Constitutional Law

California's Medical Waste Management Act, which purports to require incineration of medical waste even after it is shipped outside of California, violates the dormant Commerce Clause. Read More

Proposition 65 is constitutional despite requiring cancer warnings as to chemicals designated as carcinogenic by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer. Read More

Since website’s data security breach exposed plaintiffs to a substantial risk that hackers will commit identity theft, they had Article III standing to maintain the suit. Read More

The dormant Commerce clause does not apply to acts that a state takes as a participant in the market, even if such acts discriminate against interstate commerce (such as, here, regulation of the rates at which the State of California will reimburse hospitals for services rendered to Medi-Cal patients). Read More

The separation of powers forbids Congress from compelling findings or results under an old law, but not from enacting a new law that dictates the outcome of pending cases. Read More

An internet website may assert the First Amendment rights of its anonymous posters when opposing a subpoena requiring it to reveal a poster’s identity, but the poster has no right to remain anonymous if the party issuing the subpoena demonstrates that the posted information was defamatory. Read More

An order prohibiting a plaintiff from posting any references to pending litigation on its website is an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. Read More

Later filed state court proceedings warrant Younger v. Harris abstention only when the district court proceedings are at an "embryonic stage." State statute requiring in-state incorporation to obtain license to conduct interstate business violates the dormant Commerce Clause, but First Amendment is not infringed by statutes requiring a disclosure that the existing lender did not sponsor or authorize third-party ads… Read More

One heir’s suit against another, which sought to disinherit a co-heir defendant under the no contest clause in the decedent's trust, is a suit based on protected activity and thus is subject to an Anti-SLAPP motion to strike, since the defendant’s prior contest was a protected judicial proceeding. Read More

Since Oregon’s government claims statute reflected the same general policy as California’s Tort Claims Act by requiring plaintiffs to give pre-suit notice of injury within six months, California courts are required by the Full Faith and Credit Clause to apply the Oregon statute. Read More

A state cannot refuse to list two same sex spouses as the two parents on their child’s birth certificate.  Read More

A state violated the First Amendment’s establishment clause by denying church schools subsidies provided other schools for playground improvements.  Read More

A California Vehicle code section requiring police to impound a car for 30 days when it is driven by an unlicensed driver is an unconstitutional seizure violating the Fourth Amendment since there is no justification for retaining the car after a licensed owner claims it.  Read More

State statute violated the First Amendment by forbidding registered sex offenders from accessing websites if the site allows minors to be members, because the prohibition was not sufficiently narrowly tailored to the state’s interest in protecting minors.  Read More

The prohibition on trademarking offensive or disparaging marks—here, an Asian dance rock band called “The Slants”—violated the First Amendment, since the prohibition serves no substantial governmental interest and is not narrowly drawn.  Read More

A discrimination suit challenging a tenure decision is not subject to an Anti-SLAPP motion to strike even if the decision followed a public hearing and statements made at the hearing are used as evidence of bias.  Read More

New York statute forbidding retail sellers from charging higher-than-stated prices to customers who pay with credit cards must satisfy the First Amendment test for regulations of commercial speech.  Read More

Lawsuit over whether plaintiffs were wrongly excluded from board member positions in nonprofit religious corporations that controlled a religious organization, was not barred under the ministerial exception since plaintiffs’ claims would not interfere with a religion’s freedom to choose its own ministers.  Read More

The Legislature violated two employers’ right to equal protection by carving them out of an exemption it granted all other employers from retroactive liability for certain minimum wage violations; avoiding the United Farmworkers Union’s opposition to the legislation was not a rational basis for treating the two employers differently.  Read More

Civil harassment injunction which barred defendant from writing defamatory letters about plaintiff did not violate defendant’s First Amendment rights, but the trial court’s order needed to clarify that defendant was allowed to conduct bona fide petitioning activity in letters to governmental officials about plaintiff.  Read More