California

  • July 30, 2025

    Calif. Residents Urge Justices To Take Up Jury Trial Question

    A group of Humboldt County, California, property owners is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the group's appeal over the dismissal of its Seventh Amendment claim for a jury trial in a suit against the county alleging the county wrongly targeted the owners for illegal cannabis growth, saying the justices should reject the county's argument that the question is not ripe.

  • July 29, 2025

    Ex-LA Officer Can't Revive Suit Over COVID-19 Testing Costs

    A California appellate court Monday refused to revive a former Los Angeles police officer's suit claiming that he was denied due process when he was fired after refusing to comply with the city's COVID-19 policies, finding that the officer wasn't fired until after he made his case to the city.

  • July 29, 2025

    States Sue To Block Feds' Demand For Benefit Recipient Data

    Nearly two dozen state attorneys general are fighting the USDA's directive for states to turn over private information about millions of food assistance benefit recipients, arguing in a new lawsuit filed in California federal court that this demand violates multiple privacy laws and the U.S. Constitution.

  • July 29, 2025

    Trump Admin Says UCLA Didn't Protect Jewish Students

    The U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday that it determined that the University of California, Los Angeles, violated civil rights laws by failing to "adequately respond" to harassment and abuse that Jewish and Israeli students faced on its campus following the war in Gaza.

  • July 29, 2025

    Auto Dealer Software Biz Hit With Antitrust Counterclaims

    A data company accused alongside Tekion Corp. of hacking into rival technology firm CDK Global's auto dealership management software system to steal proprietary information hit CDK Tuesday with an antitrust counterattack, accusing it of "usurping control over dealer data" that doesn't belong to it in an effort to thwart competition.

  • July 29, 2025

    Axos Wants Justices To Undo Auditor's $1.5M Retaliation Win

    BofI Federal Bank, now operating as Axos Bank, has taken its dispute with a former auditor to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to vacate a Ninth Circuit decision upholding a $1.5 million jury verdict in favor of the auditor, who claimed he was fired for whistleblowing.

  • July 29, 2025

    Oil Co. Misled Investors Prior To $295M Offering, Suit Says

    Oil and gas company Sable Offshore Corp. is facing a proposed investor class action alleging the company hurt investors by overpricing a secondary public offering after misrepresenting it had restarted oil production at a field off the coast of California.

  • July 29, 2025

    9th Circ. Urged To Rehear Alaskan Willow Project Ruling

    Alaskan Native and environmental advocacy groups are asking the Ninth Circuit for a rehearing on its ruling to uphold the federal government's decision to evaluate only alternatives for the ConocoPhillips Willow project that they say will result in full development of the Arctic oil reservoir.

  • July 29, 2025

    Judiciary Advises Not Filling Next 10th Circ. Vacancy, For Now

    The Judicial Conference of the United States is recommending not filling the next vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and a handful of district courts, for now, citing a "consistently low per-judgeship caseload" in those jurisdictions.

  • July 29, 2025

    Tesla Expert Says No Tech Would've Stopped Reckless Driver

    No improved autopilot technology would have changed the reckless behavior of the Tesla driver who caused a fatal crash in the Florida Keys, an expert psychologist told federal jurors Tuesday in the trial over whether the car's autopilot software contributed to the crash.

  • July 29, 2025

    Jack Daniel's Toy TM Win Violates Free Speech, 9th Circ. Told

    The maker of a dog toy parodying Jack Daniel's iconic whiskey bottle has urged the Ninth Circuit to reverse a finding that its "Bad Spaniels" toy tarnishes Jack Daniel's mark, arguing the ruling constitutes unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination over "mild poo jokes" that weren't similar to famous Jack Daniel's marks.

  • July 29, 2025

    Calif. Panel Rejects Stricter Standard For Resisting Arrest

    A California appellate court panel has upheld a man's conviction for resisting arrest, refusing his invitation to overturn case law and make it harder to prove "willful" resistance.

  • July 29, 2025

    REIT Shareholders File 'Improper Lending' Suit Against Execs

    Two Arbor Realty Trust Inc. shareholders hit several of the real estate investment trust's executives, including its president and CEO Ivan Kaufman, with a derivative suit on Tuesday alleging they made the REIT use "improper lending practices" that saddled the company "with a severely distressed loan portfolio."

  • July 29, 2025

    Mexican Media Co. Wants Fox's Soccer Licensing Suit Tossed

    A Mexican media company facing contract breach claims from Fox Cable Network Services LLC over soccer broadcasting rights called on a California federal judge Monday to dismiss the case, asserting that the U.S. media giant's case is too thin and that litigation already underway in Mexico should take precedence.

  • July 29, 2025

    Brokerage Owner Says NAR Dues Policy Hurts Competition

    The owner of a Modesto, California, residential sales brokerage urged a California federal court to not toss his antitrust suit challenging dues created by the National Association of Realtors and enforced by affiliated Realtor associations, arguing that he has Article III standing for his claims and that he was significantly harmed by the dues policy.

  • July 29, 2025

    Convicted Crypto CEO Tied To Abramoff Gets 7-Year Sentence

    A California federal judge Tuesday sentenced a cryptocurrency company founder who committed a multimillion-dollar fraud in a scheme also involving disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to seven years imprisonment — less than the 17 years prosecutors sought — in light of the man's childhood trauma, mental health and lack of criminal history.

  • July 29, 2025

    Ford Settles Proposed Class Action Over Emissions Warranty

    Ford has settled a putative class action accusing it of violating the unfair competition law by failing to provide an emissions warranty for Golden State drivers whose vehicle transmissions weren't covered for seven years or 70,000 miles, according to a notice filed in California federal court.

  • July 29, 2025

    Some OpenAI Defenses Nixed In 'Over-Litigated' Musk Suit

    A California federal judge briefly took Elon Musk and OpenAI to task on Tuesday, in an order summarily nixing some of the ChatGPT-maker's affirmative defenses against the billionaire's lawsuit challenging plans to change its corporate structure.

  • July 29, 2025

    Calif. Privacy Agency Fines Data Broker For Skirting Registry

    The California Privacy Protection Agency on Tuesday announced its latest enforcement action under a groundbreaking state data deletion law, imposing a more than $55,000 fine on a Washington-based data broker on allegations it failed to fulfill its registration obligations last year. 

  • July 29, 2025

    22 States Sue To Block Defunding Of Planned Parenthood

    California and more than 20 other states on Tuesday launched their own legal challenge to budget legislation that halts federal Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood, alleging the measure illegally targets the organization and violates its First Amendment rights.

  • July 29, 2025

    State & Local Tax Atty Rejoins Pillsbury In San Francisco

    Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP continues expanding its tax team, welcoming a state and local tax expert who worked several years as a solo practitioner back to the firm as a partner in its San Francisco office.

  • July 29, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Drag Queen's Likeness Claims

    The Ninth Circuit has affirmed Netflix's win in a case brought by a famous Los Angeles drag queen who sued over use of her likeness in an adult animation show, saying it had not been shown that Netflix used that likeness as a mark rather than some other expressive function. 

  • July 29, 2025

    Authors Fight Anthropic's Appeal Of Fair Use Ruling

    Authors battling artificial intelligence firm Anthropic over its use of their books to train a large language model have urged a California federal judge to disallow a mid-case appeal of his ruling that Anthropic could use books it bought legally, but not the millions it purportedly lifted from online libraries of pirated works.

  • July 29, 2025

    Justices Can Fix Circuit Split On Compassionate Release

    The First Step Act drastically reduced the mandatory minimum sentences for certain federal crimes, but it will be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to settle a 6-4 circuit split over whether courts can consider those changes when weighing a prisoner's compassionate release, attorneys tell Law360.

  • July 29, 2025

    Insurer Says Misrepresentations Void Real Estate Co.'s Policy

    Material misrepresentations in a commercial real estate firm's insurance renewal application mean the insurer has no duty to defend the firm or a former director against a $6.5 million claim related to the sale of a client's properties, the insurer told an Indiana federal court.

Expert Analysis

  • What To Know About Bill Aiming To Curb CIPA

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    A bill pending in the California Assembly would amend the California Invasion of Privacy Act to allow for the use of website tracking technologies for commercial business purposes, limiting class actions seeking damages under the act for industry standard practices, say Katherine Alphonso and Avazeh Pourhamzeh at Kaufman Dolowich.

  • Preparing For Trump Pushback Against State Climate Laws

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    An April executive order from President Donald Trump mandated a report from the U.S. attorney general on countering so-called state overreach in climate policy, and while that report has yet to appear, companies can expect that it will likely call for using litigation, legislation and funding to actively reshape energy policy, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • Tips For Managing Social Media And International Travel Risks

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    Employers should familiarize themselves with the legal framework governing border searches and adopt specific risk management practices that address increasing scrutiny of employees’ social media activities by immigration enforcement, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • DOJ Actions Signal Rising Enforcement Risk For Health Cos.

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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

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    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.

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