Emanuel.

  • What May Have Led Calif. Voters To Reject Min. Wage Hike

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    County-specific election results for California’s ballot measure that would have raised the state’s minimum wage to $18 show that last year's introduction of a $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers may have influenced voters’ narrow rejection of the measure, says Stephen Bronars​​​​​​​ at Edgeworth Economics.

  • AV Compliance Is Still A State-By-State Slog — For Now

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    While the incoming Trump administration has hinted at new federal regulations governing autonomous vehicles, for now, AV manufacturers must take a state-by-state approach to compliance with safety requirements — paying particular attention to states that require express authorization for AV operation, say attorneys at Frost Brown.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: 1 Type Of Case Complexity Stands Out

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    In contrast to some cases that appear complex due to voluminous evidence or esoteric subject matter, a different kind of complexity involves tangled legal and factual questions, each with a range of possible outcomes, which require a “sliding scale” approach instead of syllogistic reasoning, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Netflix Dispute May Alter 'Source' In TM Fair-Use Analysis

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    ​The Ninth Circuit’s upcoming decision in Hara v. Netflix​, about what it means to be source-identifying​, could change how the Rogers defense protects expressive works that utilize trademarks in a creative fashion, says Sara Gold at Gold IP.

  • Why State Captive Audience Laws Matter After NLRB Decision

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    As employers focus on complying with the National Labor Relations Board's new position that captive audience meetings violate federal labor law, they should also be careful not to overlook state captive audience laws that prohibit additional types of company meetings and communications, says Karla Grossenbacher at Seyfarth.

  • How Litigation, Supply Chains Buffeted Offshore Wind In 2024

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    U.S. offshore wind developers continue to face a range of challenges — including litigation brought by local communities and interest groups, ongoing supply chain issues, and a lack of interconnection and transmission infrastructure — in addition to uncertainty surrounding federal energy policy under the second Trump administration, say attorneys at Liskow & Lewis.

  • What Bisphenol S Prop 65 Listing Will Mean For Industry

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    The imminent addition of bisphenol S — a chemical used in millions of products — to California's Proposition 65 list will have sweeping compliance and litigation implications for companies in the retail, food and beverage, paper, manufacturing and personal care product industries, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • The Malpractice Perils Of Elder Abuse Liability

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    Recent cases show that the circumstances under which an attorney may be sued for financial elder abuse remain unsettled, but practitioners can avoid these malpractice claims altogether by taking proactive steps, like documenting the process of evaluating a client's directives under appropriate standards, says Edward Donohue at Hinshaw & Culbertson.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Note 3 Simple Types Of Legal Complexity

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    Cases can appear complex for several reasons — due to the number of issues, the volume of factual and evidentiary sources, and the sophistication of those sources — but the same basic technique can help lawyers tame their arguments into a simple and persuasive message, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Permitting, Offtake Among Offshore Wind Challenges In 2024

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    Although federal offshore wind development started to pick up this year, many challenges to the industry became apparent as well — including slow federal permitting, the pitfalls of restarting permits after changes in project status, and the difficulties of negotiating economically viable offtake agreements, say attorneys at Liskow & Lewis.

  • Series

    Gardening Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Beyond its practical and therapeutic benefits, gardening has bolstered important attributes that also apply to my litigation practice, including persistence, patience, grit and authenticity, says Christopher Viceconte at Gibbons.

  • Nevada Justices Could Expand Scope Of Subrogation Claims

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    The Nevada Supreme Court's recent decision to hear North River Insurance v. James River Insurance could expand the scope of equitable subrogation claims in the state by aligning with the California standard, which doesn't require excess insurers to demonstrate damages, says Daniel Heidtke at Duane Morris.

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