Articles

12.21.16

California's Coming $20 Billion Healthcare Emergency

California is facing a $20 billion healthcare emergency. That’s how much the state stands to lose in annual federal spending if Republicans repeal the Affordable Care Act.   Putting this in perspective, $20 billion represents nearly 18% of all state general fund spending, projected at ...


12.19.16

No Class Certification Where Employer Lacked Uniform Policy

An employer’s lack of a uniform policy necessitated the reversal of class certification, a California federal court judge recently ruled, refusing to reconsider his decision to decertify the class. Several AutoZone employees filed suit in 2010, accusing their employer of failing to provide ...


12.15.16

License or Lease? The Contractual Limits of the Sharing Economy

As tech innovators find new ways for people to share and swap living and working spaces, a legal question remains unanswered: what rights do these sharers have to the spaces they occupy? Is the shared desk in a co-working space treated like an office lease? Is a monthlong rental of a mansion the ...


12.15.16

1,166 Pieces of Evidence and No Due Process

Judges are well known for admonishing lawyers not to try their cases in the press. And with good reason: the procedures worked out by courts and legislatures over the years are expressly designed to ensure fairness. The second installment, issued December 9, of the so-called McLaren Report on ...


12.15.16

Supreme Court to Weigh in on Disparaging Trademarks

On September 29, 2016, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Lee v. Tam, where it will review the question of whether Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act—which bars the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office from registering "disparaging" trademarks—is an unconstitutional restriction ...


12.08.16

BSA/AML Violations Trigger $215M Consent Order With New York's DFS

Violations of state anti-money laundering laws tripped up the Agricultural Bank of China, which recently entered into a consent order with New York's Department of Financial Services for $215 million.What happenedThe New York branch of the Agricultural Bank of China was hit with a $215 million ...


12.07.16

What Could Reconciliation Mean for Medicaid: Reviewing HR 3762

President-elect Trump and leaders in Congress have proposed a major restructuring of the Medicaid program, but very significant changes to Medicaid coverage and financing could be adopted even before that debate begins as part of a reconciliation bill aimed at repealing various provisions of the ...


11.30.16

Property Law and the Scalia Legacy

"Let others worry about the impact of a new U.S. Supreme Court justice on issues of race, marriage or bathroom access. I'd like to focus your attention on something closer to home, as it were: property rights - specifically, how Justice Antonin Scalia's property legacy will fare. To ...


11.23.16

CA Modifies Commercial Lease Disclosures Concerning Disability Access Laws

California's legislature previously passed an update to Civil Code Section 1938 which, effective as of July 1, 2013, required all commercial property leases to disclose whether or not a commercial premises has undergone an inspection by a Certified Access Specialist (CASp), and if so, whether ...


11.22.16

Is TV Achieving Digital Transformation Through M&A and Investment?

The decline of traditional television has been predicted for years. The threat of YouTube and Netflix, cord-cutters and cord-nevers, and the overall emergence of mobile content consumption have caused hand-wringing throughout the industry for quite a while. In previous years there were trends and ...