California

  • September 24, 2026

    California Powerhouse: Morrison Foerster

    Morrison Foerster LLP planted roots in California not long after the state joined the Union, and it has continued to cultivate its reputation as an innovative adviser through this past year, leading SoftBank's historic $122 billion OpenAI financing and guiding Sumitomo Forestry Co.'s $4.5 billion acquisition of Tri Pointe Homes.

  • September 24, 2026

    9th Circ. Reinstates Vax Objector's Religious Bias Case

    The Ninth Circuit on Sept. 24 reopened a nurse's lawsuit alleging an Oregon hospital unlawfully put her on unpaid leave rather than accommodate her religious objection to its COVID-19 vaccine mandate, faulting the trial court for overlooking a letter in which she explained why she wanted an exemption.

  • September 24, 2026

    Alston & Bird Adds 2 Ex-Loeb & Loeb Commercial Litigators

    Alston & Bird LLP has added two commercial litigators in California previously with Loeb & Loeb LLP who specialize in business disputes, the firm announced Thursday.

  • September 23, 2026

    NM Offers Infernal Literature Lesson In Meta Trial Closing

    New Mexico wrapped its data privacy trial against Meta on Wednesday by likening the social media company's alleged habitual lying about data protection to the worst of sins in Dante's "Inferno," asking the jury, "Does lying matter?"

  • September 23, 2026

    9th Circ. Backs Delta Immunity Over In-Flight Restraint

    Airlines are broadly immune from civil litigation when they report to law enforcement a passenger behaving suspiciously, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday, ending litigation by a passenger who secured a $7 million verdict against Delta Air Lines after a jury found he had not behaved suspiciously and that flight staff had caused him to be injured.

  • September 23, 2026

    Oakland Beats ADA Challenge To Rent Control Program

    Oakland city officials beat a proposed class action alleging its rent control program discriminatorily excludes tenants with mobility disabilities since few units under the program are accessible, after a California federal judge said Wednesday there are other options that could address disparate impacts without violating the state's rent control law.

  • September 23, 2026

    Google MDL Coverage Suit Belongs In Calif., Del. Judge Rules

    A Delaware state judge has stayed a lawsuit by American International Group subsidiaries seeking a declaration that they're not liable for covering Google's defense costs tied to social-media addiction multidistrict litigation, finding the parties must litigate in California where Google filed its own coverage suit weeks before the insurers.

  • September 23, 2026

    Calif. Appeals Court Revives Antitrust Suit Against Claritev

    A California state appeals court held in a published opinion that health insurer reimbursements for services are prices that, if fixed or tampered with, are subject to antitrust scrutiny, reviving a lawsuit that accused MultiPlan Corp. of violating antitrust law through pricing tools used by health insurance providers.

  • September 23, 2026

    Buyers Defend DRAM Price-Fixing Case Against Chipmakers

    Buyers are defending a proposed class action in California federal court that accuses Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix of conspiring to restrict supplies of dynamic random access memory, arguing the companies increased prices by nearly 700% over three years.

  • September 23, 2026

    JPMorgan Can't Scrap $4.25M Award Over Super Bowl Food

    A California federal judge has mostly denied JPMorgan's bid to vacate a $4.25 million arbitration award for a former wealth manager who was fired for expensing $642.40 worth of food for a Super Bowl party, finding vacatur isn't warranted, even if JPMorgan raised "serious challenges."

  • September 23, 2026

    9th Circ. Grounds Suit Over Wash. Airport Flight Path Pollution

    A Ninth Circuit panel said Wednesday that a provision of the Clean Air Act limiting state regulation of aircraft emissions is enough to extinguish a group of Washington residents' proposed class action against Delta Air Lines, Alaska Airlines and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport's operator over alleged flight path pollution.

  • September 23, 2026

    Blue Shield Still Facing Therapy 'Ghost Network' Suit

    A California federal judge ruled Wednesday that Blue Shield of California must face the majority of claims brought in subscribers' proposed class action alleging the insurer maintained a "ghost network" of mental-health providers that didn't exist or accept new patients, saying the suit adequately claims contract terms were not met.

  • September 23, 2026

    Tech CEO Hid Russian Ties To Win Gov't Contracts, Feds Say

    The CEO of Virginia-based Oxygen Forensics, which sought contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense and other government agencies, claimed the software company was completely American-owned when it was actually controlled by a group of Russian nationals, the U.S. Department of Justice said Wednesday.

  • September 23, 2026

    9th Circ. Won't Rehear Klamath Project ESA Ruling

    The Ninth Circuit said Wednesday it won't disturb a divided three-judge panel's ruling affirming that a federal regulator must abide by the Endangered Species Act's interagency consultation requirements as it operates a water management project in northern California and southern Oregon.

  • September 23, 2026

    Wash. Judge Blocks Ed. Dept. Mental Health Grant Cuts

    A Washington federal judge preliminarily enjoined the U.S. Education Department from terminating up to $1 billion in K–12 mental health grants serving 15 states, finding states provided sufficient evidence that the agency was planning to unlawfully cut those grants.

  • September 23, 2026

    9th Circ. Rejects Squatter's-Rights Claim On Dead Baby's Name

    Walter Glenn Primrose testified at trial that he stole a dead baby's name to escape debt and threats in the 1980s and used it for three decades — even joining the U.S. Coast Guard and becoming a defense contractor — before his arrest and convictions. This week, the Ninth Circuit rejected Primrose's novel claim that his identity theft convictions can't stand because he has squatter's rights over the infant's identity.

  • September 23, 2026

    DOJ Partially Backs Apple In Epic High Court Contempt Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice told the U.S. Supreme Court in an amicus brief that the Ninth Circuit wrongly faulted Apple for charging a 27% commission on transactions linked out from apps, but it backed other parts of the California federal court's contempt order won by Epic Games.

  • September 23, 2026

    Sam Smith Can't Shimmy Out Of 'Dancing' Copyright Suit

    A California federal judge will not throw out a lawsuit accusing pop singers Sam Smith and Normani of copying another song in their 2019 hit "Dancing With a Stranger," saying there were factual issues over the alleged similarity of the songs.

  • September 23, 2026

    Crypto Co. Wins Bid To Send $100M RICO Suit To Arbitration

    A California federal court has granted data cloud platform Cerebellum Networks Inc.'s motion to compel arbitration in a former employee's $100 million suit accusing company executives of running a pump-and-dump cryptocurrency fraud scheme.

  • September 23, 2026

    Ohtani Ball Holder Can Add Claim For $4.4M From Sale

    A Florida judge said Wednesday he would reopen pleadings in a three-way fight over a record-breaking home run ball by baseball star Shohei Ohtani to allow the defendant — the man who walked out with the ball — to add a claim for ownership of the ball.

  • September 23, 2026

    'Hanging In There' Doesn't Ax Disability Claim, 9th Circ. Says

    "Hanging in there" and working through the pain of a worsening disability is not a reason to reject the testimony of someone seeking Social Security benefits, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

  • September 23, 2026

    Roblox, Discord Seek To Compel Arbitration In Abuse MDL

    Roblox and Discord urged a California federal judge Tuesday to send bellwether claims brought by children in a sexual exploitation multidistrict litigation to arbitration, arguing that a federal law protecting sexual assault plaintiffs from forced arbitration does not apply to allegations that online platforms enabled abuse by third-party users.

  • September 23, 2026

    NY Judge Dismisses States' DOGE Treasury Data Access Suit

    A New York federal judge Wednesday tossed several states' lawsuit that challenged Department of Government Efficiency staff access to U.S. Department of the Treasury data, saying DOGE's dissolution rendered the states' access claims moot and that they failed to allege that any federal funding due to them was ultimately canceled.

  • September 23, 2026

    Oura Rings Lack Tech To Accurately Track Sleep, Suit Says

    Oura Inc. is falsely marketing its wearable Oura Rings as able to accurately track sleep stages, despite the rings only making predictions based on indirect signals that studies have found to be severely inaccurate, alleges a proposed class action filed Tuesday in California federal court.

  • September 23, 2026

    California Powerhouse: Knobbe Martens

    California is where, for many, ideas become reality, and Knobbe Martens has built its reputation on protecting such innovation, securing more than $1 billion in jury awards this past year for its clients in the state, including $634 million in damages in litigation against Apple and $381 million from medical device behemoth Medtronic.

Expert Analysis

  • Looking Beyond Calif. Climate Laws As NY Bills Advance

    Author Photo

    California's climate disclosure legislation has made emissions and risk reporting a practical reality — and now that New York is working on its own climate disclosure bills, companies must confront a future in which compliance systems will need to be ready for multiple states' reporting regimes, says Thierry Montoya at FBT Gibbons.

  • 5 Rules In 10 Weeks: Inside Genius Act's Implementation Blitz

    Author Photo

    Regulators have proposed five Genius Act rules in a striking span of 10 weeks, building a stablecoin framework that, with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency at its operational center, will shape oversight and force issuers, banks and fintechs to take action as deadlines approach, say attorneys at Cahill.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

    Author Photo

    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

    Author Photo

    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

    Author Photo

    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • A Framework For Habeas Relief After 5th Circ. Bond Ruling

    Author Photo

    Following the Fifth Circuit’s recent Buenrostro-Mendez v. Bondi decision foreclosing statutory bond for detained nonimmigrants not deemed admitted to the U.S., lawyers should adopt a framework that requests habeas relief pursuant to the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause, says Kemal Hepsen at Mandamus Lawyers.

  • Startup Founder Disputes Increasingly Turn On Governance

    Author Photo

    Recent Delaware developments suggest that as courts place increasing emphasis on board process, independence and oversight in founder-led startups, the growing intersection of governance, technology risk and investor oversight is accelerating both the emergence and escalation of founder disputes, says mediator Frank Burke.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

    Author Photo

    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Sentencing Tips For Defending Crypto Conspiracy Cases

    Author Photo

    The sentencing of Evan Tangeman to 70 months in federal prison for laundering money in a cryptocurrency conspiracy illustrates that defense attorneys representing clients in multidefendant crypto cases need to understand the mechanics of conspiracy liability, loss attribution and restitution exposure before they reach the sentencing table, says Joseph De Gregorio at Sentencing Advocacy.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

    Author Photo

    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Nexstar Offers A Cautionary Tale On State-Level Deal Scrutiny

    Author Photo

    State-enforcement challenges to the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger remind legal practitioners that federal approval isn't always sufficient to deliver certainty on closing, integration and timetable assumptions, says Brett Story at Britehorn Securities.

  • How 'Bundling' Enforcement Is Parsing Efficiency, Access

    Author Photo

    Recent antitrust enforcement actions have taken a selective view of companies' bundling of products or services — challenging it when it shuts out rivals, but tolerating it when it creates efficient scale — making the real test now less about lower prices than about whether competition is being blocked, says attorney Alan Kusinitz.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

    Author Photo

    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • Operational AI Washing: A New Securities Class Action

    Author Photo

    In rising claims of operational AI washing — plaintiffs alleging that artificial intelligence was invoked to explain corporate business decisions in ways that may obscure underlying financial distress — earnings calls, restructuring disclosures and board-level communications will serve as key defense evidence, say attorneys at Akerman.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the California archive.