After receiving a religious exemption from the city’s vaccination policy, the employee contended that requiring him to test and wear masks created a hostile work environment. Affirming a district court’s dismissal and denial of a motion for reconsideration of a City of Pasadena employee’s claims surrounding its COVID-19 vaccination policies, the Ninth Circuit agreed with the lower court that the defendants had immunity from all the employee’s claims under the Public Readiness and Emergency…

JPMorgan was in the process of seeking the SEC’s permission to allow the statutorily disqualified person to effect swaps. Two JPMorgan affiliates settled SEC charges connected with a disqualified person’s involvement in security-based swap transactions. According to the SEC’s order, the firms knew that the trader had been statutorily disqualified, but they didn’t have adequate systems or supervisory procedures to flag that he had started trading before the SEC allowed it. The cease-and-desist…

Federal agencies would be barred from using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) or data collected by ALPRs under bicameral legislation unveiled today. The Ban Flock Act (H.R.10691 , 119th Cong. (2026)), which is named after Flock Safety, a leading ALPR vendor, was introduced in the House by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.). A Senate version will be introduced by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.). The legislation would prohibit “the head of any Federal agency and…

Where front label of ashwagandha gummies displayed a dosage without specifying if the dosage was per gummie or per serving, the fine-print ingredients list on the product’s back label did not absolve the Manufacturer of liability for deceptive statements on the front label. A federal District Court in California has denied in part and granted in part the Motion to Dismiss filed by Target Corporation (Target or Manufacturer) in a lawsuit brought by a Consumer who alleged that Target violated…

The report highlights the Bureau efforts in transforming its fair lending program “by refocusing its regulatory, supervisory, and enforcement activities on its statutory authority and identified consumer harm.” The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s September 2026 Fair Lending Report for 2025 describes a shift toward matters involving proven, intentional racial discrimination with identifiable victims and away from disparate-impact liability. Consistent with an April 2025 executive order,…

A bipartisan proposal would give copyright owners a new judicial remedy against large-scale foreign piracy sites by requiring certain internet providers to prevent U.S. users from accessing sites designated for blocking. Copyright owners could seek federal orders targeting foreign websites under the newly introduced Deterring Extraterritorial Foreign Exploitation of Networks Damaging Intellectual Property (DEFEND IP) Act of 2026 . After a site receives a piracy designation, certain broadband…

Purchasers plausibly alleged that Celgene’s settlement with Natco delayed generic Revlimid entry and used volume restrictions to enable Natco to charge supracompetitive prices. The federal court in Newark, New Jersey denied, in relevant part, the drugmakers’ motion to dismiss antitrust claims alleging that Celgene’s 2015 settlement with generic manufacturer Natco Pharma Ltd. constituted an unlawful “pay-for-delay” agreement involving Revlimid. The plaintiffs alleged that the settlement delayed…

The design and manufacturing defect counts failed because the subject watch was not designed to, or claimed to, detect all falls or trigger emergency assistance in every case. In an action brought against a watch manufacturer by an aged woman who suffered a serious brain injury after falling from her staircase and not receiving assistance for thirteen hours, a federal district court in Massachusetts granted the manufacturer’s motion to dismiss. The watch’s failure to detect her fall or contact…

However, a store manager’s statement that she would leave the store if employees voted to join the union, coupled with her statement about changing the character of the store, were a lawful expression of “views, argument, or opinion” under Section 8(c). A district manager and a store manager for a Starbucks location in Wisconsin made unlawful statements during captive audience meetings, ruled a three-member panel of the NLRB. The Board found that the employer violated Section 8(a)(1) by…