California

  • July 18, 2025

    Franchisee Stole Biz Model, College Advising Co. Says

    A college consulting company accused a former franchisee of doing business under false pretenses, poaching the company's proprietary methods and walking away to start a new venture, according to a complaint filed in North Carolina federal court.

  • July 18, 2025

    Cannabis Edibles Maker Accused Of Hiding Prop. 65 Warnings

    A California resident is suing a Los Angeles cannabis-infused edibles maker, claiming its peel-back product labels deliberately hide the state-required Proposition 65 warning at the time of purchase, in the second private enforcement action filed by the plaintiff this year.

  • July 18, 2025

    Apple Says Tech Analyst, YouTuber Conspired To Leak IOS 26

    A tech product analyst improperly accessed a former Apple employee's iPhone used for product development and conspired with a YouTuber to publicly leak details of the yet-to-be-released iOS 26 operating system, Apple Inc. said in a suit filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court.

  • July 18, 2025

    Judge Unsure Of Alternatives To Nationwide Birthright Ruling

    A Massachusetts federal judge on Friday wrestled with how the government would implement any alternatives to a nationwide block on President Donald Trump's order limiting birthright citizenship and what type of decision would comply with recent high court precedent.

  • July 18, 2025

    Manaflex Loses Bid To Trim Competitor's Trade Secrets Suit

    A California federal judge has refused to trim circuit technology company CelLink Corp.'s lawsuit alleging that former Tesla employees stole CelLink's trade secrets for the benefit of a competitor one of them founded.

  • July 18, 2025

    Top 5 Energy Decisions Of 2025: A Midyear Report

    A game-changing U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could significantly narrow federal environmental reviews of energy projects punctuated a busy first half of 2025 for the industry in the courts. Here are several court decisions that stood out for energy attorneys in the first half of this year.

  • July 18, 2025

    Seven Months In, Race-Blind Charging Faces Test In Calif.

    In January, California adopted race-blind charging as a statewide policy, after a law passed in 2022 went into effect. Now, seven months into the program's statewide rollout, race-blind charging is showing both promise and limitations.

  • July 18, 2025

    Snake Spotting Voids OK Of Sprawling Calif. Housing Plan

    A federal judge has halted a 314-acre master-planned development in Chico, California, after finding federal officials wrongly concluded in 2020 that the endangered giant garter snake had not been observed on the site despite a sighting of the animal in the area a dozen years prior.

  • July 18, 2025

    9th Circ. Turns Away Wells Fargo's 'Sham' Hiring Appeal

    The Ninth Circuit has said it will not hear Wells Fargo's appeal of an investor lawsuit accusing the company of conducting "sham" job interviews to meet a diversity quota, allowing thousands of shareholders to move forward with their claims as a class.

  • July 18, 2025

    Venture-Backed Medical Tech Biz Heartflow Plans $100M IPO

    Private equity and venture-backed medical technology company Heartflow has unveiled plans to raise up to $100 million in its initial public offering, with law firm O'Melveny & Myers LLP advising the company and Cooley LLP advising the underwriters.

  • July 18, 2025

    Calif. Pot Workers Sue Farm For $1.25M Over Wage Theft

    A group of cannabis trimmers who are citizens of Colombia, Argentina and Spain have sued cultivator Honeydew Farms LLC and its owners in federal court on Thursday, alleging they were not paid the wages promised because the owners believe the foreign-born workers would not be protected by state or federal law.

  • July 17, 2025

    21 States Fight ACA Rule They Say Guts Health Coverage

    A 21-state coalition led by the attorneys general of California, Massachusetts and New Jersey sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday, challenging a new Trump administration rule they say unlawfully undermines access to healthcare under the Affordable Care Act.

  • July 17, 2025

    Facebook Whistleblower Calls Meta Discovery A Smear Job

    Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen on Thursday urged a California federal magistrate judge to limit Meta's discovery in multidistrict litigation over claims that social media is addictive and harmful to children's mental health, saying many of their requests are irrelevant and merely seek to smear her name.

  • July 17, 2025

    LA Ex-Judge Admonished For 'Discourteous,' 'Demeaning' Talk

    California's Commission on Judicial Performance has publicly admonished a retired Los Angeles state judge for a pattern of "discourteous, undignified and impatient" behavior that also involved "demeaning" remarks toward women, findings that the judge said don't reflect "the full complexity of the circumstances."

  • July 17, 2025

    Calif. Tribe Renews $700M Casino Suit With Lobbying Claim

    A D.C. federal judge will let a California tribe amend its suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior for axing its eligibility to run a proposed $700 million casino on new claims that a competing tribe successfully orchestrated a politically influential lobbying campaign.

  • July 17, 2025

    9th Circ. Panel Appears Split On Trump Order Curbing Unions

    A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel appeared divided Thursday on a lower court's ruling that halted enforcement of President Donald Trump's executive order axing labor contracts covering agencies that have "national security" aims, with one judge expressing concern over the order's implications while two questioned if they can second-guess the president's determination.

  • July 17, 2025

    Tesla Driver In Fatal Crash Regularly Ignored Autopilot Alerts

    The Tesla driver who killed a woman in a crash in Florida Keys had regularly ignored warnings from the autopilot software to engage with the vehicle and would stop the car to reset the autopilot rather than drive without, a vehicle accident reconstruction expert told jurors Thursday.

  • July 17, 2025

    Judge Won't Grant Fees In Temporary Protected Status Suit

    A California federal judge rejected a bid by immigrant rights advocates for $3.6 million in attorney fees, saying their preliminary injunction blocking temporary protected status terminations during Trump's first term did not make them the prevailing party because the case ended without a final judgment.

  • July 17, 2025

    'Yellowjackets' Makers Get $108K In Fees In Copyright Suit

    Showtime, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. and the makers of the TV show "Yellowjackets" won $108,000 in attorney fees after earlier this year defeating a copyright suit alleging the program ripped off the 2015 film "Eden."

  • July 17, 2025

    Hitachi Seeks FCC OK For Bay Area Rail Control System

    Hitachi Rail is contracted to update the digital train control system in the Bay Area, but it says that in order to do so it needs the FCC's permission to operate in a slice of spectrum that it normally would not be allowed to. Now the agency is asking how people feel about the request.

  • July 17, 2025

    Stanford Trims Roche IP Suit, But Others Face Most Claims

    Stanford University was let out of all but one claim brought by subsidiaries of F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG over alleged trade secret theft, but a California federal judge allowed most claims to move forward against several Stanford professors and a startup they founded.

  • July 17, 2025

    Calif. Accuses Airbnb Of Price-Gouging During Wildfires

    California accused Airbnb in a state court lawsuit of price-gouging residents of Los Angeles and Ventura counties as the Palisades and Eaton fires raged and in the weeks that followed, despite warnings from the state's attorney general.

  • July 17, 2025

    6 Cases For Patent Attys To Watch In The Second Half Of 2025

    The Federal Circuit is considering major questions about when delays in prosecuting patents become bad faith and whether the acting U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director is legally allowed to apply new rules retroactively. Here's what you need to know about these cases and others that attorneys are keeping an eye on for the rest of the year.

  • July 17, 2025

    Authors Win Cert. In Copyright Suit Against Anthropic

    A California federal judge on Thursday certified a class of copyright owners of books in the online pirate libraries Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror that were downloaded by artificial intelligence firm Anthropic for training its Claude generative text model.

  • July 17, 2025

    5 Things To Know As California Courts Decide On AI Rule

    Fourteen months after California Supreme Court Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero first convened a task force to study potential benefits and risks of using artificial intelligence in the court system, the Judicial Council of California is poised Friday to consider the proposed rules and standards the task force developed.

Expert Analysis

  • Business Takeaways Following CCPA Enforcement Actions

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    Advisories and recent enforcement activity by the California Privacy Protection Agency against Honda and Todd Snyder underscore the agency's enforcement interest in the intersection of data minimization and consumer rights, and could make it more challenging for a business to provide a streamlined consumer rights process, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Compliance Lessons From 1st-Ever Product Safety Sentences

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    A California federal judge’s recent sentencing of two former Gree USA executives in a landmark Consumer Product Safety Act case serves as a reminder of the federal government’s willingness to pursue criminal prosecution of individuals who fail to report safety hazards, as well as companies’ need to strengthen their reporting and compliance programs, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • 9th Circ. Decisions Help Clarify Scope Of Legal Lab Marketing

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    Two Ninth Circuit decisions last week provide a welcome development in clarifying the line between laboratories' legal marketing efforts and undue influence that violates the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act, and offer useful guidance for labs seeking to mitigate enforcement risk, says Joshua Robbins at Buchalter.

  • Feds' Shift On Reputational Risk Raises Questions For Banks

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    While banking regulators' recent retreat from reputational risk narrows the scope of federal oversight in some respects, it also raises practical questions about consistency, reputational management and the evolving political landscape surrounding financial services, say attorneys at Smith Anderson.

  • What 9th Circ. Cracker Barrel Ruling Means For FLSA Cert.

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    The Ninth Circuit's decision in Harrington v. Cracker Barrel suggests a settling of two procedural trends in Fair Labor Standards Act jurisprudence — when to issue notice and where nationwide collectives can be filed — rather than deepening circuit splits, says Rebecca Ojserkis at Cohen Milstein.

  • Defense Lessons From Freshworks' Win In Post-IPO Case

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    A California federal court’s recent decision to grant Freshworks’ summary judgment bid in a proposed investor class action helpfully clarifies two important points for defendants facing postoffering securities claims under Section 11 of the Securities Act, say attorneys at Paul Weiss.

  • 'Loss' Policy Definition Is Key For Noncash Settlements

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    A recent Delaware decision in AMC Entertainment v. XL Specialty Insurance, holding that the definition of loss includes noncash settlement payments, is important to note for policyholders considering other settlement options — like two other class actions that recently settled for vouchers, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • Series

    Playing Mah-Jongg Makes Me A Better Mediator

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    Mah-jongg rewards patience, pattern recognition, adaptability and keen observation, all skills that are invaluable to my role as a mediator, and to all mediating parties, says Marina Corodemus.

  • Tips For Business Users After 2 Key AI Copyright Decisions

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    Because two recent artificial intelligence copyright decisions from the Northern District of California — Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta — came out mostly in favor of the developers using the plaintiffs' works to train large language models, business users should proceed with care, says Chris Wlach at Acxiom.

  • Calif. Air Waivers Fight Fuels Automakers', States' Uncertainty

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    The unprecedented attempt by Congress and the Trump administration to kill the Clean Air Act waivers supporting California's vehicle emissions standards will eventually end up in the U.S. Supreme Court — but meanwhile, vehicle manufacturers, and states following California's standards, are left in limbo, says John Watson at Spencer Fane.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Navigating Client Trauma

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    Law schools don't train students to handle repeated exposure to clients' traumatic experiences, but for litigators practicing in areas like civil rights and personal injury, success depends on the ability to view cases clinically and to recognize when you may need to seek help, says Katie Bennett at Robins Kaplan.

  • Copyright Takeaways From 2 Calif. GenAI Rulings

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    Two California federal court decisions suggest that the fair use defense may protect generative artificial intelligence output, but given the ongoing war between copyright holders and AI platforms, developers should still consider taking steps to reduce legal risk, says Lincoln Essig at Knobbe Martens.

  • Challenging A Class Representative's Adequacy And Typicality

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    Recent cases highlight that a named plaintiff cannot certify a putative class action unless they can meet all the applicable requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, so defendants should consider challenging a plaintiff's ability to meet typicality and adequacy requirements early and often, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

  • 9th Circ. Customs Ruling A Limited Win For FCA Plaintiffs

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    While the decision last month in Island Industries v. Sigma may be welcome news for False Claims Act relators, under binding precedent courts within the Ninth Circuit still do not have jurisdiction to adjudicate customs-based FCA claims pursued by the government, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Opinion

    4 Former Justices Would Likely Frown On Litigation Funding

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    As courts increasingly confront cases involving hidden litigation finance contracts, the jurisprudence of four former U.S. Supreme Court justices establishes a constitutional framework that risks erosion by undisclosed financial interests, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.

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