NORTHERN CALIFORNIA RECORD

&&& Johnson & Johnson scored a legal win in Los Angeles Superior Court Nov. 16 in what its legal team described as the country’s first trial to examine the claim that J&J talcum powder products cause a lung-related disease.

PASADENA – A jury trial now unfolding in Los Angeles County Superior Court could open a new chapter in asbestos litigation as plaintiff’s attorneys argue that Johnson & Johnson talcum powder products are to blame for their client’s lung-related cancer.

&&& California legislation that would ban gender bias in product pricing has been sidelined for this year, but opponents vow to keep fighting what they see as a job-killing bill that would unleash a flurry of “drive-by litigation.”

SACRAMENTO – An amended bill designed to increase the public’s access to records about police discipline cases in California cleared a key hurdle last week as the state Senate’s Public Safety Committee gave the bill a 5-1 vote of confidence.

SAN FRANCISCO – You might expect that the person who will eventually fill the Supreme Court seat occupied by Antonin Scalia would have a 21st-century grounding in science and perhaps the ability to separate junk science from quality mainstream research. But the acting chancellor and dean of the University of California Hastings College of the Law isn’t so optimistic.

SAN FRANCISCO – The recent formation of a joint task force by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the FBI to thwart political corruption suggests another act may be unfolding in the continuing story of a federal investigation that began several years ago and has so far snared more than 20 people.

MALIBU – The U.S. Justice Department may have backed out of its legal showdown with Apple this week, but the question of how far law enforcement can go to get private companies to compromise their encryption technology remains an open question.

SAN FRANCISCO – A California nonprofit group that is assembling a statewide comprehensive database of patient health care information has hired its first full-time general counsel as the organization takes on more participants and adds new services in a bid to make the state’s health care system more efficient.

SAN FRANCISCO – California borrowers whose homes were foreclosed on during the collapse of the housing market beginning in 2008 now have a legal recourse to question the validity of the reassignment of those loans into securitized trusts, thanks to a recent state Supreme Court decision.

BERKELEY – California’s cuts in funding for higher education over the past decade have whittled down the number of California residents attending the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, but the law school is trying to offset some of the tuition burden through other financial aid programs and private donations.

SAN FRANCISCO – The elusive definition of the bitcoin – an Internet payment system that operates in a decentralized way and aims for low transaction fees – has come into somewhat better focus as a bankruptcy case in Northern California moves toward trial.

As media outlets such as NPR and CNN continue to speculate about who President Obama may nominate to take the place of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, at least three California justices seem to have the inside track for a spot on the president’s short list of nominees, according to some of the state’s legal observers.