California

  • March 18, 2026

    BMG Launches Copyright Suit Against Anthropic

    Music publisher BMG has hit artificial intelligence startup Anthropic with a copyright infringement suit alleging it made unauthorized use of recordings to train its Claude AI models, adding to a heap of legacy media companies accusing AI firms of infringement.

  • March 18, 2026

    Nippon Permanently Ducks Consumers' US Steel Merger Suit

    A California federal judge has given Nippon Steel a permanent reprieve from consumers challenging its now-completed purchase of U.S. Steel Corp., concluding the lawsuit still hasn't made the connection from the merger's potential impacts on steel to the prices consumers spend buying steel-containing products and riding in steel-containing vehicles.

  • March 18, 2026

    FTC, Fitness Giant Xponential Strike $17M Franchise Rule Deal

    The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that the franchise group behind Club Pilates, Pure Barre and other boutique fitness brands agreed to pay $17 million to resolve claims that it previously misled franchisees about the costs, risks and other key details about operating one of its studios.

  • March 18, 2026

    Bobsledder Says Olympic Committee Hid Brain Injury Risk

    A former U.S. bobsled team member accused the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee of intentionally concealing the sport's brain injury risk, telling a California state court he wouldn't have taken part if he had known.

  • March 18, 2026

    DOJ Defends Labeling Anthropic A Security Risk

    The Trump administration told a California federal judge it lawfully labeled Anthropic PBC a supply chain risk to national security after the company tried to "strong-arm" the U.S. Department of Defense into usage restrictions for its artificial intelligence tools.

  • March 18, 2026

    What Happens In Vegas: LA Official Sues Over Ethics Fine

    Los Angeles City Councilman John Lee sued the city's ethics commission Tuesday in a California court, saying it wrongly levied a fine of over $138,000 against him on allegations that he participated in a debaucherous Las Vegas trip nine years ago that landed Mitch Englander, Lee's City Council predecessor and his boss at the time, in federal prison.

  • March 18, 2026

    IRS Summons For Man's Coinbase Info Cleared To Go Ahead

    A man who alleged that the IRS violated his privacy rights in its summons of personal financial documents from Coinbase failed to properly serve the U.S. in his attempt to block the summons, a California federal judge said Wednesday, dismissing the case.

  • March 18, 2026

    Pillsbury Brings On Latham Insurance Recovery Pro In LA

    Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP is growing its insurance recovery team with a Latham & Watkins LLP attorney brought on as a partner in the firm's Los Angeles office, the city announced Wednesday.

  • March 18, 2026

    Coke Bottler 401(k) Suit Put On Ice For High Court Ruling

    A Coca-Cola bottler can't dodge a proposed class action claiming its 401(k) plan was loaded with lackluster options, a Texas federal judge ruled, saying the company's dismissal bid must wait until the U.S. Supreme Court weighs in on the standards for claims of retirement investment underperformance.

  • March 18, 2026

    9th Circ. Urged To Rehear Cannabis Dormant Commerce Case

    A California attorney who has challenged cannabis social equity programs in numerous jurisdictions asked the entire Ninth Circuit on Tuesday to reconsider whether the U.S. Constitution's dormant commerce clause applies to federally illegal marijuana.

  • March 18, 2026

    Tax Prep Firm Can't Challenge Bulk Denial Of Tax Credits

    Two tax preparation companies don't have enough interest in their clients' refunds to stop the IRS from issuing batch denials of thousands of pandemic-era worker credit claims, the Ninth Circuit found, affirming an Arizona district court's ruling.

  • March 18, 2026

    Google Wins Dismissal Of Tech Patent Fight In Calif.

    A California federal judge has thrown out litigation accusing Google of infringing search and computer processing patents, finding the Irish company that sued it didn't have standing in one case and that a second case was duplicative of the first.

  • March 18, 2026

    Calif. Bills Would Reform Litigation Funding, Client Recruiting

    Two new bills introduced to the California Assembly this week seek to impose reforms on the state's legal industry, including adding mandatory disbarment for attorneys convicted of felony "capping" — or illegally paying for client recruitment — and blocking corporate litigation funders from influencing cases.

  • March 18, 2026

    Toy Co. Not Covered In Unpaid Judgment Fight, 8th Circ. Says

    An insurer needn't defend a toy company accused by a competitor of using legal proceedings to evade payment of an $8.5 million default judgment for false advertising, the Eighth Circuit has ruled, holding that the policy's malicious prosecution coverage doesn't extend to abuse of process claims.

  • March 17, 2026

    King & Spalding Adds Winston & Strawn IP Litigator In SF

    The parade of Winston & Strawn LLP litigators moving to King & Spalding LLP continues with a patent litigator being the latest to make the move, becoming a partner in the San Francisco office.

  • March 17, 2026

    Instagram Layers Backups To Catch Bad Content, Jury Told

    Instagram's algorithm data head told a New Mexico jury Tuesday that Meta layers processes to ward against harmful content, so if a violating post is missed and starts going viral, it can be caught by a backstop.

  • March 17, 2026

    Were Musk's Tweets 'Deliberate' Or 'Stupid'? Jury To Decide

    Elon Musk made "deliberate and carefully devised" statements to drive down Twitter's stock price after offering $44 billion for the company, Twitter investors' counsel told a California federal jury during closing arguments Tuesday, while Musk's lawyer insisted that there's no evidence of securities fraud and that it's not a crime to "tweet stupid things."

  • March 17, 2026

    Squires Will Mull Ending AMD Reviews For Sotera Violations

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has allowed XtreamEdge Inc. to ask to terminate reviews of three data processing patents challenged by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., saying there are "serious concerns" about whether AMD violated a stipulation to limit its invalidity arguments in court.

  • March 17, 2026

    FPI, Apartment Owners Reach $7M Deal In Wash. AG's Tenant Suit

    California-based property manager FPI and owners of five low-income apartment complexes have agreed to pay $7 million to end the Washington attorney general's lawsuit accusing them of exploiting senior tenants by overstating property qualities and withholding information about future rent rises, according to an agreed order finalized Monday.

  • March 17, 2026

    9th Circ. Backs Rare FCA Theory In Huge Drug Prices Program

    In a novel and potentially far-reaching decision, the Ninth Circuit on Tuesday revived a major hospital chain's False Claims Act suit accusing large pharmaceutical companies of massive overcharges in a prominent drug discount program where pricing disputes are common.

  • March 17, 2026

    K&L Gates Adds Ex-Protection Law, Littler Labor Atty In LA

    K&L Gates LLP has added a labor and employment partner with experience at Protection Law Group and Littler Mendelson to its Labor, Employment and Workplace Safety practice in Los Angeles, according to an announcement Tuesday.

  • March 17, 2026

    OpenAI, Musk Can't Argue Over Wealth In $38M Fraud Trial

    A California federal judge laid out the ground rules for an upcoming April jury trial on Elon Musk's claims OpenAI duped him into donating $38 million, barring evidence regarding the "wealth or lack thereof of any party," unless the dispute reaches the punitive damages stage, which the judge called "unlikely."

  • March 17, 2026

    Trump's Pipeline Order Stokes Turf War Over Energy Permits

    The Trump administration is taking executive power into uncharted territory by asserting it can override state law to restart a California oil pipeline, but such an expansion of presidential authority over energy infrastructure may invite skepticism from courts.

  • March 17, 2026

    Grocery Chain Faces Investor Suit Over Shuttered Stores

    Investors of Grocery Outlet Holding Corp. filed suit against the discount supermarket company in California federal court, alleging the company and its executives failed to disclose that its rapid financial growth was caused by expanding too quickly, which came to light earlier this year when it announced that 36 of its stores would close, sending its share price lower.

  • March 17, 2026

    Dr. Oz Claims Florida Also Has Healthcare Fraud Problem

    Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, announced Tuesday that he is taking his efforts to combat healthcare-related fraud to Florida, where he says millions of dollars have been wasted on schemes involving durable medical equipment.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Congress Should Lead On AI Policy, Not The States

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    There needs to be some limits on how far federal agencies go in regulating artificial intelligence systems, but Congress must not abdicate its responsibility and cede control over this interstate market to state and local officials, say Kevin Frazier at the University of Texas School of Law and Adam Thierer at the R Street Institute.

  • Limiting Worker Surveillance Risks Amid AI Regulatory Shifts

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    With workplace surveillance tools becoming increasingly common and a recent executive order aiming to preempt state-level artificial intelligence enforcement, companies may feel encouraged to expand AI monitoring, but the legal exposure associated with these tools remains, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • How Insurers Are Wording AI Exclusions

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    Artificial intelligence exclusions are now available for use in insurance policies, meaning corporate risk managers must determine how those exclusions are interpreted and applied, and how they define AI, says David Kroeger at Jenner & Block.

  • How 2 Tech Statutes Are Being Applied To Agentic AI

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    The application of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the California Invasion of Privacy Act to agentic artificial intelligence is still developing, but recent case law, like Amazon's lawsuit against Perplexity in California federal court, provides some initial guidance for companies developing or deploying these technologies, say attorneys at Weil.

  • FTC Focus: Testing Joint Enforcement Over Loyalty Programs

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    The Federal Trade Commission's case against Syngenta can be understood both as a canary for further scrutiny over loyalty-discount practices and a signal of the durability of joint federal-state antitrust enforcement, with key takeaways for practitioners and those subject to regulatory antitrust scrutiny alike, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Defense Strategy Takeaways From Recent TCPA Class Actions

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    Although recent Telephone Consumer Protection Act decisions do not establish any bright-line tests for defeating predominance based on an argument that class members provided consent for the calls, certain trends have emerged that should inform defense strategies at class certification, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

  • NYC Bar Opinion Warns Attys On Use Of AI Recording Tools

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    Attorneys who use artificial intelligence tools to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with clients should heed the New York City Bar Association’s recent opinion addressing the legal and ethical risks posed by such tools, and follow several best practices to avoid violating the Rules of Professional Conduct, say attorneys at Smith Gambrell.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Dispatches From Utah's Newest Court

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    While a robust body of law hasn't yet developed since the Utah Business and Chancery Court's founding in October 2024, the number of cases filed there has recently picked up, and its existence illustrates Utah's desire to be top of mind for businesses across the country, says Evan Strassberg at Michael Best.

  • Viewing The Merger Landscape Through An HPE-Juniper Lens

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    If considerations beyond antitrust law were taken into account to determine whether Section 7 of the Clayton Act was violated in the Hewlett Packard Enterprise-Juniper Networks deal, then legal practitioners advocating deal clearance may now have to argue that deals should be justified by considerations not set forth in the merger guidelines, says Matthew Cantor of Shinder Cantor.

  • 4 Quick Emotional Resets For Lawyers With Conflict Fatigue

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    Though the emotional wear and tear of legal work can trap attorneys in conflict fatigue — leaving them unable to shake off tense interactions or return to a calm baseline — simple therapeutic techniques for resetting the nervous system can help break the cycle, says Chantel Cohen at CWC Coaching & Therapy.

  • 2 Rulings Showcase Fuzzy Limits Of 'Related To' Jurisdiction

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    The Fifth and Ninth Circuits recently handed down decisions, in Sanchez Energy and Sawtelle Partners, respectively, reminding practitioners that bankruptcy court jurisdiction over lingering disputes is not guaranteed, regardless of whether confirmation orders contain specific "retention of jurisdiction" language, says Brian Shaw at Cozen O’Connor.

  • Privacy Ruling Shows How CIPA Conflicts With Modern Tech

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    A California federal court's recent holding in Doe v. Eating Recovery Center that Meta is not liable for reading, or attempting to read, the pixel-related transmission while in transit reflects a mismatch between the California Invasion of Privacy Act's 1967 origins and modern encrypted, browser‑driven communications, says David Wheeler at Neal Gerber.

  • Navigating Trade Secret Exceptions In Noncompete Bans

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    Recent and ongoing developments in the noncompete landscape, including a potential decision from the Tenth Circuit in Edwards Lifesciences v. Thompson, could offer tools for employers to bring noncompete agreements within trade secret exceptions amid an era of heightened employee mobility, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • Series

    Playing Tennis Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    An instinct to turn pain into purpose meant frequent trips to the tennis court, where learning to move ahead one point at a time was a lesson that also applied to the steep learning curve of patent prosecution law, says Daniel Henry at Marshall Gerstein.

  • How Generative AI Cos. Can Navigate Product Liability Claims

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    Increasingly, plaintiffs are aggregating disputes over generative artificial intelligence and pursuing them through mass-tort-style proceedings, borrowing tactics from litigation involving social media, pharmaceuticals and other consumer-facing products — but there are approaches that AI companies can use to narrow claims and manage long-term exposure, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

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