The United Nations has issued a “Global Call to Creatives” (the “Call”) asking content creators, influencers, advertisers, and others to help in translating public health messages “into work that will engage and inform people across different cultures, languages, communities and platforms ...
By: John Epperson and Peter McGaw A ban on the sale of nondurable food packaging in California containing PFAS chemicals goes into effect on January 1, 2023, which is now less than four months away. The ban was contained in Assembly Bill 1200, which was enacted in October 2021, along with unrelated new requirements for disclosure of chemicals in cookware ...
On October 6, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 45 (AB 45) into law. AB 45 permits the manufacture and sale of a wide range of products containing regulated amounts of industrial hemp. Below is a brief overview: What is industrial hemp? “Industrial hemp” is defined as cannabis plants that have no more than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) ...
July 21, 2023 By: Robert S. Cooper The Adolph v. Uber Ruling Thwarts The U.S. Supreme Court’s Landmark Viking Decision In a widely anticipated but unsurprising ruling, the California Supreme Court on July 17, 2023 issued its decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc., (S274671) weighing in on the United States Supreme Court’s (“SCOTUS”) recent landmark decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, (2022) 596 U.S. __, [142 S. Ct 1906] (Viking) ...
Key Points The California Supreme Court clarified the so-called California Rule on public employee’s "vested rights" to pension benefits, holding that detrimental financial changes to employee pension benefits do not invariably require that offsetting comparable new advantages be provided. And it set a legal framework for analyzing that issue ...
In Union of Medical Marijuana Patients v. City of San Diego, the California Supreme Court unanimously held that the City of San Diego failed to analyze the potential environmental impacts of its medical marijuana dispensary law. While the main issue in this case was the definition of a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the ruling has important ramifications for the legal cannabis market as a whole ...
On August 3, 2020, the California Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated decision in Ixchel Pharma, LLC v. Biogen, Inc., clarifying the bounds of legitimate competition under California tort and antitrust law. The Court’s ruling generally came down in favor of encouraging competition, reducing claims for tortious interference with contract, and decreasing the risk of litigation arising from normal competitive activity ...
On March 2, 2017, the California Supreme Court determined that when a public employee uses a personal account to communicate about the conduct of public business, the communications are subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act (CPRA), if those communications are not otherwise exempt from disclosure. In a unanimous opinion, the Court in City of San Jose v ...
On August 11, 2022, the California Supreme Court issued its opinion in Zolly v. City of Oakland, holding that a group of property owners had pleaded sufficient facts to maintain a challenge to the City’s solid-waste franchise fee, under Article XIII C of the California Constitution, commonly called “Proposition 26 ...
Key Points A recent order from the Santa Clara County Superior Court suggests that California courts intend to uphold and implement SB 35's goals of fast-tracking housing developments that meet established, objective criteria. California courts will closely scrutinize the objective planning standards cities and local governments utilize in determining whether a project is compliant with local land use criteria and building codes ...
On September 30, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom approved and signed SB 2 and SB 16.1 SB 2 created a decertification procedure for peace officers and removal/denial of qualified immunity for claims or actions brought under Tom Bane Civil Rights Act (Civil Code section 52.1). SB 16 impacts retention of peace officer employment records and access to employment records ...
In the last legislative session (2011–12), bills that would have imposed severe restrictions or even an outright moratorium on hydraulic fracturing (HF) were narrowly defeated in the California legislature. Earlier this year, we issued an alert regarding draft regulations that had been issued by the Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources ...
SB 977 was passed by the California Senate on June 26, 2020. If the bill is passed by the Assembly and becomes law, it will require health care systems, private equity groups, hedge funds, and academic medical centers to obtain advance approval by the California Attorney General for substantially all acquisitions or change of control transactions with health care facilities and providers ...
Key Points Employees again are entitled to up to 80 hours of employer-paid sick leave for COVID-related absences through September 30, 2022, retroactive from January 1, 2022 Vaccine related absences are now covered absences for entitlement to paid sick leave In certain instances, employers may require employees to provide documentation of COVID test results for themselves or family members in order to receive the paid sick leave On February 9, 2022, Governor Newsom signed Senat
At its Voting Meeting today the Commission adopted a new standard offer contract available to any Qualifying Facility (QF) of 20 megawatts or less seeking to sell electricity to a Commission-jurisdictional utility pursuant to the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA). Under PURPA, Commission-jurisdictional utilities must provide QFs the option of executing any existing PURPA contract for which they qualify ...
In the November 2020 election, California voters approved the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) amending the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”). Businesses are expected to comply with the CPRA by January 1, 2022. Together, the CCPA and CPRA set out standards that California businesses must follow in gathering and maintaining personal information about consumers ...
September 29, 2021 By: Jennifer Guerrero The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) established a new state privacy regulatory agency, the California Privacy Protection Agency (“Agency”), which is responsible for issuing regulations implementing the CPRA (along with enforcement authority) ...
California has enacted a sweeping tough new privacy law ...
Recently, California legislators passed SB 954 creating a new pre-mediation requirement – the prospective Mediation Disclosure. "As soon as reasonably possible" before agreeing to mediate, attorneys are to present to clients a Mediation Disclosure affirmatively explaining mediation's confidentiality restrictions, execution of which acknowledges the client's understanding of the restriction's impact ...
A jury in the Northern District of California has convicted David Nosal of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) by accessing his former employer’s computer network without authorization to obtain confidential information for use in a competing business. The business community has followed this case closely because it has far-reaching implications for the future application of the CFAA and, more importantly, for companies’ ability to protect their sensitive proprietary data ...
Key Points The State Assembly and Senate have both passed AB 361 and AB 339, two bills aimed at addressing Brown Act teleconferencing requirements in the COVID-19 landscape. The Governor is expected to sign or veto the bills before October 1 ...
Key Points California Legislature passes SB 288, which adds statutory CEQA exemptions for bicycle and mass transit projects. Extends CEQA Exemption for bicycle-related highway projects from Jan. 1, 2021 to Jan. 1, 2030. Relates only to projects for which the lead agency and the entity carrying out the project are public agencies. The California Legislature passed SB 288 on Aug. 31, 2020 ...
