California

  • June 24, 2025

    Anthropic Can Train AI On Books But Faces Trial On Pirating

    A California federal judge said artificial intelligence firm Anthropic can use books to train its LLM under the principle of fair use, but said the company would go to trial against a group of authors over the storage of millions of pirated books.

  • June 24, 2025

    Pot Dispatcher Can't Upend Co-Worker's $400K Wage Deal

    A California appeals court has upheld a $400,000 wage-and-hour settlement between a cannabis delivery driver and The Highest Craft LLC, finding that a dispatcher whose claims are also covered under the settlement failed to show the deal was unfair or insufficiently investigated.

  • June 24, 2025

    Father Sues Truck Manufacturer Over Son's Death From Heat

    The father of a delivery driver is suing truck manufacturer Morgan Olson LLC in Michigan federal court, alleging that its trucks are defectively designed with cargo compartments without any climate control and that the high temperatures in the trucks led to his son's death.

  • June 24, 2025

    Pillsbury Adds Goodwin Venture Capital Ace In San Francisco

    Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP continues adding to its investment funds team, announcing Monday it is bringing in a Goodwin Procter LLP venture capital expert as a partner in its San Francisco and Silicon Valley offices.

  • June 23, 2025

    Deep-Sea Mining Co. Beats Investors' Accounting Fraud Suit

    A California federal judge has tossed an investor suit accusing deep sea miner The Metals Co. Inc. and its top brass of flawed accounting related to a strategic partnership, saying the plaintiffs failed to adequately plead the challenged statements were false or that the defendants acted with knowledge of wrongdoing.

  • June 23, 2025

    Judge Lets Trimmed Crocs Shrinkage Suit Proceed

    Consumers who sued Crocs Inc. claiming their shoes shrank under normal heat and exposure to the sun saw their claims partially trimmed by a California federal judge, who said the buyers haven't pointed to specific ads that say the footwear is made for sunny days.

  • June 23, 2025

    Ex-CEO Of CBD Water Co. Must Face Pump-And-Dump Case

    The former CEO of a cannabis-infused water company and a stockholder must face all claims made in a federal indictment accusing them of artificially inflating company shares so they could sell them for a profit, an Ohio federal judge ruled, saying the government has properly alleged a single conspiracy.

  • June 23, 2025

    9th Circ. Revives Antitrust Counterclaims Against CoStar

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday revived counterclaims accusing CoStar of monopolizing commercial real estate information markets in the company's case accusing a rival of engaging in "industrial-scale" copyright infringement.

  • June 23, 2025

    Olaplex Cites Slack Ruling In Attempt To Curtail Investor Suit

    Hair care brand Olaplex is urging a California federal judge not to certify a class of investors who allege the company failed to flag a regulatory risk ahead of its initial public offering, arguing that "at a minimum" the proposed class should be narrowed under the rubric of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 Slack decision.

  • June 23, 2025

    X Nears Deal In Contract, Antitrust Fight With Data Scraper

    A California federal judge overseeing litigation launched by X Corp. accusing data scraper Bright Data Ltd. of improperly accessing its servers granted the parties' request to stay the case after receiving a joint stipulation stating they'd reached a settlement in principle and were "working diligently" to finalize the deal.

  • June 23, 2025

    Mullen Auto Investors' $7.25M Settlement Gets Final OK

    A California federal judge has granted final approval to a $7.3 million settlement between Mullen Automotive Inc. and a class of its investors that alleged the company made misrepresentations about its revenues and order volumes to inflate share prices ahead of a merger.

  • June 23, 2025

    Ontrak Founder Gets 3½ Years In Novel Insider Trading Case

    A California federal judge sentenced Ontrak Inc. founder Terren Peizer to 3½ years in prison Monday, following a first-of-its-kind insider trading conviction on accusations that he based a $20 million share sale on material nonpublic information that his health technology company was about to lose its biggest client, Cigna. 

  • June 23, 2025

    9th Circ. Backs $26M Fraud Penalty Against Importer

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld a $26 million tripled fraud verdict against a pipe importer over allegations it made false statements on customs forms to avoid paying tariffs on some imports from China, rejecting the company's argument that the Tariff Act leaves no room to invoke the False Claims Act.

  • June 23, 2025

    Calif. Property Co. Denied Early Win In Defect Coverage Suit

    A California federal court refused to hand a partial win to the owner of a Brentwood retirement community seeking excess coverage for an underlying settlement stemming from homeowners' construction defect claims, saying genuine issues of fact exist as to whether the claims constitute "suits" under the policy.

  • June 23, 2025

    Western Digital Gets $553M Patent Judgment Slashed To $1

    A California federal judge has agreed to wipe out a $553 million verdict against Western Digital for infringing a SPEX Technologies Inc. data security patent, instead finding that Western Digital owes just $1, according to an order docketed Monday.

  • June 23, 2025

    9th Circ. Revives False Ad Suit Over 'Zero Calorie' Supplement

    The Ninth Circuit on Monday reinstated a proposed class action claiming that ProSupps' dietary supplement powder products are mislabeled as containing zero calories and zero carbohydrates, in violation of California consumer protection laws, after ruling that the suit alleges enough facts to avoid preemption by the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. 

  • June 23, 2025

    Fubo Streamers Demand Own Attys In Disney Suit Settlement

    Subscribers to the Fubo streaming service asked a California federal judge to name them and their attorney the leads in the recent proposed settlement with Disney over the carriage fees for its sports streaming service, and to be "wary" of a motion to appoint the attorney for the two other classes of streaming customers as lead counsel.

  • June 23, 2025

    SAP Unlikely To Get Celonis Suit Nixed, But Antitrust Claims Iffy

    A California federal judge indicated Monday that he wasn't ready to completely toss technology company Celonis' suit alleging that software giant SAP is pushing it out of a market for business process analysis services but said he was having a "hard time wrapping my brain around your antitrust allegations."

  • June 23, 2025

    Illinois Judge OKs CalTech Aid-Fixing Deal Amid Ethics Claim

    An Illinois federal judge gave his final blessing Monday to a $16 million settlement between California Institute of Technology and students who claimed the university conspired to limit financial aid offerings, telling a class counsel associate to bring his free allocation concerns in a motion rather than a letter.

  • June 23, 2025

    Kardashian Chef Offered Adderall Instead Of Breaks, Suit Says

    A chef who works with celebrities including the Kardashian family refused to pay overtime despite requiring employees to work 12-hour days and offered Adderall instead of breaks if workers complained they were tired, a former assistant told a California state court.

  • June 23, 2025

    Buchalter Adds Trademark Pro From Hanson Bridgett In SF

    Buchalter PC is expanding its intellectual property team, bringing in a Hanson Bridgett LLP trademark and copyright specialist as shareholder in its San Francisco office.

  • June 23, 2025

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    The Delaware Supreme Court reversed a year-old $199 million judgment against TransCanada in a suit challenging a merger that occurred nearly a decade ago, Aspen Technology Inc. was hit with another suit over its pending $7.2 billion merger with Emerson Electric, and Nielson Holdings Ltd. secured a temporary restraining order against its spinoff. In case you missed it, here's the latest from the Delaware Chancery Court.

  • June 23, 2025

    Asus Beats Lenovo's Patent-Based Bid To Bar Laptop Imports

    The U.S. International Trade Commission has terminated a case related to Chinese computer firm Lenovo's efforts to use patent laws to block Taiwanese electronics-maker Asus from importing some of its Zenbook laptops.

  • June 23, 2025

    Wealthfront Joins IPO Pipeline With Confidential Filing

    Digital wealth management firm Wealthfront Corp. said Monday that it confidentially filed for an initial public offering, marking a first step toward going public as more technology firms join a recovering IPO pipeline.

  • June 23, 2025

    States Back PBS, NPR In Fight Against Trump Broadcast Cuts

    A coalition of 20 states and the District of Columbia backed a pair of motions from the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio Inc. seeking pretrial wins in their challenges to President Donald Trump's executive order that purports to revoke their funding, arguing that only Congress can pull that money.

Expert Analysis

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Becoming A Firmwide MVP

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    Though lawyers don't have a neat metric like baseball players for measuring the value they contribute to their organizations, the sooner new attorneys learn skills frequently skipped in law school — like networking, marketing, client development and case evaluation — the more valuable, and less replaceable, they will be, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.

  • 9th Circ. Ruling Clarifies Derivative Suit Representation Test

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    The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling in Bigfoot Ventures v. Knighton clarifies the test used to assess the adequacy of a plaintiff's representation in a shareholder derivative action, and will likely prove useful to litigants by ensuring that courts can fully examine all relevant circumstances, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • How Mass Arbitration Defense Strategies Have Fared In Court

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    As businesses face consumers who leverage arbitration agreements to compel mass arbitration, companies are trying defense strategies like batching arbitration cases to reduce costs, and escaping specific mass arbitrations without rejecting the process completely, with varying results in the courtroom, say attorneys at Montgomery McCracken.

  • FTC Focus: Interlocking Directorate Enforcement May Persist

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    Though the Federal Trade Commission under Chair Andrew Ferguson seems likely to adopt a pro-business approach to antitrust enforcement, his endorsement of broader liability for officers or directors who illegally sit on boards of competing corporations signals that businesses should not expect board-level antitrust scrutiny to slacken, says Timothy Burroughs at Proskauer.

  • Calif. Climate Superfund Bill Faces Legal, Technical Hurdles

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    California could soon join other states in sending the fossil fuel industry a massive bill for the costs of coping with climate change — but its pending climate Superfund legislation, if enacted, is certain to face legal pushback and daunting implementation challenges, says Donald Sobelman at Farella Braun.

  • How Cos. Can Navigate Risks Of New Cartel Terrorist Labels

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    The Trump administration’s recent designation of eight drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations gives rise to new criminal and civil liabilities for companies that are unwittingly exposed to cartel activity, but businesses can mitigate such risks in a few key ways, say attorneys at Steptoe.

  • 5 Tribunals' Rules To Help Patent Litigators Avoid AI Disasters

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    Tech-savvy patent litigators are uniquely poised to stay current on the latest developments in artificial intelligence, such that courts may have even higher expectations for their compliance with AI rules, including the standing orders of several patent-heavy fora, say attorneys at Finnegan.

  • Bid Protest Spotlight: Size, Supply Schedules, SINs

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    In this month's bid protest roundup, Alissandra McCann at MoFo examines three recent decisions, two of which offer helpful reminders for U.S. General Services Administration schedule holders drafting blanket purchase agreement proposals, and one for small-business joint ventures to avoid running afoul of the U.S. Small Business Administration's two-year rule.

  • $38M Law Firm Settlement Highlights 'Unworthy Client' Perils

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    A recent settlement of claims against law firm Eckert Seamans for allegedly abetting a Ponzi scheme underscores the continuing threat of clients who seek to exploit their lawyers in perpetrating fraud, and the critical importance of preemptive measures to avoid these clients, say attorneys at Lockton Companies.

  • Maintaining Legal Compliance For GenAI In Life Sciences

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    As companies continue to implement generative artificial intelligence to enhance all phases of drug discovery, they must remain mindful of legal, regulatory and practical considerations as best practices in this space emerge and evolve, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • Series

    Teaching Business Law Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Teaching business law to college students has rekindled my sense of purpose as a lawyer — I am more mindful of the importance of the rule of law and the benefits of our common law system, which helps me maintain a clearer perspective on work, says David Feldman at Feldman Legal Advisors.

  • Choosing A Road To Autonomous Vehicle Compliance

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    As autonomous vehicle manufacturers navigate the complex U.S. regulatory landscape, they may opt for different approaches to following federal, state and local rules and laws, as they balance the tradeoffs between innovation, compliance and speed of deployment, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Navigating The Expanding Frontier Of Premerger Notice Laws

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    Washington's newly enacted law requiring premerger notification to state enforcers builds upon a growing trend of state scrutiny into transactions in the healthcare sector and beyond, and may inspire other states to enact similar legislation, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • Jurisdictional Issues At Play In 9th Circ.'s FCA Trade Case

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    A decision by the Ninth Circuit in Island Industries v. Sigma Corp. could result in the U.S. Court of International Trade’s exclusive jurisdiction over trade-related FCA cases, a big shift in the enforcement landscape just as tariffs take center stage in trade policy, say attorneys at Haynes Boone.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Mastering Discovery

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    The discovery process and the rules that govern it are often absent from law school curricula, but developing a solid grasp of the particulars can give any new attorney a leg up in their practice, says Jordan Davies at Knowles Gallant.

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