California

  • April 19, 2024

    9th Circ. Won't Revive J2 Investor's Suit Alleging Insider Deals

    The Ninth Circuit declined Friday to revive a proposed securities fraud class action alleging that J2 Global Inc. hid underperforming acquisitions and dubious investments that benefited company insiders, finding the plaintiff investor did not sufficiently plead scienter as to alleged nondisclosures or that purported misstatements caused his losses.

  • April 19, 2024

    Zurich Insurance Hit With $80M Verdict Over 3 Terminations

    Three former Zurich American Insurance Co. employees were awarded over $80 million by a Sacramento, California, jury that found they were wrongfully terminated for taking unofficial time off that the plaintiffs said was approved by their supervisor. 

  • April 19, 2024

    Student Housing Co. Founder Claims She Was Pushed Out

    A co-founder of a global company formed to provide booking for student housing sued her former colleague in Delaware's Court of Chancery on Friday, alleging a scheme by insiders to push her out of the business and then line up a sale to avoid a judgment after the move's reversal.

  • April 19, 2024

    Protein Powder Co. Can't Boost $10M Trade Dress Award

    Protein powder maker Orgain wasn't able to increase its $10 million jury award it won in a trade dress infringement lawsuit against a rival, with a California federal judge saying she wouldn't give it a "massive windfall."

  • April 19, 2024

    AI Image Cos. Say Artists Offer Little Proof In Copyright Case

    Four companies that make or distribute artificial intelligence software that creates art through prompts have told a California federal court that a proposed class action from artists must end, arguing the plaintiffs still have not shown proof that any of the businesses infringed or induced infringement of copyrighted works.

  • April 19, 2024

    Paramount Says 'Wolfman' Claims In 'Top Gun' Suit Don't Fly

    Paramount Pictures has urged a California federal court to toss a lawsuit from the actor who played Henry "Wolfman" Ruth in the original "Top Gun," saying he cannot claim his image was used in the 2022 sequel without his permission because the movie studio owns all rights to the Wolfman character.

  • April 19, 2024

    J&J Unit Sued Over Defective Knee Replacements

    A woman is suing Johnson & Johnson unit DePuy Orthopaedics in New Jersey federal court, alleging it marketed and sold a faulty knee replacement system that's prone to failing, requiring additional surgery to fix the issue.

  • April 19, 2024

    NYT Inks Revised $2.4M Deal In Auto-Renewal Case

    A class of New York Times readers who sued over the newspaper's automatic subscription renewal charges has asked a Manhattan federal court for initial approval of a roughly $2.4 million settlement, after the Second Circuit shot down an earlier agreement due to concerns about attorney fees.

  • April 19, 2024

    Arnold & Porter Atty Returns To Greenberg Traurig In Calif.

    Greenberg Traurig LLP has rehired a former associate from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP whose practice focuses on a range of environmental litigation dealing with cancer-causing chemicals, plastic pollutants and the laws surrounding their regulation.

  • April 19, 2024

    Antitrust Case Judge Reveals Husband's Ties With Apple

    A New Jersey federal magistrate judge assigned to the U.S. Department of Justice's recent iPhone antitrust case disclosed on Friday that her husband has ties to Apple, but told the parties she does not believe she needs to recuse herself.

  • April 19, 2024

    Off The Bench: NCAA Rules, Trans Athlete Win, NBA Pro's Ban

    In this week's Off The Bench, the NCAA formally lifted restrictions on athletes transferring schools and how they can receive name, image and likeness money, West Virginia's transgender sports ban is dealt a blow by the Fourth Circuit, and betting costs an NBA player his career.

  • April 19, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Cleary, O'Melveny

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Resideo Technologies Inc. announced plans to buy Snap One Holdings Corp., APi Group said it bought an elevator maintenance company, Prysmian said it agreed to purchase Encore Wire, and Sayari said it closed on an investment from TPG.

  • April 19, 2024

    Twitter Can't Sink Age Bias Suit Over Post-Musk Layoffs

    A California federal judge has refused to throw out a former Twitter employee's proposed class action alleging that a wave of layoffs following Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media platform now called X disproportionately pushed out older workers, saying the suit had enough detail to stay in court.

  • April 18, 2024

    'Severe Impact' If HBCUs Paid Athletes, NLRB Judge Told

    A commissioner of an athletic conference for historically black colleges and universities testified Thursday in a hearing before a National Labor Relations Board judge that being forced to pay student-athletes a salary and treat them as employees would have a "severe impact" on those institutions. 

  • April 18, 2024

    Amazon Ignored Labor, IP Laws In AI 'Panic,' Ex-Worker Says

    An artificial intelligence researcher suing Amazon for labor law violations says it disregarded numerous laws in a frantic attempt to catch up to its AI rivals, directing her to ignore copyright laws in developing its large language models and retaliating when her pregnancy leave coincided with a rival's product launch.

  • April 18, 2024

    Ex-Autonomy CEO Wanted Whistleblower Fired, Ex-GC Says

    Former Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch thought a finance department whistleblower was "trying to destroy the company" and wanted him fired, the software company's former U.S. general counsel testified Thursday in a criminal fraud trial over claims Lynch conned HP into buying the British company at an inflated price of $11.7 billion.

  • April 18, 2024

    Citi Can Arbitrate Anti-Armenian Bias Suit, Judge Rules

    Citibank has won its bid to arbitrate proposed class claims that it discriminated against customers with Armenian surnames, as a Los Angeles federal judge found Wednesday that the plaintiff agreed to arbitrate allegations like these when she became a party to her Citibank card agreement.

  • April 18, 2024

    Samsung Gets PTAB To Sink Netlist Patent Claim

    The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has sided with Samsung's arguments that a claim in a patent owned by chipmaker Netlist wasn't valid, after the board already found that an earlier decade-old suit against Google didn't block Samsung's petition.

  • April 18, 2024

    Dunn Can't Nix Fiduciary Breach Charge As Ethics Trial Wraps

    A California state bar judge denied Joseph Dunn's bid at the close of his disciplinary trial Thursday to toss a fiduciary breach charge, rejecting the former state bar executive director's argument that no evidence had been introduced to support the allegation.

  • April 18, 2024

    NFL Can't Call Sunday Ticket Package A 'Luxury' At Trial

    The NFL cannot describe its Sunday Ticket broadcast package as a "luxury" in an upcoming trial over class action antitrust claims that the television bundle is anti-competitive, a California federal judge has ruled.

  • April 18, 2024

    Doximity Faces Investor Suit Over Slashed Revenue Hopes

    Medical professional networking service Doximity Inc., likened to "LinkedIn for doctors," and two of its executives are facing a proposed class action alleging it hurt investors by concealing slowing sales.

  • April 18, 2024

    OCC Fines Sterling Bank's Ex-CEO And SF Giants Owner

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said Thursday that it has issued more fines over a fraud-plagued loan program at Sterling Bank and Trust FSB, ordering a total of $700,000 in penalties for the bank's former CEO and its founder, who is also an owner of the San Francisco Giants.

  • April 18, 2024

    AGs, Google Defend $700M Play Store Deal Ripped By Judge

    A group of state attorneys general and Google defended the proposed $700 million settlement both sides brokered in the states' antitrust suit against the company in December, telling a San Francisco federal judge that the deal is consistent with Ninth Circuit precedent and releases only a limited set of claims against Google for a seven-year period.

  • April 18, 2024

    Oakland Airport Name Change Will Create A Mess, SF Says

    Oakland, California, wants to change its airport's name to San Francisco Bay Oakland International Airport, but the city of San Francisco said in a California federal lawsuit Thursday that the name would not only befuddle travelers but also unlawfully incorporate San Francisco International Airport's name.

  • April 18, 2024

    Coffee Bean Hit With ADA Suit Over Costly Milk Alternatives

    The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf customers hit the coffee chain with a proposed class action Wednesday in California federal court, alleging it discriminates against people with lactose intolerance by requiring consumers to pay a surcharge for dairy-free alternatives.

Expert Analysis

  • Antitrust Ruling Shows Limits Of US Law's Global Reach

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    Antitrust plaintiffs often cite the legislative history of the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act to support application of U.S. antitrust law to alleged injuries abroad, but as a California federal court recognized recently in Figaro v. Apple, the cited history does no such thing, say Daniel Swanson and Eli Lazarus at Gibson Dunn.

  • New Concerns, Same Tune At This Year's SIFMA Conference

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    At this year's Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference on legal developments affecting the financial services industry, government regulators’ emphasis on whistleblowing and AI washing represented a new refrain in an increasingly familiar chorus calling for prompt and thorough corporate cooperation, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Calif. High Court Ruling Has Lessons For Waiving Jury Trials

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    The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in TriCoast Builders v. Fonnegra, denying relief to a contractor that had waived its right to a jury trial, shows that litigants should always post jury fees as soon as possible, and seek writ review if the court denies relief from a waiver, say Steven Fleischman and Nicolas Sonnenburg at Horvitz & Levy.

  • SC Ruling Reinforces All Sums Coverage Trend

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    A South Carolina state court's recent ruling in Covil v. Pennsylvania National is the latest in a series of decisions, dating back to the 2016 New York Court of Appeals ruling in Viking Pump, that reject insurers' pro rata allocation argument, further supporting that all sums coverage is required whenever a loss could be covered under a policy in any other year, say Raymond Mascia and Thomas Dupont at Anderson Kill.

  • What Rescheduling Could Mean For Cannabis Bankruptcies

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    Bankruptcy courts have historically been closed for cannabis-related businesses, but recent case law coupled with a possible reclassification of cannabis provides cautious optimism, say attorneys at Duane Morris.

  • Opinion

    DOJ Press Office Is Not Fulfilling Its Stated Mission

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    The U.S. Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs’ apparent practice of issuing press releases when someone is indicted or convicted, but not when a defendant prevails, undermines its stated mission to disseminate “current, complete and accurate” information, and has negative real-world ramifications, says Sara Kropf at Kropf Moseley.

  • Opinion

    Expanded Detention Will Not Solve Immigration Challenges

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    The recently defeated bipartisan border package included provisions that would increase funding for detention, a costly distraction from reforms like improved adjudication and legal representation that could address legitimate economic and public safety concerns at much lower cost, say Alexandra Dufresne and Kyle Wolf at Cornell University.

  • Opinion

    Neb. Justices Should Weigh IRC Terms In Dividend Tax Case

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    Nebraska’s highest court, which will hear oral arguments in Precision CastParts v. Department of Revenue on April 1, should recognize that the Internal Revenue Code provides key clues to defining “dividends received or deemed to be received,” and therefore limits Nebraska’s tax on foreign-sourced corporate income, says Joseph Schmidt at Ryan.

  • What New Waste Management Laws Signal For The Future

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    Several states have enacted extended producer responsibility and recycling labeling laws that will take effect in the next few years and force manufacturers to take responsibility for the end of life of their products, so companies should closely follow compliance timelines and push to innovate in the area, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

  • Series

    Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.

  • Examining The Arbitration Clause Landscape Amid Risks

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    Amid a new wave of mass arbitrations, recent developments in the courts and from the American Arbitration Association suggest that companies should improve arbitration clause drafting to protect themselves against big-ticket settlements and avoid major potential liability, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • How Activision Ruling Favors M&A Formalities Over Practice

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    The Delaware Chancery Court’s recent nod to a proposed class action, alleging shareholder notice violations in Activision Blizzard’s sale to Microsoft, puts practitioners on notice that customary merger and acquisition market practices do not offer protection from potential liability, say John Stigi and Eugene Choi at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Past CCPA Enforcement Sets Path For Compliance Efforts

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    The California Privacy Protection Agency and the California Attorney General's Office haven't skipped a beat in investigating potential noncompliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act, and six broad issues will continue to dominate the enforcement landscape and inform compliance strategy, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Where 9th Circ. Lowe's Ruling Leaves PAGA Jurisprudence

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    Leah Kennedy and Carolyn Wheeler at Katz Banks discuss the legal landscape and controlling precedent around the Private Attorneys General Act that led to the Ninth Circuit's Johnson v. Lowe's decision last month on individual PAGA wage claims, and explore the open questions that it leaves.

  • Meta Data Scraping Case Has Lessons For Platforms, AI Cos.

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    The California federal court ruling that artificial intelligence company Bright Data's scraping of public data from Meta social media sites does not constitute a breach of contract signals that platforms should review their terms of service and AI companies could face broad implications for their training of algorithms, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

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