Today I participated in a discussion on KPCC's "AirTalk" about a fascinating case in Arkansas that demonstrates how difficult it can be to apply established First Amendment precedent to new technology. Arkansas police have obtained a search warrant for Amazon's records of a murder defendant's...
Today Brown White & Osborn LLP announced a $3,700,000 settlement in a Section 1983 lawsuit it brought on behalf of the Downey Firemen’s Association and 14 firefighters against the City of Downey and its former Fire Chief Lonald Croom. The City retaliated against the 14...
Two late-year 2016 federal administrative and judicial pronouncements combine to raise concerns about the future of non-judicial dispute resolution fora. On November 28, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), a unit of the Department of Health and Human Services, adopted rules which, among...
21st Century Fox recently made news when it filed suit against Netflix for poaching two of Fox’s top executives. Fox claims in its suit filed on September 16, 2016, that its executives were still under contract and Netflix’s poaching constituted tortious interference with those contracts....
Self-driving cars are the swiftly-approaching future of transportation. From Uber’s rollout of self-driving ride share vehicles in Pittsburgh, to the State of California’s recent issue of a license to Chinese tech giant Baidu to test its automated vehicles in the state, companies and state governments...
On December 1, 2015, the latest amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure took effect. The most significant changes was an amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1), which defines the scope of permissible discovery. Gone is the familiar phrase used in discovery...
This week I have two columns up elsewhere. At the Daily Journal, I wrote about the State of California's constitutionally questionable decision to prevent an artist from showing a Civil War painting at the Big Fresno Fair on the dubious grounds that it violated a...
Those of us of a certain age remember schools being unaware of bullying or indifferent to it. But for the last decade American schools have increasingly sought to prevent and punish various forms of bullying, motivated both by a concern for student well-being and effective...
Brown White & Osborn LLP’s lawyers regularly write about criminal justice and civil litigation issues for publications nationwide. Here are three recent examples: Confessions of an Ex-Prosecutor at Reason Magazine, discussing how culture shapes prosecutorial behavior. Brock Turner: The Sort of Defendant Who Is Spared “Severe Impact,” at the FaultLines Blog,...
When a client is accused of wrongdoing, the press often contacts attorneys for comments. Some attorneys choose the safe route and respond, “no comment,” which is not ideal for public relations. Other attorneys steer a middle course with measured words to the effect of “the...