A Connecticut judge has drawn a crisp line for the AI era: using artificial intelligence as an aid in preparing court filings is fine—provided the user checks its work. But hiding instructions designed to manipulate someone else’s AI will not fly.
In Elliott v. New York Bariatric Group, a self-represented plaintiff embedded tiny white-on-white text in court filings. Invisible to ordinary readers but readable
It’s that time of year again—the temperatures are high, summer vacations are winding down, and Sacramento has taken the minimum wage up another notch.
Beginning January 1, 2027, California’s statewide minimum wage will increase from $16.90 to $17.40 per hour. Importantly, the 50-cent bump has implications even for employers with no minimum wage workers because it also raises the salary threshold required for exempt employees.
When we last checked in on the Hollywood drama playing out in Lively v. Wayfarer Studios LLC, a federal court had permitted Blake Lively’s California Fair Employment and Housing Act retaliation claim to proceed, and the case was headed toward a May 2026 trial. In the months since, the parties have settled the case—but not before leaving employers with at least one more lesson
You might think that California employers who seek nothing more than enforcement of a perfectly reasonable arbitration agreement might finally be able to stop looking over their shoulders, but that is simply not going to happen anytime soon. It seems that with each new legislative session, Sacramento comes up with yet another scheme to limit employers’ right to arbitrate employee disputes.
As experienced practitioners may
Ever since the enactment of the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (“EFAA”) in 2022, the plaintiffs’ bar has made it Job One to insert often implausible claims of sexual harassment into all manner of disparate employment cases (having nothing whatsoever to do with sexual harassment) in an often successful effort to avoid arbitration. (The EFAA permits a person alleging
It’s that time of year again – when California’s cities and counties ratchet up the minimum wage! Effective July 1, 2026, several jurisdictions increased their local minimum wage rates by approximately 1.6% to as much as 3.7%. Each of the new local rates exceeds California’s current statewide minimum wage of $16.90 per hour.
The following Southern California jurisdictions implemented increases:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has taken a significant step toward dismantling one of the federal government’s longest standing employment reporting requirements.
On July 21, 2026, the EEOC voted 2-1 to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would rescind regulations requiring employers and other covered entities to file annual workforce demographic reports, including the EEO-1 report submitted by most private employers with
Cortina v. North Am. Title Co., 2026 WL 1506576 (Cal. Ct. App. 2026)
In this 137-page opinion, which the Court of Appeal noted involves an even more “rare and beastly case” than Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 59 Cal. 4th 1 (2014), the Court held that the trial court committed multiple prejudicial errors, including permitting a trial plan and format that
Cocom v. ABM Aviation, Inc., 2026 WL 1793637 (9th Cir. 2026)
In this putative wage and hour class action, the district court denied the employer’s motion to compel arbitration after concluding it was procedurally and substantively unconscionable based on the analysis of Cook v. University of S. Cal., 102 Cal. App. 5th 312 (2024). The Ninth Circuit, relying largely upon Ayala-Ventura