California

  • February 28, 2025

    Off The Bench: Trans Ban Recusal Bid, Wemby Spat, Fox Suit

    In this week's Off The Bench, a Colorado federal judge won't recuse himself from a case centering on a transgender athlete over his pronoun use, the sale of a high-profile Victor Wembanyama jersey will go forward despite feverish litigation and a sprawling harassment suit against Fox Sports is shuffled from federal to state court.

  • February 28, 2025

    Shake Shack Sued Over 'Deceptive' Delivery Fees

    Shake Shack Inc. charges its customers "deceptive fees" when they use the fast casual chain's website and app to order food delivery, according to a proposed class action removed to California federal court.

  • February 28, 2025

    Feds Say Tribes Can't Block New Oregon Casino

    The federal government and an Oregon Native American tribe are pushing back on a bid from three other tribes to block the operation of a new casino in Oregon, telling the D.C. Circuit that the tribes filed their emergency motion improperly and are likely to lose on the merits of their case.

  • February 28, 2025

    Aimmune Shareholders' $27.5M Deal Over Sale To Nestle OK'd

    Aimmune Therapeutics Inc. stockholders won preliminary approval in California federal court on Friday for a $27.5 million settlement of their securities fraud class action alleging that Aimmune was falsely undervalued before its merger with Nestlé Health Science SA.

  • February 28, 2025

    Software Engineer Faces Prison For Sharing Info With China

    A Southern California man has pled guilty to downloading sensitive technology from a former employer and using it to market his own competing business to a company in China, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • February 28, 2025

    NY Man Found Guilty Of $7M Crypto Investment Scheme

    A New York man has been found guilty by a California federal jury of 14 counts related to allegations that he stole millions of dollars' worth of investment funds and moved them to sports betting sites located outside the U.S.

  • February 28, 2025

    Online Test Proctor Sued Over Calif. Bar Exam Malfunctions

    ProctorU Inc., which does business as Meazure Learning, was hit with a nationwide class action in California federal court Thursday for its alleged failure to properly administer the state's February bar exam, despite mounting technical issues during the run-up to the test.

  • February 28, 2025

    DA Eyes Type Of Weinstein Evidence That Sank 1st Verdict

    Manhattan prosecutors preparing to retry Harvey Weinstein want a jury to hear about alleged sexual assaults by the jailed Hollywood mogul that are not part of his indictment — the same kind of testimony that doomed his original conviction on appeal.

  • February 28, 2025

    Audit Finds Calif. Bar Backlog Growing Amid Budget Crunch

    With more than one in three attorney discipline cases considered "backlogged" as of late 2023, the State Bar of California must do more to move cases forward while continuing belt-tightening to shore up finances after years of general fund deficits put it into a "strained financial position," the California State Auditor reports.

  • February 28, 2025

    Adobe Hit With Age Bias Claim By Former Sales Manager

    A former Adobe sales manager was sidelined and then fired after reporting a supervisor's comments on his age to human resources, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts state court.

  • February 28, 2025

    GOP Rep. Reintroduces The JUDGES Act

    The chair of the House Judiciary Committee's courts panel has reintroduced a bill to create 66 new and temporary federal judgeships, which former President Joe Biden vetoed at the end of last year.

  • February 28, 2025

    Goodwin, White & Case Build BridgeBio's $949M SPAC Deal

    Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company BridgeBio Oncology Therapeutics, advised by Goodwin Procter LLP, on Friday announced plans to go public via a merger with special purpose acquisition company Helix Acquisition Corp. II, advised by White & Case LLP, in a deal that gives the combined business an implied pro forma enterprise value of $949 million.

  • February 28, 2025

    Calif. Man To Admit $1.2M Stan Lee Merch Tax Fraud

    A California man has agreed to plead guilty to filing false tax returns related to $1.2 million in income he made from selling memorabilia signed by late Marvel Comics writer and publisher Stan Lee.

  • February 27, 2025

    Split 9th Circ. Won't Let ClassPass Arbitrate Auto-Renew Fight

    A split Ninth Circuit panel Thursday refused to send a proposed class action challenging ClassPass' subscription auto-renewal practices to arbitration, with the majority concluding that its online notices are too "muddled" while a dissenting judge slammed the majority's opinion for purportedly sowing "great uncertainty" in what constitutes a conspicuous notice.

  • February 27, 2025

    Ford's Electric Mustang Can Trap Occupants, Drivers Say

    The Ford Motor Co.'s electric Mustang's electronically latched doors could pose a significant danger and trap the car's occupants in the event of a battery failure or loss of power to the vehicle, according to a proposed class action filed Thursday in California federal court.

  • February 27, 2025

    Meta's Held-Back Docs In AI Suit Merit Discovery, Authors Say

    The California federal judge overseeing a proposed class action claiming Meta Platforms Inc. is using copyrighted material to train its large language model product said Thursday he will consider allowing the author plaintiffs more discovery in response to the tech giant's assertion that it had "inadvertently" held back up some 18,000 documents.

  • February 27, 2025

    States Say DOD Transgender Ban Puts Public Safety At Risk

    Twenty-one states on Wednesday threw their support behind transgender service members and human rights organizations challenging the Trump administration's executive order banning transgender people from serving in the military, arguing that it will harm their efforts to protect their communities.

  • February 27, 2025

    Apple Falsely Touted Watches As 'Carbon Neutral,' Buyers Say

    Apple Watch purchasers on Wednesday lodged a proposed class action in California federal court, claiming that the tech giant marketed various smartwatch products as "carbon neutral" despite Apple not actually providing "genuine, additional carbon reductions."

  • February 27, 2025

    PennyMac Can't Avoid Investors' Suit Over Post-Libor Rate

    A California federal judge has ruled PennyMac's mortgage investment arm must face a suit accusing it of using last year's discontinuation of Libor to unlawfully lock in a lower dividend for some of its preferred stock, saying the plaintiffs have adequately pled that the company violated the LIBOR Act when it issued dividends at a fixed rate.

  • February 27, 2025

    Safeway Peanut Butter Cookies Caused Death, Suit Says

    Albertsons and Safeway are facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of an elderly Washington woman who allegedly bought supermarket cookies mislabeled as oatmeal raisin that contained undeclared peanuts, which triggered a fatal allergic reaction.

  • February 27, 2025

    Food Startup Owes $575K In TM Fight With Jaden Smith's Co.

    A disagreement over how food startup Eat Just capitalized on the word "Just" in branding will cost it over half a million dollars after a California federal court decided its conduct went against the company's agreement with the Just Water brand started by celebrity Jaden Smith and his actor dad, Will Smith.

  • February 27, 2025

    SEC Says Meme Coins Are Not Securities

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff declared Thursday that so-called meme coins do not fall under the agency's jurisdiction and that purchasers of the coins should not expect to be protected by federal securities laws.

  • February 27, 2025

    Artist Immediately Knew 'Moana' Was A Ripoff, Jury Hears

    An artist testified in California federal court Thursday that he was "shocked" upon taking his stepson to see "Moana" in a movie theater in 2016, saying he was certain the first time he saw the blockbuster film that The Walt Disney Co. had copied his own animated work.

  • February 27, 2025

    Alsup Halts 'Illegal' Firings Of Probationary Federal Workers

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday temporarily blocked the mass firings of probationary federal employees ordered by President Donald Trump's administration, determining that the Office of Personnel Management illegally directed government agencies to terminate the probationary employees without authority to do so from Congress.

  • February 27, 2025

    9th Circ. Partially Upholds Ruling In Ariz. Voting Rights Row

    A Ninth Circuit panel upheld a lower court's ruling that certain provisions of two Republican-backed Arizona voting laws requiring residents to provide proof of citizenship to vote by mail and in presidential elections violated federal law, saying several of the measures are examples of voter suppression.

Expert Analysis

  • Netflix Dispute May Alter 'Source' In TM Fair-Use Analysis

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    ​The Ninth Circuit’s upcoming decision in Hara v. Netflix​, about what it means to be source-identifying​, could change how the Rogers defense protects expressive works that utilize trademarks in a creative fashion, says Sara Gold at Gold IP.

  • Why State Captive Audience Laws Matter After NLRB Decision

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    As employers focus on complying with the National Labor Relations Board's new position that captive audience meetings violate federal labor law, they should also be careful not to overlook state captive audience laws that prohibit additional types of company meetings and communications, says Karla Grossenbacher at Seyfarth.

  • How Litigation, Supply Chains Buffeted Offshore Wind In 2024

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    U.S. offshore wind developers continue to face a range of challenges — including litigation brought by local communities and interest groups, ongoing supply chain issues, and a lack of interconnection and transmission infrastructure — in addition to uncertainty surrounding federal energy policy under the second Trump administration, say attorneys at Liskow & Lewis.

  • What Bisphenol S Prop 65 Listing Will Mean For Industry

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    The imminent addition of bisphenol S — a chemical used in millions of products — to California's Proposition 65 list will have sweeping compliance and litigation implications for companies in the retail, food and beverage, paper, manufacturing and personal care product industries, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • The Malpractice Perils Of Elder Abuse Liability

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    Recent cases show that the circumstances under which an attorney may be sued for financial elder abuse remain unsettled, but practitioners can avoid these malpractice claims altogether by taking proactive steps, like documenting the process of evaluating a client's directives under appropriate standards, says Edward Donohue at Hinshaw & Culbertson.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Note 3 Simple Types Of Legal Complexity

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    Cases can appear complex for several reasons — due to the number of issues, the volume of factual and evidentiary sources, and the sophistication of those sources — but the same basic technique can help lawyers tame their arguments into a simple and persuasive message, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • Permitting, Offtake Among Offshore Wind Challenges In 2024

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    Although federal offshore wind development started to pick up this year, many challenges to the industry became apparent as well — including slow federal permitting, the pitfalls of restarting permits after changes in project status, and the difficulties of negotiating economically viable offtake agreements, say attorneys at Liskow & Lewis.

  • Series

    Gardening Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Beyond its practical and therapeutic benefits, gardening has bolstered important attributes that also apply to my litigation practice, including persistence, patience, grit and authenticity, says Christopher Viceconte at Gibbons.

  • Nevada Justices Could Expand Scope Of Subrogation Claims

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    The Nevada Supreme Court's recent decision to hear North River Insurance v. James River Insurance could expand the scope of equitable subrogation claims in the state by aligning with the California standard, which doesn't require excess insurers to demonstrate damages, says Daniel Heidtke at Duane Morris.

  • Federal Embrace Of Crypto Regs Won't Lower State Hurdles

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    Even if the incoming presidential administration and next Congress focus on creating clearer federal regulatory frameworks for the cryptocurrency sector, companies bringing digital asset products and services to the market will still face significant state-level barriers, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • And Now A Word From The Panel: Ballpark Lessons For MDLs

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    The baseball offseason has provided some time to ponder how multidistrict litigation life resembles the national pastime, including with respect to home-field advantage, major television markets and setting records, says Alan Rothman at Sidley.

  • What New Calif. Law Means For Cannabis Lounges

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    With a recently enacted California law authorizing licensed cannabis retailers and microbusinesses to prepare and sell noncannabis food and beverages, the door opens for a more sustainable business model — but challenges related to costs and liability remain, says Tracy Gallegos at Duane Morris.

  • Litigation Inspiration: Reframing Document Review

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    For attorneys — new ones especially — there is much fulfillment to find in document review by reflecting on how important, interesting and pleasant it can be, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.

  • What Fed. Circ. Ruling Means For Patent Case Dismissals

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    ​​​​​​​The Federal Circuit's recent decision in UTTO v. Metrotech is significant because it specifically authorizes district courts to dismiss patent infringement lawsuits without a separate Markman hearing, but only when the meaning of a claim term is clear and case-dispositive, says Peter Gergely at Merchant & Gould.

  • 2 Cases Show DAOs May Face Increasing Legal Scrutiny

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    Two ongoing cases that recently survived motions to dismiss in California federal courts concerning Compound DAO and Lido DAO threaten to expand the potential liability for activity attributed to decentralized autonomous organizations — and to indirectly create liability for their participants, say attorneys at Cahill Gordon.

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