California

  • July 17, 2026

    Taylor Farms, Taco Bell Sued Over Cyclospora Outbreak

    Taylor Farms and Taco Bell are facing proposed class litigation in California, Michigan and Ohio federal courts after public health officials linked contaminated lettuce that was supplied to Taco Bell to a parasitic outbreak that's sickened more than 1,600 people in several states.

  • July 17, 2026

    FDIC Says Excessive Risk Dooms SVB's $1.7B Claim

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. argued during closing arguments in a trial in California federal court that Silicon Valley Bank's 2023 failure was due to excessive financial risk and mismanagement, while SVB countered that its losses were sparked by an "unprecedented" bank run.

  • July 17, 2026

    Netflix Wants Judge To Reject DivX's New Patent Trial Bid

    Netflix is urging a California federal judge not to grant compression technology company DivX a new trial over anti-copying and image-quality patents for streaming video after a jury cleared Netflix in March.

  • July 17, 2026

    Real Estate Recap: Office-To-Resi Woes, Prefab Housing Wins

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including attorney reactions to the structural issues at the old Pfizer building in New York, a Big Law partner's view of manufactured housing in light of the new federal housing law, and new tactics in data center development as certain states clamp down.

  • July 17, 2026

    Calif. Air District Can Be Sued Under Clean Air Act, Judge Says

    A federal judge ruled Friday that the Clean Air Act allows a coalition of environmental groups to sue an agency that controls air pollution in the San Joaquin Valley even though it is a government regulator.

  • July 17, 2026

    Spokeo Reaches $10M Settlement In Right Of Publicity Row

    Spokeo has reached a $10 million preliminary settlement with a group of plaintiffs from nine states alleging their right to publicity was violated by the company through teaser profiles that used their private information to help sell subscriptions to the platform, according to a motion filed in California federal court.

  • July 17, 2026

    Judge Says OMB Can't Change Grant Terms After Award

    A Massachusetts federal judge said Friday the Trump administration cannot rely on a shift in policy to retroactively change the terms of already awarded grants in order to justify canceling them.

  • July 17, 2026

    Amazon Seeks To Escape Pay, Promotion Bias Suit

    Amazon urged a Washington federal court to toss a proposed class action alleging it paid women less than male colleagues and limited their career opportunities, arguing the lawsuit is short on details and many of the claims belong in New York or California rather than the Evergreen State.

  • July 17, 2026

    Meta Avoids Workers' Bid To Block Allegedly AI-Tainted Cuts

    A California federal judge Friday denied a group of current and former Meta employees' bid to swiftly block the company from disturbing the benefits of certain employees it allegedly selected for termination using artificial intelligence, but requested more information on how Meta selected four employees on company-sponsored employment visas.

  • July 17, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Won't Review Reversal In $18M Penile Implant Case

    The full Federal Circuit said Friday that it won't review a panel decision that mostly undid a California federal jury verdict that awarded $18.3 million to International Medical Devices Inc. in a trade secret case about penile implants.

  • July 17, 2026

    Disabled Patron Sues Calif. Cannabis Shop, Landlord

    A Los Angeles County shopping center and a cannabis dispensary within it have been sued in state court over claims that the property's parking lot, pathways and entrance have obstacles that make it difficult and even dangerous for the plaintiff, who has physical disabilities, to shop there.

  • July 17, 2026

    Judge Open To TRO Blocking Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal

    A California federal judge appeared open Friday to granting a group of states' bid for a temporary restraining order blocking Paramount Skydance's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying it appears the tie-up's anticipated market share presumptively violates the Clayton Act under U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

  • July 17, 2026

    9th Circ. Rekindles Idaho Logging Review Dispute

    The Ninth Circuit revived a conservation group's suit against the U.S. Forest Service over an environmental review of an Idaho logging project, ruling that the group should have been allowed to raise an argument it had not raised during an earlier administrative process.

  • July 17, 2026

    States Ask To Join Fight Against DOD Wind Project Blockage

    Nearly 20 states have told an Oregon federal judge they want in on a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's decision to block land-based wind projects in the U.S. from moving forward.

  • July 17, 2026

    Conagra Can't Undo $25M Pam Spray Lung Disease Verdict

    A California state court judge denied a request Friday by Conagra Brands to reverse a jury's first-of-its-kind $25 million verdict finding it liable for causing a man's debilitating and rare lung disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans through his use of Pam butter-flavored cooking spray, but said it was a "close call."

  • July 17, 2026

    Calif. Judge Orders Feds To Improve ICE Facility Conditions

    A California federal judge has said the Trump administration must take steps to improve conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center East and West, finding a class of immigrant detainees likely to prevail in litigation claiming people have been subjected to inhumane and intolerable treatment.

  • July 17, 2026

    AGs Have 'Significant Concerns' With DOJ's Live Nation Deal

    A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general asked a New York federal judge Thursday for a peek into the negotiations behind the Justice Department's controversial midtrial settlement with Live Nation, voicing concerns the deal isn't in the public interest and saying they need details as they seek a breakup.

  • July 17, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Upholds PTAB Ax Of Treadmill Patent Claims

    The Federal Circuit on Friday backed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board finding that claims in a Woodway patent on its line of Curve treadmills were invalid, finding the company misinterpreted how the board analyzed key patent language.

  • July 17, 2026

    The Biggest Trade Secret Rulings Of 2026: A Midyear Report

    The Federal Circuit issued two of the year's most consequential trade secret rulings within days of each other, wiping out Insulet's victory in a wearable insulin patch pump case while reopening a software company's path to potentially larger damages in a dispute with Ford Motor Co. Here, Law360 highlights the biggest trade secret decisions so far this year.

  • July 17, 2026

    BakerHostetler Adds Reed Smith Debt Finance Atty In LA

    BakerHostetler announced it has hired a Reed Smith LLP partner with over a decade of legal experience in its Los Angeles office, saying he will advise borrowers and lenders on complex private equity, private credit and other financing transactions.

  • July 16, 2026

    Meta Gets 'Bricked' Device False Ad Suit Trimmed, For Now

    Meta Platforms Inc. can, again, trim a proposed class action alleging it deceptively sold Meta Portal video-calling devices the company later "bricked" by dropping software support, a California federal judge ruled Thursday, while refusing to toss an unfair competition claim and giving the consumers another chance to rework the complaint.

  • July 17, 2026

    How A 'Revolutionary' Charlotte Courtroom Advances Justice

    In the second of a two-part series on the Virginia Revival Courtroom in the Charlotte federal courthouse, judges, architects and a trial consultant explain the strategy behind designing a space they see as more conducive to justice.

  • July 17, 2026

    States Stepping Up Merger Work In First Half Of 2026

    Federal enforcers reached a number of merger settlements in the first half of 2026, while state attorneys general stepped up their independent enforcement efforts, taking on Nexstar's planned purchase of rival broadcaster Tegna and Paramount's deal for Warner Bros. Discovery.

  • July 17, 2026

    Top Gov't Contracting Decisions Of 2026: Midyear Report

    The U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts decided several consequential cases impacting contractors this year, including weighing whether contractors can immediately appeal district court denials of their immunity claims and clarifying what a successful protester needs to challenge an agency's decision to continue a contract during a bid protest.

  • July 16, 2026

    Quinn Emanuel To Rep OpenAI In Apple Trade Secrets Fight

    OpenAI has turned to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP to represent it in Apple's suit claiming that the artificial intelligence company worked with former Apple employees to misappropriate confidential information and speed up its consumer hardware business, according to the case docket.

Expert Analysis

  • Leveraging AI In MDL Discovery And Case Management

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    Generative and agentic artificial intelligence tools can help teams organize and digest the vast volume of documents inherent to multidistrict litigation, but workflows must be designed to maximize the tools' strengths and maintain human control of key operational and ethical factors, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • DOJ China Container Indictments Signal Global Cartel Risk

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement that it had indicted Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to drive up the price of shipping containers sold in the U.S. illustrates the Antitrust Division's interest in pursuing overseas cartel conduct, especially in China, signaling that multinational companies with employees abroad should strengthen antitrust compliance to avoid running afoul of U.S. national security policy, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • Perfectus Deal Raises Trade Missteps To Enterprise Risk Level

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    Former inspector general Parisa Salehi at Parker Poe discusses what the U.S. Department of Justice's recently settled False Claims Act case against Perfectus Aluminum can teach companies about satisfying trade reporting obligations as agencies increasingly coordinate enforcement.

  • NY Defamation Carveout Hinges On Causation, Not Labels

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    A New York federal court's decisions in two cases involving tortious interference claims, and the recent Second Circuit ruling in Satanic Temple v. Newsweek Digital, highlight that the dispositive question for alleged defamation is whether injury flows through reputation or through direct interference with a relationship, says attorney Andrea Natale.

  • Lessons For Cos. From Nixed Apple Watch Greenwashing Suit

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    A California federal court's recent decision in Dib v. Apple, a putative class action challenging carbon-neutral marketing statements made about the Apple Watch, provides meaningful guidance on how such claims may be defeated at the pleading stage, especially where they hinge on third-party verification, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • Series

    Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

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    Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings from cases involving allegations of internet data misuse, consumer fraud claims, immigration, insurance and First Amendment violation claims.

  • Takeaways From 1st Del. Ruling Applying Moelis Amendments

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    Delaware corporations should carefully review contractual arrangements and governance documents following the Court of Chancery's recent enforcement of a non-Delaware forum selection clause in a CEO's employment agreement under 2024 amendments to the state's General Corporation Law, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

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    An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

  • Opinion

    State Courts Must Be Gatekeepers Of Expert Testimony

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    Based on my experience in the state judiciary, emulating federal courts' role as gatekeepers of expert witness testimony would help state court judges maintain the appearance of impartiality and assist juries, thus enhancing the overall confidence people have in their justice system, says Lorie Gildea at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Weighing The Implications Of The Anthropic Export Directive

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    The Trump administration recently issued an export control directive against Anthropic to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, representing one of the first uses of the regime against a frontier large language model in widespread commercial distribution, says attorney Sohan Dasgupta.

  • Series

    Moshing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Entering a mosh pit is much like entering the practice of law — it is difficult, you have to know both the written and unwritten rules, and conduct yourself according to the expectations of each community, says Christopher Deubert at Constangy Brooks.

  • A Calif. Law May Aid Homeowner Recovery After LA Fires

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    Reconstruction bottlenecks following the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires mean that certain homeowners insurance gaps are only now emerging, and for counsel aiding policyholders in recovery, a regulation regarding insurers' replacement cost estimates may be critical to obtaining coverage, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Why Highly Specialized Experts May Risk Exclusion At Trial

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    Expert witnesses with highly specific areas of focus may be vulnerable to exclusion in court, making it important for attorneys to check how potential witnesses' qualifications can be bolstered by their publications and other professional activities, say Evan Weisberg and Christopher Cunio at Hunton, and Kevin Cahill at FTI Consulting.

  • A Midyear Look At Antiterrorism Act Jurisprudence And Policy

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    Plaintiffs have filed comparably fewer new actions under the Antiterrorism Act this year, though a handful of key decisions further defined the statute’s aiding-and-abetting standard and highlighted continuing risks for financial services companies, say attorneys at Skadden.

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