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California
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July 08, 2025
The Biggest Copyright Rulings Of 2025: A Midyear Report
Two California judges were the first to deliver crucial rulings about what constitutes fair use in training generative artificial intelligence models — a question expected to test the boundaries of the copyright doctrine amid the emergence of the groundbreaking technology. Here is Law360's list of the biggest copyright decisions so far this year.
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July 08, 2025
Calif. Agency Rolls Out Guidance For Violence Survivor Leave
The California Civil Rights Department rolled out its latest guidance and model notice for employees who are victims of violence or abuse and wish to take time off under a law that went into effect in the state in January.
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July 08, 2025
Frost LLP Adds Entertainment Vet As Partner
Longtime entertainment attorney Gary Stiffelman has joined Frost LLP as a partner after several years at his own firm, bringing the experience of four decades representing what the firm said were numerous high-profile artists, cultural leaders and executives.
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July 08, 2025
Calif. Justices Say Elected Officials Lack Whistleblower Shield
California elected officials are not covered by the state's whistleblower protections because they don't fall under the definition of employees, the California Supreme Court ruled, affirming a state appeals court decision to nix a retaliation suit from the City of Inglewood's former elected treasurer.
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July 07, 2025
Calif. Justices Disbar SF Atty For Defrauding Elderly Client
The California Supreme Court has ordered the disbarment of a San Francisco lawyer who authorities say overcharged an elderly trust account client with advanced dementia, finding that he "repeatedly failed to uphold the most basic duties of an attorney" and is "unfit to serve as a member of the bar."
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July 07, 2025
DC Judge Nixes Challenge To Immigrant Legal Services Cuts
A D.C. federal judge said nonprofit groups failed to show that the Trump administration acted beyond its authority when it decided to end or take over Justice Department programs that previously tapped them to provide legal services to immigrants.
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July 07, 2025
Citron Founder Seeks Dismissal Of 'Absurd' DOJ Fraud Case
An attorney for Citron Research's founder, short-seller activist Andrew Left, urged a California federal judge Monday to dismiss the federal government's "absurd" criminal securities fraud case against Left, arguing that it's an unprecedented effort to criminalize free speech.
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July 07, 2025
Lenders Accused Of Using Calif. Tribe To Dodge Usury Laws
A California resident has accused River Valley Loans and some business leaders allegedly associated with the company — including the son of TV host Dr. Phil — of operating a predatory lending scheme involving the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe to make short-term, small-dollar loans with illegally high interest rates.
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July 07, 2025
Personal Injury & Med Mal Cases To Watch In 2nd Half Of 2025
The social media addiction multidistrict litigation against the biggest tech companies and a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding state medical malpractice lawsuit requirements are among the cases injury and malpractice attorneys will be following closely in the second half of 2025.
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July 07, 2025
Etsy Shares User Data With Google And Meta For Ads, Suit Says
Etsy flouts privacy laws by illegally sharing website visitors' information with third parties through the surreptitious use and deployment of tracking pixels created by Google, Meta, TikTok and Microsoft for behavior profiling and real-time digital ad bidding auctions, according to a proposed class action filed last week in California federal court.
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July 07, 2025
As New Era Dawns For College Athletes, Repairs Still Needed
As far back as late 2023, when a broad cross-section of former college athletes was certified as a class to sue the NCAA for unpaid name, image and likeness compensation, all parties involved have known that the eventual settlement of its claims would repair just one specific broken part of the college sports ecosystem. With the portion of the $2.78 billion settlement designed to share institutional revenues directly with athletes going into effect on Tuesday, legal experts still wonder how and when enough will be done to set right the scales that went unbalanced for decades.
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July 07, 2025
Feds Tell 9th Circ. Ayahuasca Church Not Owed $2M In Fees
Federal officials told the Ninth Circuit on Monday that a Phoenix-based church that reached an agreement with the government to use the psychedelic ayahuasca in religious ceremonies was not entitled to more than $2 million in attorney fees.
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July 07, 2025
Calif. Coastal Agency Gets SpaceX Launch Suit Trimmed
A California federal judge has trimmed SpaceX's suit alleging the California Coastal Commission wrongly tried to block its plan to increase rocket launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base, saying the reworked complaint adequately alleges some, but not all, of the purported harms the company faces.
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July 07, 2025
Law Firm Partners United Co-Founder Joins King & Spalding
A Goodwin Procter LLP intellectual property partner who earlier this year co-founded a coalition of BigLaw attorneys challenging the Trump administration's attacks on law firms has jumped to King & Spalding LLP.
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July 07, 2025
Calif. Fails To Pause 23andMe's Sale During Appeal
A Missouri bankruptcy judge on Monday refused California's request that genetic testing company 23andMe Holding Co.'s $305 million Chapter 11 sale be tabled while the Golden State seeks an appeal.
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July 07, 2025
AI Weather Startup Claims Rival Used Trade Secrets
An artificial intelligence-powered weather simulation startup has sued a rival company in California federal court, claiming a consultant took its source code and used it to found the competitor.
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July 07, 2025
Samsung Settles Epic's Claims It Colluded With Google
Epic Games Inc. on Monday voluntarily dropped Samsung from the Fortnite game-maker's latest California federal antitrust suit in light of the parties' settlement, resolving allegations the phone maker colluded with Google to circumvent an order forcing Google to open Android phones to Play Store competition.
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July 07, 2025
Gov't Says OPM Didn't Order Probationary Worker Firings
The Trump administration maintained that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's guidance on probationary federal employees was lawful, telling a California federal judge the OPM did not order agencies to carry out a mass termination of these workers despite the claims of unions representing them.
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July 07, 2025
P&G Beats False Ad Suit Over 'Pure Cotton' Tampax, For Good
The Procter & Gamble Co. permanently beat a proposed class action alleging that it omits the presence of organic fluorine in its Tampax products, after a California federal judge again rejected the plaintiff's testing method for detecting forever chemicals, ruling Monday that the latest iteration of the suit continued to rest on flawed testing.
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July 07, 2025
George Clinton Faces Sanctions Bid In IP Suit
Music executive Armen Boladian has asked a Florida federal court to sanction funk legend George Clinton, saying he was raising issues already adjudicated in their decades-long series of legal disputes.
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July 07, 2025
Some Class Certs. Granted In Amazon Alexa Privacy Suit
A Washington federal judge on Monday granted class certification to plaintiffs with registered Amazon Alexa devices in a suit alleging the devices recorded and stored their conversations, and he denied class certification to those plaintiffs who did not have registered devices.
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July 07, 2025
Pro Se Party Given 'Benefit Of The Doubt' After Conn. AI Filing
An airline worker with ties to American Airlines who is accused of stalking and terrorizing passengers likely used generative artificial intelligence in filings he submitted after defaulting in a federal lawsuit, which include "phantom cases and nonexistent case law," a Connecticut judge has said in a ruling that nevertheless sets aside the defendant's default.
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July 07, 2025
J&J Unit Looks To Wipe Out $442M Catheter Antitrust Loss
Johnson & Johnson health tech unit Biosense Webster has asked a California federal court to throw out Innovative Health's $442 million trial win in a case accusing Biosense of conditioning product support for its cardiac mapping systems on the purchase of cardiac catheters.
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July 07, 2025
Weil Adds DLA Piper Entertainment Transactions Co-Chair
Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP announced Monday it has hired the co-leader of DLA Piper's entertainment transactions practice to enhance its own capacity to handle a wide range of entertainment, sports and media deals.
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July 03, 2025
BofA Beats Class Cert. Bid Over Vacation Pay, For Now
A California federal judge Thursday refused to certify three putative classes of former Bank of America employees who accused the bank of not paying them their accrued, unused vacation time, saying a proposed class representative seemingly wasn't eligible for vacation time accrual.
Expert Analysis
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High Court Birthright Case Could Reshape Judicial Power
Recent arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in cases challenging President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order primarily focused on federal judges’ power to issue nationwide injunctions and suggest that the upcoming decision may fundamentally change how federal courts operate, says Mauni Jalali at Quinn Emanuel.
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Series
Law School's Missed Lessons: Appreciating Civil Procedure
If you’re like me, law school’s often complex and theoretical approach to teaching civil procedure may have contributed to an early struggle with the topic, but when seen from a practical perspective, new lawyers may find they enjoy mastering these rules, says Chloe Villagomez at Foster Garvey.
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Appellate Guidance Needed On California Chatbot Litigation
There is wide variation in how courts are applying the California Invasion of Privacy Act against website owners that allegedly help third parties spy on visitors via chatbots — and the lack of appellate rulings creates uncertainty, especially as these cases move toward the summary judgment stage, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
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Calif. Bar Exam Fiasco Shows Why Attys Must Disclose AI Use
The recent revelation that a handful of questions from the controversial California bar exam administered in February were drafted using generative artificial intelligence demonstrates the continued importance of disclosure for attorneys who use AI tools, say attorneys at Troutman.
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Spoliation Of Evidence Is A Risky And Shortsighted Strategy
Destroying self-incriminating evidence to avoid a large judgment may seem like an attractive option to some defendants, but it is a shortsighted strategy that affords the nonspoliating party potentially case-terminating remedies, and support for a direct assault on the spoliator’s credibility, say attorneys at Mandelbaum Barrett.
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State AGs' Focus On Single-Firm Conduct Is Gaining Traction
Despite changes in administration, both federal antitrust agencies and state attorneys general have shown a trending interest in prosecuting monopolization cases involving single-firm conduct, with federal and state legislative initiatives encouraging and assisting states’ aggressive posture, says Steve Vieux at Bartko Pavia.
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Synopsys-Ansys Merger Augurs FTC's Return To Remedies
The Federal Trade Commission's recent approval of $35 billion merger between Synopsys and Ansys, subject to the divestiture of certain assets, signals a renewed preference for settlements over litigation, if the former can preserve competition and a robust structural remedy is available, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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Justices Widen Gap Between Federal, Calif. Enviro Reviews
While the U.S. Supreme Court's recent opinion in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County, Colorado, narrowed the scope of National Environmental Policy Act reviews, it may have broadened the gulf between reviews conducted under NEPA and those under the California Environmental Quality Act, say attorneys at Hanson Bridgett.
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In 2nd Place, Va. 'Rocket Docket' Remains Old Reliable
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia was again one of the fastest civil trial courts in the nation last year, and an interview with the court’s newest judge provides insights into why it continues to soar, says Robert Tata at Hunton.
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CIPA May Not Be Necessary To Protect Ad Tech Plaintiffs
A California bill designed to protect businesses from advertising technology claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act by amending the act retroactively has been highly contested by various consumer advocacy groups, but other existing law may sufficiently protect any plaintiff who suffers actual harm from such tech, says Justin Donoho at Duane Morris.
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Foreign Sovereign Entities Should Heed 9th Circ. IP Ruling
After the Ninth Circuit recently held that four Chinese state-controlled companies were not immune from criminal indictment for alleged economic espionage, foreign sovereign-controlled entities should assess whether their operations and affiliation with their parent states qualify for sovereign immunity under the common law, say attorneys at Cleary.
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Proposed State AI Rule Ban Could Alter Employer Compliance
A proposal in the congressional budget bill that would ban state and local enforcement of laws and regulations governing artificial intelligence may offer near-term clarity by freezing conflicting rules, but long-term planning would remain difficult for employers seeking safe, lawful AI deployment strategies, say attorneys at Fisher Phillips.
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How Attorneys Can Become Change Agents For Racial Equity
As the administration targets diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and law firms consider pulling back from their programs, lawyers who care about racial equity and justice can employ four strategies to create microspaces of justice, which can then be parlayed into drivers of transformational change, says Susan Sturm at Columbia Law School.
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Opinion
9th Circ. Shopify Decision Gets Personal Jurisdiction Wrong
The Ninth Circuit's recent opinion in Briskin v. Shopify, rejecting the differential targeting requirement for personal jurisdiction, not only deviates from long-standing jurisprudence, but it also significantly expands the reach of internet-based claims under California law, says Matthew Pearson at Womble Bond.
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What Employers Can Learn From 'Your Friends & Neighbors'
The new drama series "Your Friends and Neighbors," follows a hedge fund firm manager who is terminated after an alleged affair with an employee in another department, and his employment struggles can teach us a few lessons about workplace policies, for cause termination and nonsolicitation clauses, says Anita Levian at Levian Law.