Jonathan Bilyk News
Disney wants appeals court to rule it has First Amendment right to fire actors over political beliefs
The Walt Disney Company has asked a federal judge for permission to appeal to a federal appeals court over a judge's ruling that actor Gina Carano can continue her lawsuit against Disney for firing her from "The Mandalorian" TV series over political statements Disney said didn't align with its "values"
Salesforce must face privacy class action over 'intercepted' Kaiser, Rite Aid customer chats
A federal judge said plaintiffs had done enough to show that Salesforce may have violated online privacy laws by allegedly capturing otherwise confidential online customer chat messages involving their clients, Rite Aid and Kaiser Permanente
Judge: Female ex-Twitter workers still can't move ahead with sex discrimination suit over layoffs
A San Francisco federal judge said the lawsuit doesn't do enough to back claims that Elon Musk and his managers discriminated against women when laying off thousands of workers after Musk took over Twitter in late 2022
Federal law doesn't shield Glassdoor from defamation suit over negative employee reviews, judge says
A federal judge in Mississippi has ruled a charter air service can continue suing Glassdoor for allegedly defamatory reviews posted on the site by anonymous ex-employees, rejecting claims that Section 230 should protect Glassdoor from the lawsuit
L.A. must pay PricewaterhouseCoopers $2.5M for impeding PWC's efforts to uncover scheme in water billing lawsuits
The California Supreme Court said a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge didn't exceed his authority to order the city of Los Angeles to pay $2.5 million to PWC for attempting to conceal collusion with lawyers to settle a class action lawsuit over city utility billing overcharges and make PWC foot the bill
Google can't use 'browser agnosticism' to sidestep Chrome users' sync privacy class action
A federal appeals panel says an Oakland federal judge asked the wrong legal questions in deciding that Google could pull the plug on class action lawsuits accusing the tech giant of violating state and federal privacy laws by collecting browsing history and other info about Chrome users, allegedly without consent
Lawsuits: New CA tax law unconstitutional try to grab money from taxpayers for income earned in the past
Two lawsuits are challenging the passage of SB167, a new law that Dems say is a "clarification" of existing law, but that taxpayers say would give the state sweeping powers to force taxpayers to pay billions of dollars in taxes for income they earned decades in the past
CA appeals court: Prop 5 ballot language won't mislead voters into OKing easier property tax hikes
A California state appellate court overruled a Sacramento County Superior Court judge who had agreed the ballot language drafted by the California Attorney General's office for Prop 5 could dupe voters by providing a description that left out crucial details
Appeals panel: RFK can't sue Meta for censoring Covid vax posts, because Meta agreed with Biden-Harris admin
A divided federal appeals panel said Meta can't be sued for censoring Facebook posts from vaccine skeptic group, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., because Meta partnered with the Biden-Harris administration willingly. A dissenting judge said that reasoning allows a backdoor around the First Amendment
UCLA can't again allow pro-Hamas protesters to set up anti-Jewish 'checkpoints' on campus, judge says
An L.A. federal judge has issued an injunction forbidding UCLA leadership from again allowing pro-Hamas, anti-Israel protesters to set up "Jew Exclusion Zones" on campus, as they did this spring
$115M Oracle privacy class action settlement gets initial OK; Lawyers could get $28.75M
A San Francisco federal judge has given preliminary approval to a deal to settle claims Oracle acted as a data broker, gathering information about its users without their consent and selling the data to third parties to target ads
Ex-Pleasanton cop can't sue city, police chief for firing him after he attended 'Stop the Steal' J6 rally
A federal judge said it is enough the city can claim they fired the officer for policy violations, not for political speech. The officer has appealed the ruling
Newsom deploys National Guard to help prosecute crimes in Oakland, Alameda County
The governor says Alameda County District Attorney Pamela Price, a progressive prosecutor facing a recall election this year over persistently high violent and property crime rates, dragged her feet on signing off on the arrangement for five months, leading Newsom to turn to Attorney General Rob Bonta instead.
Falconers can continue suing California over permit requiring them to submit to warrantless inspections
A federal appeals panel says a lower court judge was wrong to toss a lawsuit from a group of falconers accusing the state of violating the Fourth Amendment protections against illegal property searches by requiring falconers to agree to "unannounced warrantless inspections" as a condition of their state license
Feds file suit vs TikTok over data collection from kid users
The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice filed suit in Los Angeles federal court against the operators of TikTok, saying the massively popular video sharing platform has violated a federal law protecting children's online privacy, even after agreeing to stop in 2019
PAGA plaintiffs can't block other PAGA plaintiffs' settlement deals, CA Supreme Court says
A California Supreme Court majority says the state's controversial Private Attorney General Act, which empowers workers and their lawyers to sue employers for labor law violations in the name of the state, doesn't give them the right to stop other workers from settling similar claims, if they believe the deal is too small
Oregon Christian broadcaster says new FCC diversity reporting rules illegally designed to 'shame'
The Dove Media, which operates three dozen radio and TV stations, has asked the Ninth Circuit appeals court to toss out a resurrected Federal Communications Commission rule, saying the FCC overreached and merely seeks to shame broadcasters into complying with federal race- and sex-based hiring goals
One racial slur could be enough to let worker sue employer for 'hostile workplace,' CA Supreme Court says
The California Supreme Court says the city of San Francisco can't escape a hostile workplace lawsuit brought by a black female SFDA employee who claims a coworker called her the N-word once and then her supervisor friend allegedly retaliated against her for reporting it
Lawyers seek $495K for settlement of ChapStick labeling suit, but no money for alleged misled consumers
A federal judge in Oakland is being asked to sign off on a deal between GlaxoSmithKline and a group of California trial lawyers, who sued the company for allegedly wrongly labeling some ChapStick products as 100% Natural. The deal includes no money for consumers, but nearly $500K for the lawyers
Prop 22 wins again; CA Supreme Court says protections for Uber, other gig services not unconstitutional
The California Supreme Court turned back an effort by labor unions to strike down Prop 22, which voters had overwhelmingly approved to prevent unions from using a new state labor law to try to force Uber and other app-based services to unionize or potentially go out of business in California