Litigation

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a Second Amended Complaint in the state's PFAS litigation, alleging that DuPont-related companies executed fraudulent asset transfers designed to shield themselves from environmental liability. The complaint targets E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Corteva, Inc., The Chemours Company, and newly created Qnity Electronics. Bonta contends that corporate restructuring and amended agreements shifted the bulk of PFAS-related liabilities onto Chemours while reducing exposure for New DuPont, Corteva, and Qnity Electronics. The filing invokes the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, and seeks relief in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

OpenAI has moved to dismiss Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit, arguing in a federal filing that Apple failed to identify any protectable trade secrets or demonstrate plausible misappropriation. OpenAI contends it is developing "something entirely new" rather than leveraging Apple's confidential information. The motion represents the latest escalation in a dispute centered on whether OpenAI improperly accessed Apple's consumer-hardware plans through two former Apple employees now working at the company.

Apple has escalated its trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI by seeking a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking the court to block OpenAI and several former Apple employees from using or disclosing confidential Apple information. The lawsuit, filed in July 2026, alleges a coordinated pattern of employee poaching and misappropriation of trade secrets to support OpenAI's hardware development efforts. Named defendants include Tang Tan, OpenAI's hardware chief and former Apple design executive, and Chang Liu, a former Apple engineer. Apple also targets io Products, OpenAI's hardware-linked entity, and seeks depositions from additional OpenAI staff. OpenAI has publicly characterized Apple's case as "careless" and "oddly personal," denying it possesses or seeks Apple trade secrets.

Apple sued OpenAI and two former Apple employees on Friday, July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging coordinated theft of trade secrets to accelerate OpenAI's consumer hardware development. The complaint names Chang Liu and Tang Tan as defendants and accuses OpenAI of orchestrating a campaign to recruit Apple staff and extract confidential project information, including technical drawings and component specifications. Apple alleges that Tan, while still employed there, used insider knowledge of confidential projects to extract proprietary information from job candidates during OpenAI interviews before his departure.

On July 10, 2026, Apple filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California against OpenAI, former Apple executives Tang Tan and Chang Liu, and io Products, LLC, alleging a coordinated scheme to steal trade secrets and accelerate OpenAI's entry into consumer hardware. The complaint accuses OpenAI of systematically acquiring confidential Apple information—including product designs, manufacturing processes, and supply chain strategies for the iPhone, Apple Watch, and MacBook—to build competing AI devices.

On July 13, 2026, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general filed a federal antitrust lawsuit challenging Paramount Skydance Corporation's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and joined by officials from Minnesota, Oregon, and nine other states, the plaintiffs argue the merger violates the Clayton Act by eliminating competition between two of Hollywood's five major film distributors and cable operators. The states contend the deal would raise movie ticket and cable prices, reduce employment in the entertainment sector, and diminish consumer choice in news and entertainment programming.

CS Disco announced a new unified litigation platform that integrates case facts, controlling U.S. law, and AI-native workflows into a single interface. The product is currently in pilot with five law firms on live matters, with general availability targeted for early 2025. Quarles & Brady is among the firms testing the platform.

President Trump signed a memorandum dated October 7 creating a three-member "committee of inquiry" to examine mortgage-fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The panel includes White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas, and acting Office of Government Ethics Director Keith Sonderling. It will determine whether Cook made false statements on two mortgage applications, then advise Trump on whether there is "cause" to remove her from the Fed Board under the Federal Reserve Act. A closed-door hearing is scheduled for November 5 at the White House. Cook may submit written material beforehand, and Justice Department lawyers will question her. The allegations center on a 2021 filing in which Trump says Cook listed a Georgia condo and a Michigan house as her primary residence. Cook has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. Her lawyers say the entries were an inadvertent error.

A University of Houston law professor has raised a novel ethics question: could a lawyer face negligence liability for failing to use artificial intelligence in their practice? Renee Knake Jefferson posed this counterintuitive argument in a Legal Ethics Roundup published on Above the Law, marking a sharp pivot from the current judicial consensus. Courts across the country are actively sanctioning lawyers for AI misuse—a California judge imposed $31,000 in sanctions for an error-filled AI-generated brief, while a Georgia Supreme Court overturned a lower court order riddled with AI hallucinations. A federal judge in the Western District of North Carolina now requires attorneys to certify they did not use AI in briefs. Yet Jefferson's framing suggests the profession may soon face pressure in the opposite direction: treating AI adoption as a standard of reasonable diligence rather than a liability risk.

CoStar is urging a California federal court to reject CREXi's request to pause their copyright dispute while CREXi appeals the disqualification of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Judge Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California ruled on July 14, 2026, that Quinn Emanuel violated its duty of loyalty to CoStar by simultaneously representing CREXi in the same matter without CoStar's consent. CoStar argues the stay request lacks legal merit and should be denied outright.

Apple moved Monday to freeze OpenAI's access to alleged trade secrets while its misappropriation lawsuit proceeds. The company filed a motion for preliminary injunction in federal court in Northern California, seeking to bar OpenAI, its hardware division io Products, and two former Apple employees—Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu—from accessing, using, or disclosing confidential Apple information during litigation.

Meta faces a sprawling litigation campaign alleging that Facebook and Instagram were engineered to addict minors and that the company concealed safety and privacy risks from users. State attorneys general from New Mexico, Vermont, Massachusetts, and a coalition led by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have filed suit alongside individual plaintiffs and school districts in federal and state courts. Related defendants including Google/YouTube, Snap, and TikTok face similar claims in some actions.

CREXi has petitioned the Ninth Circuit to reverse a federal judge's disqualification of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and to stay district court proceedings while the appeal proceeds. U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall ruled that Quinn Emanuel could not represent CREXi because the firm simultaneously represented CoStar in a separate federal matter, creating an impermissible concurrent conflict of interest.

Blank Rome LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm, faces two proposed class-action lawsuits over a data breach that exposed sensitive information on 57,554 current, former, and prospective clients. The breach occurred in May 2026 when a cybercriminal impersonated the firm's IT department and convinced an attorney to upload client files to an external Google Drive account. The exposed data includes names, Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, medical records, and health insurance information. Blank Rome announced the breach to affected clients on June 26, 2026—nearly a month after the incident occurred. The firm stated it will "aggressively defend" against the suits and claims they lack merit.

Apple filed a federal lawsuit on July 10, 2026, alleging that OpenAI and its chief hardware officer Tang Tan orchestrated a systematic campaign to steal confidential trade secrets related to unreleased Apple products. According to the complaint, OpenAI encouraged former Apple employees and job candidates to share components, drawings, and internal product information to accelerate OpenAI's own hardware development efforts.

Richards, Layton & Finger PA faces potential sanctions in Delaware Court of Chancery after submitting a brief containing AI-generated errors—including fabricated legal citations and invented quotations—and then filing a correction that failed to fully remedy the problems. Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will has ordered the firm and director Richard P. Rollo, who signed the filings, to show cause why sanctions should not be imposed under Delaware Court of Chancery Rule 11(c), which permits joint liability against law firms absent exceptional circumstances. Firm president Paul Heath has filed an affidavit acknowledging the errors. The underlying dispute is an advancement case, Leiske v. Kidd.

American Healthcare Systems Corp. and its founder Mike Sarian filed an amended complaint in California state court on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, accusing their former in-house counsel Faisal Gill of orchestrating an extortion and takeover scheme. The complaint also names Dr. Aramais Paronyan, a minority shareholder and director, as a participant in efforts to remove Sarian from control and restrict his access to company finances. AHS operates five Florida hospitals, including Palmetto General and Coral Gables Hospital.

Fastcase Inc., the legal research platform owned by Clio, sued Canadian AI company Alexi Technologies Inc. in federal court in Washington, D.C. on November 26, 2025, alleging breach of a 2021 data license agreement. Fastcase claims Alexi used licensed case law to train commercial generative AI models and display full-text decisions to users—uses explicitly prohibited under the original contract's "internal research purposes" restriction. The agreement permitted Alexi's staff attorneys to prepare client memoranda using the data, not to build a public, competing legal research platform. Fastcase seeks an injunction requiring Alexi to destroy both the datasets and the AI models trained on them, treating the model weights as infringing derivative works.

A federal court has allowed privacy class actions against Shopify and the NBA to proceed, signaling stricter judicial scrutiny of how embedded website technologies collect user data before obtaining clear consent.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 20 other state attorneys general, joined by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California challenging a Trump administration rule governing the ACA marketplace for 2027. The lawsuit targets the Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters, alleging it unlawfully expands catastrophic health plan eligibility, allows catastrophic and bronze plans to exceed ACA out-of-pocket limits, and resurrects income verification requirements and tax-credit penalties that a federal court previously vacated. The coalition contends the rule will increase insurance costs, reduce enrollment, and make coverage harder to obtain.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has issued an investigative subpoena to Dr. Anthony Fauci as part of a coordinated multi-state probe into whether Fauci personally profited from his COVID-19 guidance through awards, grants, book deals, board positions, and other financial arrangements. West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill are conducting parallel investigations. The Florida subpoena demands documents spanning January 3, 2020 to present, including records of grants, awards, professorships, book deals, communications with Florida businesses, and materials concerning vaccine efficacy, booster recommendations, natural immunity, myocarditis risks, messaging strategies, and manufacturer communications. Florida is framing the inquiry as an investigation into potential "self-dealing" and whether Fauci's public health recommendations generated personal financial benefit in violation of state law.

Apple sued OpenAI on Friday, July 10, 2026, alleging that the AI company orchestrated the theft of trade secrets related to unreleased Apple hardware. The complaint names OpenAI, CEO Sam Altman, and two former Apple employees who allegedly retained system access after joining OpenAI and shared confidential product specifications, component designs, and technical drawings. Apple contends OpenAI used this material to accelerate development of competing AI devices.

A Tennessee federal judge has ordered Reaves Law Firm PLLC to pay $45,000 in attorney fees to Baker Donelson after the firm submitted court filings containing fabricated citations and fake quotations generated by artificial intelligence. Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee found that Reaves Law violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 by citing nonexistent cases and misquoting real ones.

WilmerHale faced a proposed class action lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over a May 8, 2026 data incident in which a firm employee disclosed sensitive client information to an unauthorized third party who had misrepresented their identity. The breach exposed names and Social Security numbers of thousands of clients. Nevada resident Jason Perry filed the suit, styled Perry v. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, No. 1:26-cv-02470, seeking negligence and contract damages on behalf of affected clients.

The Connecticut Supreme Court sanctioned Wallingford attorney Ian Gottlieb for submitting briefs containing fabricated legal citations and quotations generated by ChatGPT. Gottlieb, who practices at GLG Law LLC, filed the defective briefs in two landlord-tenant appeals involving fair rent commission decisions in Middletown and Hartford. The court found the errors reflected negligence in AI use rather than intentional misconduct, and ordered Gottlieb to complete six additional hours of continuing legal education in ethics and law office management. Gottlieb acknowledged at the hearing that he failed to adequately review the AI-generated material before filing.

Sophie Mancall-Bitel, a litigation partner at Mayer Brown, has been named a 2026 Rising Star by Law360 Pulse for her defense of major technology companies in privacy and wiretapping class actions. Her clients include TikTok, Google, and YouTube. Mancall-Bitel's practice centers on internet and technology companies defending claims under the federal Wiretap Act, the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, and biometric privacy statutes. She has handled wiretapping litigation and internet data privacy matters for tech and financial-services clients.

An Illinois appellate court unanimously sanctioned an attorney for filing briefs containing false citations and quotations generated by artificial intelligence in a workplace discrimination case brought against Starbucks. The court found that the attorney had presented nonexistent legal authorities and misquoted cases as legitimate support for arguments—a practice courts now treat as professional misconduct tied to AI hallucinations.

A federal judge in California has refused to dismiss a lawsuit accusing Christopher Ricci, former deputy general counsel at Flextronics AP LLC, of orchestrating the transfer of company patents to AutoConnect, a Virginia startup he secretly co-founded. The decision allows Flextronics' claims of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and trade secret misappropriation to proceed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California under case number 5:26-cv-00117-PCP.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 13 state attorneys general filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California asking the judge to enforce and clarify a hold-separate order in the Nexstar Media Group–TEGNA Inc. merger case. The filing alleges that recent board changes at TEGNA may allow Nexstar to exercise improper control over the company despite the court's injunction requiring both broadcasters to operate independently during litigation. The states argue that current or former Nexstar personnel should be barred from TEGNA's board to prevent the companies from coordinating merger-related activities.

Apple sued OpenAI last month, alleging the AI company stole trade secrets and confidential information to accelerate its hardware ambitions. OpenAI has denied the claims and recently released private emails as a counteroffensive. The dispute centers on OpenAI's push into AI-focused devices through its hardware arm, io Products, and involves two former Apple employees and OpenAI hardware chief Tang Tan, a former Apple product-design executive. Apple contends that departing employees brought confidential information to OpenAI and that the company's recruiting practices gave it access to unreleased product details.

A Connecticut federal judge imposed a $3,500 fine on defense attorney Hilary B. Miller and referred him to the Federal Grievance Committee after he filed two motions containing AI-generated errors in a trademark dispute. The filings included misstated case holdings and fabricated citations. Miller represented Tacobarn entities in a trademark infringement case brought by Bartaco, a restaurant chain with approximately 31 locations. The judge struck both motions from the docket and found that Miller's conduct demonstrated subjective bad faith despite his stated remorse and promises to strengthen his verification procedures.

OpenAI has retained Brad Bondi, a Paul Hastings partner and co-chair of the firm's investigations and white-collar defense practice, to bolster its legal team in Florida's lawsuit. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the case on June 1, 2026, in state court, accusing OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of misleading the public about ChatGPT's safety and contributing to harms including violence and self-harm. The complaint alleges gross negligence, public nuisance, strict liability, and violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, claiming OpenAI knowingly released the product while concealing safety risks and suppressing internal warnings.

A Connecticut federal judge imposed a $3,500 sanction against defense attorney Hilary B. Miller after finding that two motions he filed in a trademark dispute over a taco restaurant contained AI-generated errors, including fabricated quotations, false citations, and misstatements of law. U.S. District Judge Vernon D. Oliver for the District of Connecticut initially flagged the filings in June, identifying multiple erroneous citations and quotations that did not exist and concluding the submissions relied on generative AI without adequate verification. In the sanctions order, the court acknowledged Miller's apology and stated commitment to revising his verification procedures, yet still found the conduct reflected "subjective bad faith."

On July 13, 2026, New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined a 12-state coalition filing an antitrust lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to block Paramount Skydance Corporation's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The states argue the merger violates federal antitrust law by substantially lessening competition in film and television. The coalition—led by attorneys general from California, New York, and Pennsylvania—is demanding that Paramount and Warner Bros. pause the transaction and has threatened to seek a temporary restraining order if the companies attempt to close the deal.

Traci Tamiko Eto, former research director at Mayo Clinic, filed a federal lawsuit on July 6, 2026, alleging retaliation and wrongful termination after she raised concerns about AI safety failures and patient privacy violations. According to the complaint, Eto was demoted in July 2025, placed on involuntary medical leave, and fired in December 2025 when her position was eliminated in a reduction in force that reportedly affected only her role. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota under the False Claims Act's retaliation provision, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Apple sued OpenAI on July 10, 2026, in federal court in California, alleging the AI company systematically stole trade secrets to build competing consumer hardware and AI devices. The complaint names OpenAI's Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan and two former Apple employees, accusing them of a coordinated scheme to recruit Apple staff and direct job candidates to bring proprietary components, prototypes, and engineering documents to interviews. Apple seeks damages, injunctions, and an order prohibiting OpenAI from using the stolen information.

Paramount Skydance, controlled by David Ellison, is bypassing a preliminary-injunction hearing and moving directly to trial on the merits in its bid to preserve the $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The strategy represents a calculated gamble: avoiding an early legal loss but accepting significant delay and mounting costs to keep the deal alive through a full antitrust trial.

An Illinois appellate court sanctioned attorney Mason Cole $15,000 for submitting briefs containing ten false legal citations and quotations, including fabricated statutory language, a nonexistent case, and misquoted authorities. The Illinois Appellate Court, First District, imposed the penalty at $1,500 per false citation in a July 28, 2026 opinion, explicitly framing the sanction as a deterrent against what it called "unacceptable" misuse of AI in legal filings. Cole acknowledged using a premium ChatGPT subscription to draft the briefs but argued the errors were inadvertent. The court rejected this defense, holding that attorneys bear responsibility for verifying all citations before filing, regardless of the tool used to generate them.

A coalition of 12 states filed suit in federal court on July 13, 2026, to block Paramount Skydance's $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, the states—California, New York, Washington, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Oregon—argue the merger violates the Clayton Act by creating monopolies in film distribution and cable news. The lawsuit represents the first major legal obstacle to the deal since the Department of Justice cleared it on June 12 after an eight-month antitrust review.

The Writers Guild of America filed suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 14, 2026, to block the $111 billion merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. The union alleges the deal violates the Clayton Antitrust Act by creating a "single mega-buyer" that would suppress wages and reduce competition across episodic television, streaming series, and theatrical screenwriting markets. The filing came one day after twelve Democratic-led states, led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, announced their own federal antitrust challenge to the same transaction.

The Delaware Court of Chancery has ordered attorney Richard P. Rollo and his firm, Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A., to show cause why they should not face sanctions for submitting a brief containing fabricated legal propositions generated by artificial intelligence. The court found that the submission raises an inference of violating Rule 11(b), which requires pleadings to be accurate and not misleading. Rollo and the firm now face potential sanctions under Rule 11(c) and the court's inherent authority.

Twelve states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an antitrust lawsuit Monday to block Paramount Skydance Corp.'s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, challenging an $81–$111 billion transaction. The states argue the merger would eliminate competition, raise prices for TV bundles, reduce content output and quality, and harm movie theaters and basic cable distributors. The defendants are Paramount Skydance, backed by David Ellison and sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, CNN, and other major media properties. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington joined California in the suit.

A self-represented litigant in Georgia state court proceeded to jury trial after using artificial intelligence to prepare his case, marking the first documented instance of AI-assisted self-representation reaching the trial stage. The case underscores a widening courtroom problem: pro se parties increasingly rely on chatbots like ChatGPT to draft pleadings, summarize rules, and construct legal arguments—tools that frequently generate fabricated citations and nonexistent case law.

Nike and Lululemon face separate class action lawsuits alleging "phantom discount" pricing schemes on their online platforms. Both companies are accused of displaying artificially inflated struck-through prices to exaggerate the depth of sales discounts and mislead consumers about actual savings. Nike was sued on July 21, 2026 by Corinne Pearson in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California over pricing on its website and mobile app. The complaint cites specific examples, including Air Max 2017 sneakers allegedly kept on discount beyond the 90-day window permitted under California's False Advertising Law without proper disclosure of when the original price was actually in effect. The proposed class covers California purchasers who bought Nike products at a discount since July 21, 2022. Lululemon faces a parallel suit filed by Annette Cody in Los Angeles Superior Court, which alleges the company listed products with fictitious regular prices. One example cited involves Wunder Train high-rise tights marked down from $98 to $59, allegedly without having sold at the higher price for months.

A federal judge in Mississippi has sanctioned four attorneys, terminated civil proceedings, and imposed two-year suspensions on two lawyers for submitting court documents containing fictitious legal citations generated by artificial intelligence. Judge Sharion Aycock of the U.S. District Court for the District of Mississippi found that the attorneys violated Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 by certifying the accuracy of filings that included four fabricated case references. One lawyer acknowledged using "First Drafts," an AI drafting tool that produced the hallucinated citations across two separate filings. The court ruled that signing documents containing AI-generated errors while representing their accuracy constituted a breach of civil procedure rules.

The Department of Justice announced the establishment of an Artificial Intelligence Litigation Task Force on January 9, 2026, formalizing AI's role in federal legal operations. The Task Force will oversee how the DOJ integrates AI into litigation workflows, marking an institutional shift from experimental adoption to regulated practice. The move reflects broader industry momentum: legal technology firms including Esquire Solutions, Baker Botts, and Lexis+ AI are now advising law firms on AI-assisted discovery and technology competence as standard practice rather than competitive advantage.

A Delaware Court of Chancery decision in Leiske v. Kidd has put attorneys on notice: AI-generated legal briefs containing fabricated citations, invented quotations, and false legal propositions will trigger court sanctions and professional responsibility consequences. The court used the case as a cautionary example after counsel filed an answering brief riddled with hallucinated material, prompting a request for corrective action or sanctions.

The Church of Scientology International has petitioned the California Supreme Court to review an appellate court's decision not to sanction Boies Schiller Flexner LLP over citation errors in a brief filed during a harassment and retaliation suit. The errors—mischaracterized authorities and a completely fabricated case—were generated by artificial intelligence. Partner John Kucera acknowledged failing to verify the AI-generated citations and sought to withdraw the brief, but the lower court denied the request. The appellate court subsequently declined to impose monetary sanctions, prompting Scientology's legal team to escalate to the state's highest court.

Reed Smith LLP has established a dedicated artificial intelligence department combining lawyers, e-discovery specialists, and AI professionals to advise clients on legal, business, and technology issues related to AI. A Philadelphia-based partner will lead the new unit, formalizing what has been an expanding capability across the firm.

A New York magistrate judge struck a brief filed Friday in a lawsuit against Roc Nation after discovering it contained fabricated quotes generated by artificial intelligence. U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Numbers issued the ruling and sanctioned the attorney, noting a pattern of similar violations across multiple courts. The attorney had previously withdrawn from another case in March after a court flagged comparable errors in that filing.

Amazon has asked a federal judge in Washington to reject California attorney Kathy Hao's renewed motion to dismiss a trademark fraud lawsuit, claiming she is simply restating arguments from a prior motion that relied on AI-generated hallucinations. The company filed its opposition to keep the case alive, asserting that Hao's latest filing presents no new legal ground and merely recycles previously rejected content.

A Kentucky federal judge declined to sanction two attorneys who submitted a brief containing AI-generated errors, finding that their demonstrated remorse and clean disciplinary history made a warning sufficient deterrent. The attorneys, representing a notary public in a fraud case, had inadvertently included fabricated citations and legally incorrect propositions generated by artificial intelligence. They accepted responsibility immediately and expressed genuine remorse that the judge found credible, leading to the decision against fines or disciplinary referrals.

A federal judge in Arizona is weighing fee sanctions against attorney Maren Bam for submitting a brief laced with fabricated legal citations and AI-generated quotations in an employment discrimination case. U.S. Magistrate Judge Alison S. Bachus identified the violations in Bam's plaintiff's opening brief in a Phoenix Suns discrimination matter, where 19 of the brief's legal citations were generated by artificial intelligence. Only 5 to 7 of those cases actually existed or supported the propositions attributed to them. The brief also contained fake quotations falsely attributed to Arizona federal judges. Bam, a Washington State attorney operating pro hac vice in the District of Arizona, runs a nationwide Social Security disability practice.

On June 22, 2026, a coalition of 17 Republican-led states led by Nebraska, joined by the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California challenging California's Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act (SB 54). The plaintiffs seek to block enforcement of the law, claiming it violates the Commerce Clause, the Import-Export Clause, the First Amendment, and federal due process protections by discriminating against out-of-state manufacturers and improperly delegating regulatory authority to a private entity. The defendants are CalRecycle Director Zoe Heller and the Circular Action Alliance, the producer responsibility organization selected to implement the statute. Critically, filing the lawsuit does not suspend SB 54 compliance obligations—producers must continue meeting registration, reporting, and implementation requirements unless a court orders otherwise.

A California federal lawsuit alleges that Granola, an AI meeting-notetaking tool, secretly recorded virtual meeting participants without notice or consent and used the captured content for commercial purposes, including AI model training enabled by default. The case, Chamberlain v. Granola, Inc., filed in the Northern District of California, centers on wiretapping and consent violations under state and federal privacy law. According to the complaint, Granola distinguished itself from competitors by joining meetings invisibly, announcing no presence, and providing participants no mechanism to remove the notetaker from the call.

A federal judge in California has denied Meta Platforms' motion for summary judgment, clearing the way for a multistate lawsuit over youth mental health to proceed to trial in August 2026. The ruling, issued June 29 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, rejects Meta's attempt to have the case dismissed and confirms that the attorneys general's claims have sufficient legal merit to survive pretrial scrutiny.