The case concerned a First Amendment challenge by CTIA—The Wireless Association to a San Francisco ordinance requiring cell phone retailers to display posters, hand out fact sheets, and affix statements on display materials informing customers about radiofrequency (RF) energy emissions from phones and ways to reduce exposure. The court upheld the fact-sheet requirement (with required corrections to remove misleading language) but enjoined the poster and sticker/display requirements. It reasoned that while the city could require purely factual, non-misleading disclosures under its “precautionary principle,” the ordinance’s other compelled speech was alarmist and not strictly factual, given the absence of evidence linking cell phones to cancer, contrary FCC guidance on SAR values and RF risks, and the weak basis for implying imminent harm; the balance of equities supported only the corrected fact-sheet component pending further review.
In Oracle America v. Google, Oracle accused Google of copyright infringement by copying elements of Java’s application programming interfaces (APIs), including 37 API package specifications and 12 code files, for use in the Android platform. The court partially granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that the names of the items in the disputed API specifications are not protected by copyright, but denied the motion on all other grounds. The court found genuine factual disputes that prevented summary judgment on direct and indirect infringement, particularly on whether Google’s use qualified as fair use under the four statutory factors. Those disputes centered on the purpose and character of the use, the amount taken, and—most notably—whether Android harmed or benefited the market for Java, with evidence on both sides that a jury would need to weigh. The order left unresolved whether other aspects of the API specifications or their arrangement were copyrightable or infringed.
In this RICO/VICAR criminal prosecution, defendant Guillermo Herrera sought to introduce expert testimony from Dr. Scott Fraser to challenge the reliability of an eyewitness identification in a daytime homicide, citing factors such as distance, weapons focus, and stress that purportedly rendered the identification unreliable. After a Daubert evidentiary hearing, the court excluded Dr. Fraser's proposed testimony in its entirety. The court found that the testimony had limited probative value because it went beyond established science into unjustified extrapolations, creating too great an analytical gap between the data and the opinions offered. The court further determined that any potential benefits were outweighed by a high risk of juror confusion, unfair prejudice, and waste of time under Rule 403, compounded by inadequate expert disclosure under Rule 16.
In this putative class action, two heavy Marlboro smokers sought to represent a statewide class of asymptomatic smokers over age fifty with at least a twenty-pack-year history, requesting that Philip Morris establish and fund a court-supervised low-dose CT lung-cancer screening program; they alleged that the cigarettes contained a design defect because safer alternative designs with fewer carcinogens were feasible. The court denied the defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings as to the remaining claims, granted summary judgment on the implied-warranty and Consumer Legal Remedies Act claims but denied it as to the strict-liability design-defect and negligent-design claims, and denied class certification. The core reasoning for denying certification was that the proposed class was not ascertainable, because no reliable, manageable method existed to identify which individuals had the required smoking history, which would also prevent proper application of res judicata. Only the two tort claims survived, and they may proceed solely on an individual basis.
In this mortgage loan dispute, plaintiff Kristen Lynn Miller sued Washington Mutual Bank, JPMorgan Chase, and California Reconveyance Company over a 2005 home loan of $640,000 secured by a deed of trust on her San Ramon property, alleging that the lender concealed the true interest rate and repayment terms, leading to notices of default and trustee's sale in 2010. She brought six claims including misrepresentation and fraud, rescission, injunction against wrongful foreclosure, quiet title, unfair business practices under California Business and Professions Code Section 17200, and RICO violations. The court granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), allowing the first and fifth claims to proceed against Washington Mutual only, dismissing those claims against the other defendants, keeping the third claim intact, and dismissing the second, fourth, and sixth claims entirely. The decision applied the Iqbal plausibility standard, Rule 9(b) particularity requirements for fraud-based claims, the three-year statute of limitations for fraud with the discovery rule, and the need to allege a pattern of racketeering activity for RICO claims, while taking judicial notice of public mortgage and corporate documents.
This case involved a proposed class action by plaintiff S.D. Jadeja against Redflex Traffic Systems and related companies, challenging 'cost-neutral' or contingency clauses in their contracts with California municipalities for providing automated red-light cameras. Plaintiff alleged that these clauses created illegal financial incentives for the companies to issue citations, violating California Vehicle Code provisions and leading to claims of unfair competition under Business and Professions Code Section 17200 and unjust enrichment after he received and paid a citation from Menlo Park. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), finding that the plaintiff lacked Article III standing. The core reasoning was that plaintiff failed to show a concrete, particularized injury in fact causally traceable to the defendants' conduct, as the municipality independently decided to issue the citation rather than the defendants prosecuting or directly affecting him, and no likelihood of future injury was established for injunctive relief.
