California

  • November 07, 2025

    OpenAI Hit With Wave Of Suits Over 'Suicide Coach' ChatGPT

    ChatGPT users and suicide victims' families hit OpenAI Inc. and its CEO Sam Altman with a wave of lawsuits in California state court Friday, alleging OpenAI knowingly released a dangerously designed sycophantic, psychologically manipulative, addictive version of ChatGPT that at times became a "suicide coach" to vulnerable users who killed themselves.

  • November 07, 2025

    Ex-Calif. Judge Seeks To Toss Sex Assault, Coverup Charges

    A former California state judge on Friday moved to toss federal criminal charges alleging that he sexually assaulted a court employee and lied to investigators, saying the employee was not under his direct supervision so he could not have been acting under the "color of law" when the alleged assault occurred.

  • November 07, 2025

    Dems' Bill Would Give DHS Detainees Right To Talk To Atty

    Democratic lawmakers unveiled a bill Friday that would guarantee immigrant detainees the right to contact their families and speak to legal counsel in custody, amid the Trump administration's push to ramp up major enforcement efforts that have led to arrests of people while dropping off children at school or grocery shopping.

  • November 07, 2025

    DC Circ. Airs Doubts About USPS Args In 2020 Mail Delay Row

    The D.C. Circuit has doubts that the U.S. Postal Service can kibosh a permanent injunction in a case that aimed to ward off delivery delays ahead of the 2020 election because the plaintiffs had an administrative route open to them — not at the time they filed their suit, but by the time the judge issued summary judgment.

  • November 07, 2025

    Real Estate Recap: Mamdani, Immigration, Q3 Debrief

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including real estate reactions to the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, how condo attorneys are bracing for a surge in immigration enforcement and third-quarter takeaways across asset classes.

  • November 07, 2025

    Jeffer Mangels Hit With Pregnancy Bias Suit By Ex-Associate

    A former Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP associate has accused the firm of discriminating against women, especially pregnant women, claiming that she was harassed throughout her pregnancy and eventually fired after she advocated for herself and pointed out the disparate treatment.

  • November 07, 2025

    AI Startup CEO Gets 1-Year Sentence For $40M Fraud

    A California federal judge on Friday sentenced the founder of a company that purported to sell artificial intelligence-based business automation software to one year behind bars for defrauding investors in what the federal government called a "fake-it-til-you-make-it" scheme that never made it.

  • November 07, 2025

    Calif. Cannabis Co. Fights $10M IRS Bill In Tax Court

    A California company that manages cannabis operators challenged $10 million in taxes and penalties in the U.S. Tax Court, arguing the Internal Revenue Service stripped it of business deductions by incorrectly determining it trafficked in a controlled substance.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Pushed To Revive Suit Over $3.8B Failed Tech Merger

    A California federal judge erred in finding that investors in semiconductor company MaxLinear Inc. had no standing to sue it over what they say were misrepresentations about a $3.8 billion merger plan with chipmaker Silicon Motion Technology Corp., they told the Ninth Circuit in a bid to revive their suit.

  • November 07, 2025

    Block Says Cash App Probe, Bigger SF Tax Bill Could Cost It

    Jack Dorsey's fintech firm Block Inc. told investors that it may take a financial hit from a multistate probe into its mobile payments platform CashApp, and remains locked in a separate multimillion-dollar tax dispute with the County of San Francisco over its bitcoin sales.

  • November 07, 2025

    9th Circ. Sides With Calif. In Tribal Cigarette Tax Fight

    The Ninth Circuit on Friday backed California in a dispute it brought to enforce cigarette taxes against a tobacco company owned and operated by a federally recognized Native American tribe, holding that the tribal leader defendants can't claim sovereign or qualified immunity exempts them from the federal tax law.

  • November 07, 2025

    Vegas Hotels Say 9th Circ. Shouldn't Rethink Price-Fixing Suit

    Several Las Vegas hotel operators, two software companies and Blackstone all told the Ninth Circuit to reject a rehearing petition for its August decision for a proposed price-fixing class action that accused hotel operators and Blackstone of conspiring to use the software companies' GuestRev software to set prices for Las Vegas hotel rooms.

  • November 07, 2025

    Shutdown, Funding Crisis Leave Federal Defenders Unpaid

    The record-long government shutdown has hindered an already dire funding situation for the federal defense community, but now the judiciary is working on requests to Congress to alleviate that.

  • November 07, 2025

    Mayer Brown Adds Goodwin Real Estate, Hospitality Trio In SF

    Mayer Brown LLP is boosting its West Coast team, bringing in a trio of Goodwin Procter LLP real estate and hospitality experts as partners in the firm's San Francisco office.

  • November 07, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Upholds PTAB Rulings Favoring Uber

    The Federal Circuit on Friday refused to restore claims in a pair of patents used to track individuals, leaving in place Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions that Uber showed the claims were invalid.

  • November 07, 2025

    Dorsey & Whitney Adds Real Estate Duo From Womble Bond

    Dorsey & Whitney LLP has expanded its Southern California team, bringing in two Womble Bond Dickinson real estate attorneys in its Orange County office in Costa Mesa.

  • November 06, 2025

    Consumers Sue Tilray Over Protein Claims In Hemp Product

    International cannabis lifestyle and consumer packaged goods company Tilray Brands Inc. was hit with a proposed class action in California federal court by a woman who claims it overstates the amount of protein consumers will get from eating its "Just Hemp" protein powder.

  • November 06, 2025

    Pair Of Health-Focused Startups Net $423M In Combined IPOs

    Two startups, spanning the diagnostics and biotechnology sectors, began trading on Thursday after raising a combined $423 million in initial public offerings, guided by three law firms, as more companies continue going public despite a historic government shutdown that has reduced staffing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • November 06, 2025

    Retailer Can't Force Arbitration Of False Pricing Class Claims

    A California federal judge Thursday rejected a bid by women's fashion brand Maggy London to arbitrate a proposed class action accusing it of advertising "phantom" price discounts on products sold on its website, finding that merely providing a link to the arbitration terms during the checkout process wasn't enough to form a binding agreement. 

  • November 06, 2025

    Cal Poly Athletes Rip NIL Deal For Impact On Women's Sports

    California Polytechnic State University athletes criticized the NCAA's $2.78 billion name, image and likeness settlement, telling a California federal judge during a hearing Thursday that it has harmed women's sports and caused inequitable cuts, while class counsel defended the deal, saying that it specifically preserves class members' Title IX rights.

  • November 06, 2025

    'Restore Coherence': Trump Admin Told To Fully Fund SNAP

    The Trump administration must fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in full this month, a Rhode Island federal judge ruled Thursday while admonishing the government for "entrenching delay" of benefits for the 42 million low-income Americans who rely on food assistance.

  • November 06, 2025

    PayPal Beats Antitrust Suit Over Merchant Rules Again

    PayPal has for a second time beat a proposed class action accusing it of illegally boosting online retail prices with restrictive merchant agreements, but the consumers have one more chance to amend.

  • November 06, 2025

    T-Mobile Fairly Canceled $27M In Phone Orders, 9th Circ. Says

    The Ninth Circuit isn't going to disturb a ruling tossing out a cellphone manufacturer's $27 million lawsuit against T-Mobile accusing it of reneging on purchase orders, after finding that the mobile behemoth had the right to unilaterally end their agreement.

  • November 06, 2025

    Attys Spar Over Dismissal Motion In Nurse Strike Pay Suit

    A Colorado federal judge on Thursday questioned the parties on both sides of a complaint in determining if it has enough details to move forward in the lawsuit from nearly 40 nurses who claim they were not properly paid while temporarily working at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California during a 2023 strike.

  • November 06, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs NLRB Ruling On Nurses' Pandemic Pay Fight

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed the National Labor Relations Board's order finding a trio of Southern California hospitals violated federal labor law by unilaterally implementing a COVID-19 pandemic pay program without first bargaining with a Service Employees International Union affiliate representing registered nurses and professional workers. 

Expert Analysis

  • DOJ Actions Signal Rising Enforcement Risk For Health Cos.

    Author Photo

    The U.S. Department of Justice's announcement of a new False Claims Act working group, together with the largest healthcare fraud takedown in history, underscore the importance of sophisticated compliance programs that align with the DOJ's data-driven approach, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Brand Protection Takeaways From OpenAI Trademark Case

    Author Photo

    The ongoing battle between IYO and OpenAI offers critical lessons on diligent trademark enforcement and proactive risk management for startups and established players alike navigating branding in the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence sector, say attorneys at Dykema.

  • How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery

    Author Photo

    E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.

  • How McKesson Ruling Will Inform Interpretations Of The TCPA

    Author Photo

    Amid the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson, we can expect to see both plaintiffs and defendants utilizing the decision to revisit the Federal Communications Commission's past Telephone Consumer Protection Act interpretations and decisions they did not like, says Jason McElroy at Saul Ewing.

  • Series

    Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

    Author Photo

    The second quarter saw California become a more active protector of consumers in response to federal regulatory pullback, with regulators proposing a licensing framework for digital asset businesses, ending an enforcement exemption and otherwise signaling further expansions of oversight and enforcement, say attorneys at Stinson.

  • Navigating Court Concerns About QR Codes In FLSA Notices

    Author Photo

    As plaintiffs attorneys increasingly seek to include QR codes as a method of notice in Fair Labor Standards Act collective actions, counsel should be prepared to address judicial concerns about their use, including their potential to be duplicative and circumvent court-approved language, say attorneys at Shook Hardy.

  • Justices Rethink Minimum Contacts For Foreign Entities

    Author Photo

    Two recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Devas v. Antrix and Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, suggest that federal statutes may confer personal jurisdiction over foreign entities that have little to no contact with the U.S. — a significant departure from traditional due process principles, says Gary Shaw at Pillsbury.

  • Examining TCPA Jurisprudence A Year After Loper Bright

    Author Photo

    One year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, lower court decisions demonstrate that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act will continue to evolve as long-standing interpretations of the act are analyzed with a fresh lens, says Aaron Gallardo at Kilpatrick.

  • Gauging The Risky Business Of Business Risk Disclosures

    Author Photo

    With the recent rise of securities fraud actions based on external events — like a data breach or environmental disaster — that drive down stock prices, risk disclosures have become more of a sword for the plaintiffs bar than a shield for public companies, now the subject of a growing circuit split, say attorneys at A&O Shearman.

  • Series

    Playing The Violin Makes Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    Playing violin in a string quartet reminds me that flexibility, ambition, strong listening skills, thoughtful leadership and intentional collaboration are all keys to a successful legal practice, says Julie Park at MoFo.

  • DOJ Enforcement Trends To Watch In 2nd Half Of 2025

    Author Photo

    Recent investigations, settlements and a declination to prosecute suggest that controlling the flow of goods into and out of the country, and redressing what the administration sees as reverse discrimination, are likely to be at the forefront of the U.S. Department of Justice's enforcement agenda the rest of this year, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • 'Top Gun' And 'Together' IP Suits Spotlight Similarity Issues

    Author Photo

    The outcome of recent lawsuits revolving around the films "Top Gun: Maverick" and "Together" may set meaningful precedents for how courts analyze substantial similarity in creative works, say attorneys at Greenspoon Marder.

  • State, Fed Junk Fee Enforcement Shows No Signs Of Slowing

    Author Photo

    The Federal Trade Commission’s potent new rule targeting drip pricing, in addition to the growing patchwork of state consumer protection laws, suggest that enforcement and litigation targeting junk fees will likely continue to expand, says Etia Rottman Frand at Darrow AI.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Self-Care

    Author Photo

    Law schools don’t teach the mental, physical and emotional health maintenance tools necessary to deal with the profession's many demands, but practicing self-care is an important key to success that can help to improve focus, manage stress and reduce burnout, says Rachel Leonard​​​​​​​ at MG+M.

  • Birthright Opinions Reveal Views On Rule 23(b)(2) Relief

    Author Photo

    The justices' multiple opinions in the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 27 decision in the birthright citizenship case, Trump v. CASA, shed light on whether Rule 23(b)(2) could fill the void created by the court's decision to restrict nationwide injunctions, says Benjamin Johns at Shub Johns.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the California archive.