California

  • April 29, 2025

    Meta Seeks Punitives For NSO WhatsApp Hack As Trial Opens

    Meta's counsel told a California federal jury during trial openings Tuesday that Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group owes nearly $445,000 plus punitive damages for its "despicable" conduct hacking 1,400 WhatsApp users' devices, while NSO's counsel denied owing Meta anything and criticized Meta's case as a PR attempt to "own the narrative."

  • April 29, 2025

    'Alvin And The Chipmunks' Owner Says Arbitrator Overstepped

    The owner of the "Alvin and the Chipmunks" franchise is urging a California federal court to vacate a $2.2 million arbitral award favoring its international distributor based on the arbitrator's alleged "egregious errors," including inflating the damages owed over a rejected Nickelodeon deal.

  • April 29, 2025

    Koi Nation Can't Intervene In Casino Row, Court Told

    The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria is fighting a bid by a fellow California tribe at the crux of a dispute over the Interior Department's decision to take 70 acres into trust for the construction of a proposed hotel and casino project, arguing it lacks any justification to do so.

  • April 29, 2025

    Honda America Asks To Halt Faulty Brakes Suit

    American Honda Motor Co. urged a California federal judge Monday to throw out an amended proposed class action alleging some of the automaker's vehicles equipped with automatic emergency braking are unsafe, arguing the claims are meritless because the owner's manuals disclose the possibility of false activations of the braking system.

  • April 29, 2025

    Kim Kardashian, Celebs Challenge Crypto Buyers' Cert. Bid

    The co-founder of the EthereumMax crypto token and celebrities who allegedly promoted the offering told a California federal judge that a group of spurned buyers should not be able to certify their class action since they have not provided a way to determine how many transactions would fall in each category.

  • April 29, 2025

    23andMe Agrees To Privacy Ombudsman In Ch. 11

    A Missouri bankruptcy judge on Tuesday signed off on a consumer privacy watchdog for 23andMe's Chapter 11 after the genetic testing group and 30 states agreed that a statutorily authorized ombudsman would be the best way to vet a Chapter 11 sale that includes 15 million users' DNA information.

  • April 29, 2025

    Watchdog Will Probe Trump Admin's Push To Shrink CFPB

    The U.S. Government Accountability Office will look into whether the Trump administration's aggressive downsizing efforts have rendered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau unfit for duty, agreeing to a review sought by Democratic lawmakers.

  • April 29, 2025

    CRT Buyers Want $3.7B In Damages After Price-Fixing Default

    Groups of buyers in long-running litigation over an alleged conspiracy to fix cathode ray tube prices asked a California federal court for $3.7 billion in damages after a default judgment against Chinese electronics company Irico Group for failing to preserve evidence.

  • April 29, 2025

    2 Dozen States Say DOGE Can't 'Dismantle' AmeriCorps

    Two dozen states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Tuesday challenging layoffs and $400 million in funding cuts to the national volunteer agency AmeriCorps, alleging the Trump administration is trampling over Congress' authority by trying to dismantle the agency.

  • April 29, 2025

    Unilever Care Products Not So 'Naturally Derived,' Suit Claims

    Unilever and Conopco sell Love Beauty & Planet and Dove Men's product lines that falsely claim to contain 90% or higher natural ingredients when, in fact, they contain only around 80 to 85% naturally derived ingredients, according to a proposed class action filed in California federal court.

  • April 29, 2025

    Ex-Pot Water CEOs Denied Bid For More Info In Stock Case

    An Ohio federal judge on Tuesday denied bids by former CEOs of and others associated with American Premium Water Corp. for bills of particulars on an indictment alleging they manipulated the company's stock prices, finding the indictment gives them enough information to prepare their defenses.

  • April 29, 2025

    Workday Bias Suit May Gain Collective Status

    A federal judge appeared inclined Tuesday to greenlight a collective action from job applicants over 40 who say they were unlawfully steered away from jobs by a Workday hiring tool, saying she saw a "common answer" applying across the proposed group.

  • April 29, 2025

    Apple Beats Claim Amber Alert On AirPod Hurt Boy's Hearing

    A California federal judge on Monday tossed a Texas mother's lawsuit accusing Apple Inc. of being responsible for her teenage son's permanent hearing loss after an Amber Alert allegedly rang through defective AirPods and ruptured his eardrums, saying a physician's expert opinion they leaned on was unreliable for proving causation.

  • April 29, 2025

    BNSF Says Tribe's $400M Trespass Win Unjustly Taps Profits

    BNSF Railway Co. has urged the Ninth Circuit to derail the nearly $400 million a trial judge ruled it owes for years of illegally running oil cars across a Washington tribe's land, saying the disgorgement judgment goes after legitimate profits far removed from where the trespassing occurred.

  • April 29, 2025

    Trump Can't Reorganize Gov't Without Congress, Groups Say

    President Donald Trump lacks the power to reorganize the executive branch and push for mass terminations of workers when Congress hasn't given its blessing, unions and other groups told a California federal court.

  • April 29, 2025

    Meta Looks To Delete User Antitrust Claims Over Pay For Data

    Meta urged a California federal court Monday to end antitrust claims from consumers alleging they should be paid for their data, saying flawed expert theories that doomed class certification also sink the entire case for the remaining individual plaintiffs.

  • April 29, 2025

    OKCoin Says Crypto Holders Can't Tie Firm To $2M Theft

    Digital asset exchange OKCoin and its affiliates urged a California federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action accusing them of enabling cryptocurrency thieves, arguing the real cause of the plaintiffs' losses was the initial theft, not any actions by the exchange.

  • April 29, 2025

    Littler Brings Back Arbitration Pro In Calif.

    Labor and employment firm Littler Mendelson PC is expanding its California arbitration team, announcing Tuesday that it is welcoming back an employment attorney who left briefly to join Whitney Thompson & Jeffcoach LLP.

  • April 29, 2025

    X Can't Escape Unjust Firing Claim In Severance Suit

    Three former Twitter executives can proceed with their claim that Elon Musk and the company owe them millions in severance benefits after falsely claiming they were fired justly, a California federal judge ruled, pointing to another suit mirroring nearly identical allegations.

  • April 29, 2025

    Cooley Life Sciences Ace Rejoins Latham In Bay Area

    Latham & Watkins LLP has welcomed back an intellectual property attorney who spent the past nine years at Cooley LLP to bolster its healthcare and life sciences practice, including advising clients about licensing and transactional matters.

  • April 28, 2025

    Ramey IP Attys Pay Sanctions, But Defend Fed. Circ. Appeal

    Texas intellectual property lawyer Bill Ramey and two other attorneys informed a California federal court Monday that they have made payments toward fines totaling $64,000 and alerted disciplinary bodies that they were sanctioned, the same day they urged the Federal Circuit to keep alive their appeal of the sanctions.

  • April 28, 2025

    Meta Gets Jury In Damages Trial Over NSO's WhatsApp Hack

    A California federal judge empaneled eight jurors Monday to decide how much Israeli spyware-maker NSO Group owes Meta Platforms for hacking into 1,400 WhatsApp users' devices, selecting from a pool of dozens of San Francisco Bay Area residents, many of whom criticized Meta, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the Israeli government.

  • April 28, 2025

    Feds' Bid To Spring False Biden Accuser Shot Down By Judge

    A California federal judge rejected a request Monday by prosecutors to release a former FBI informant imprisoned for lying to federal agents that former President Joe Biden accepted bribes, saying he does not agree the court made a mistake at sentencing that should result in his release pending appeal.

  • April 28, 2025

    Nivea Maker Hit With False Ad Greenwashing Suit

    The Nivea brand of products such as lotions, body creams, deodorants and cleansing wipes are falsely advertised as made predominantly of ingredients derived from natural products, like aloe or avocado oil, even though nearly all the ingredients are synthetic, according to a proposed class action filed in California federal court.

  • April 28, 2025

    Levi's Biased Against Pregnant Exec, Jury Told At Trial's Start

    Counsel for a former Levi Strauss executive suing for sex discrimination told a California federal jury Monday that her manager told the then-pregnant woman she lacked "work capacity" for a promotion, while Levi's lawyer said she merely "grew impatient" climbing the corporate ladder at a company where many mothers are leaders.

Expert Analysis

  • Navigating Title IX Compliance In The NIL Era

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    As universities push to move more name, image and likeness activity in-house, it's unclear how the NCAA and its members will square implementation of the House settlement with Title IX requirements, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • National Bank Act Rulings Facilitate More Preemption Analysis

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    Two recent National Bank Act preemption decisions from an Illinois federal court and the Ninth Circuit provide the first applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s May ruling in Cantero v. Bank of America, opening the potential for several circuit courts to address the issue this year, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Series

    Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.

  • It Starts With Training: Anti-Harassment After 'It Ends With Us'

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    Actress Blake Lively's recent sexual harassment and retaliation allegations against her "It Ends With Us" co-star, director and producer, Justin Baldoni, should remind employers of their legal obligations to implement trainings, policies and other measures to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, say attorneys at Morrison Cohen.

  • Complying With Calif. Price-Gouging Law After LA Fires

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    The recent tragic Los Angeles fires have brought attention to the state's sometimes controversial price-gouging protections, and every California business should keep the law's requirements in mind, despite the debate over whether these statutes help consumers, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Opinion

    Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay

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    Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.

  • How Cos. Can Use Data Clean Rooms To Address Privacy

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    Implementing comprehensive administrative controls, security processes and vendor management systems are vital steps for businesses leveraging data clean rooms for privacy compliance, especially given the Federal Trade Commission's warnings of complicated user privacy implications, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example

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    Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

  • SEC Motion Response Could Reveal New Crypto Approach

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    Cumberland DRW recently filed to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against it for the unlawful purchase and sale of digital asset securities, and the agency's response should unveil whether, and to what extent, the Trump administration will relax the federal government’s stance on digital asset regulation, say attorneys at O'Melveny.

  • What Calif. Bill Could Mean For Battery Energy Storage

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    A newly proposed bill in the California Legislature would place major restrictions on the development of battery energy storage system projects in the state — but with Gov. Gavin Newsom's strong support for clean energy technology, the legislation will likely face significant obstacles, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 3 Ways Trump Can Nix SEC's Climate Disclosure Rules

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    Given President Donald Trump's campaign statements and agency appointments, it's likely that his administration will try to annul the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rules, but his options for doing so present unique opportunities and challenges, with varying levels of permanence and impact, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • Perspectives

    Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines

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    KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.

  • Zuckerberg's Remarks Pose Legal Risk For Meta Amid Layoffs

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    Within days of announcing that Meta Platforms will cut 5% of its lowest-performing employees, Mark Zuckerberg remarked that corporations are becoming "culturally neutered" and need to bring back "masculine energy," exposing the company to potential claims under California employment law, says Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law Center.

  • Perspectives

    DC Circ. Cellphone Ruling Upends Law Enforcement Protocol

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    The D.C. Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Brown decision, holding that forcibly requiring a defendant to unlock his cellphone with his fingerprint violated the Fifth Amendment, has significant implications for law enforcement, and may provide an opportunity for defense lawyers to suppress electronic evidence, says Sarah Sulkowski at Gelber & Santillo.

  • Reg Waiver Eases Calif. Rebuilding, But Proceed With Care

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order suspending some environmental review and permitting requirements for the reconstruction of homes and businesses damaged by recent wildfires may streamline rebuilding efforts, but will require careful navigation of the evolving regulatory landscape, says Gregory Berlin at Alston & Bird.

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