287 results for 'court:"USDC Northern District of California"'.
J. Martinez-Olguin dismisses vicarious copyright infringement claims from comedian and author Sarah Silverman and two other authors who claim OpenAI trained its ChatGPT program using material from their books without permission. The authors fail to prove ChatGPT directly copied their work and protection does not extend to every idea, theory and fact underlying a copyrighted work. However, an Unfair Competition Law claim can move forward. Additionally, OpenAI did not move to dismiss the direct infringement claim, so that claim proceeds.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Martinez-Olguin, Filed On: February 12, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv3223, NOS: Copyrights - Property Rights, Categories: Copyright, Unfair Competition, Class Action
J. Orrick denies Meta's request to dismiss class privacy claims over pixel tracking technology that web users say Meta has been installing in various websites in order to collect private medical data from users. The case is one of many similar ones around the country over the same issue, and Meta's defense that it was just a "passive" recipient of the private information is not enough to shield the company. The class has properly alleged that Meta aggressively targeted different websites to be potential clients for the pixel tracking tool.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Orrick, Filed On: February 12, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv4784, NOS: Other Fraud - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: Unfair Competition, Privacy, Class Action
J. White dismisses civil rights claims against Santa Clara's Department of Health and Human Services from two people who were subjected to sexual abuse by their foster parents when they were kids. The two say that county officials ignored obvious red flags and didn't properly inspect the home before they were placed there, but the county never got word of any complaints about the foster parents and there is no evidence they broke any protocols in selecting them as caregivers. The claims are mostly based on speculation and broad conclusions that are not strong enough for Monell and state law claims to stand upon.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: White, Filed On: February 9, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv4948, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Agency
[Consolidated]. J. Pitts declines to dismiss class antitrust claims against Energizer, who consumers are suing for making a deal with Walmart that allows the supermarket to set the retail prices for Energizer products where they are sold. There are three different classes suing, and they have shown evidence of this agreement between the companies and that it resulted in unfairly high prices.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Pitts, Filed On: February 9, 2024, Case #: 5:23cv2093, NOS: Antitrust - Other Suits, Categories: Antitrust, Class Action
J. Chen dismisses all RICO claims against X, formerly Twitter, from a migrant who studied in the United States for several years before being captured and allegedly tortured by the government of Saudi Arabia. He says he was captured for being critical of the Saudi government on his X account and that company officials conspired with the Saudi government to turn over his location and account information. He has failed to state any actionable claim under the Alien Tort Statute, and even if he did, his RICO claims are barred by the four-year statute of limitations.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chen, Filed On: February 9, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv2369, NOS: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) - Other Suits, Categories: Civil Rights, International Law, Racketeering
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J. Orrick dismisses civil rights claims from Barry Gilton, who claims that San Francisco officials made up evidence to convict him of being involved in the murder of Calvin Sneed, of which he was eventually acquitted. His complaint is supported by largely circumstantial evidence and does not show that he was prosecuted without probable cause. Gilton's prior experiences with Sneed regarding troubles with his daughter, as well as Gilton's known connections to the gang involved in the killing, all gave prosecutors enough probable cause to indict Gilton.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Orrick, Filed On: February 8, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv7697, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Malicious Prosecution
J. Chen dismisses class employment claims against United Airlines and a workers' union from employees who say the union and the airline conspired together to hash out a deal that reduced employee wages. The employees have not offered up meaningful proof of any "secret conspiracy" that resulted in reduced wages. The class of employees are given an opportunity to amend in the event they can point to a specific part of their contract the union or the company tried to subvert.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chen, Filed On: February 7, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv3939, NOS: Railway Labor Act - Labor, Categories: Employment, Labor / Unions
J. Davila finds in favor of a homeowner who claims that State Farm denied her property damage claim when a broken thermostat caused her home to suffer excessive heat damage. State Farm denied the claim after finding there were at least two policy exclusions that prevented the homeowner from recovering damages, but under the clear language of the agreement, the loss is covered by their "Power Interruption" provision.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Davila, Filed On: February 5, 2024, Case #: 5:22cv4193, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: Insurance
J. Davila dismisses all class employment claims against Amazon from employees who say that the company's "productivity policies," which track the productivity of warehouse workers and helps the company assign productivity scores based on their performance, violate California's Fair Employment and Housing Act by unfairly targeting female employees. The claims are "insufficiently general" and don't point to a specific element or rule within the productivity policies that is discriminatory. The employees are given leave to amend to add that missing specificity.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Davila, Filed On: January 30, 2024, Case #: 5:22cv6397, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Employment Discrimination, Class Action
J. Davila allows negligence claims to survive against Accellion stemming from two data breach incidents. The company was aware of some security vulnerabilities in its software prior to the breaches, and by not fixing them in time, the company breached its special duty of care to customers. A series of other contract and privacy claims are tossed for not showing that the company was acting in a "highly offensive" manner, though they may be amended.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Davila, Filed On: January 29, 2024, Case #: 5:21cv1155, NOS: Other Statutory Actions - Other Suits, Categories: Negligence, Privacy
J. Tigar dismisses most securities claims against Volta, an electric car charging station company, from investors who say that the company covered up flaws in its business model in order to push a merger with Tortoise Acquisition. While investors prevail on the issue of whether some of the company's challenged statements and figures are protected by the safe harbor doctrine, the bulk of the claims are tossed for not proving that the company was intentionally misleading investors by feeding them false data.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Tigar, Filed On: January 26, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv2055, NOS: Securities/Commodities/Exchange - Other Suits, Categories: Securities
J. Chen finds in favor of internet company Bright Data after Meta claimed it was using data scrapping technology to steal private information from users of Facebook and Instagram. Evidence on the record shows the internet company only participated in "logged-out scrapping" of public Meta data, and as a result did not violate any of Meta's Terms of Service.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chen, Filed On: January 23, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv77, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Privacy
J. Tigar allows a few damages claims to continue against OpenAI and Microsoft from a class of coders who say the companies use AI tools and software, such as Copilot, that infringe on their coding. The damages claims have the standing needed to proceed in regards to some of the unnamed coders bringing the suit, but all of their state law claims for unjust enrichment and negligence are tossed for being preempted by the Copyright Act.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Tigar, Filed On: January 22, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv6823, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Copyright, Class Action, Contract
J. Martinez-Olguin dismisses most claims against Catalina Snacks, makers of the Catalina Crunch Keto cereal products, alleging that the cereals' labels misrepresent their ingredients and where the sugar content comes from. The bulk of the claims fail for not showing how the product labels falsely imply from which ingredients the nutritional content is derived, or how they would trick the average consumer.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Martinez-Olguin, Filed On: January 18, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv296, NOS: Other Fraud - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: Consumer Law, False Advertising
J. Davila grants final approval to a $10 million settlement in a class action brought by Health Net customers who were impacted by a data breach. Each class member may submit a claim to receive credit monitoring services for three years, a cash fund payment, or a documented loss payment of up to $10,000. The settlement also calls for Health Net to implement and maintain data security measures for 5 years.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Davila, Filed On: January 16, 2024, Case #: 5:21cv3322, NOS: Other Contract - Contract, Categories: Settlements, Privacy, Class Action
J. Chesney dismisses all claims against Reddit brought by the creator of the "WallStreetBets" subreddit after he tried to trademark the name and was banned from moderating content for trying to monetize a Reddit community. The creator says Reddit has infringed on his WallStreetBets marks, but has not shown how he has any ownership rights over the marks or that Reddit has infringed on them.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chesney, Filed On: January 12, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv686, NOS: Trademark - Property Rights, Categories: Trademark
J. Freeman denies in large part a summary judgment motion against Zazzle, an online marketplace, regarding copyright claims from a creator of fonts of who says the website has been using her fonts without permission. While the creator prevails on a minor claim as to whether the marketplace consented to a series of website service terms for the fonts, the bulk of her summary judgment is denied due to lingering questions and conflicting expert testimony over whether her fonts are valid copyrights.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Freeman, Filed On: January 9, 2024, Case #: 5:22cv4844, NOS: Other Fraud - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: Copyright
J. Tigar finds in favor of Netflix regarding patent claims from a former CEO of a Finnish company that claimed Netflix was infringing on his data communications networks patent. The former CEO's claims that he has ownership of the patent under Finnish common law are irrelevant, because under U.S. patent laws the patent in dispute has been abandoned and he lacks standing to pursue any of his claims.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Tigar, Filed On: January 8, 2024, Case #: 4:22cv1490, NOS: Patent - Property Rights, Categories: Patent
J. Chen allows some employment claims to proceed against San Mateo Community College from a former professor who says she was fired twice for being involved with a group that was pushing back on the college's move to destroy a campus garden and replace it with a parking lot. The college says she was fired for too many work absences, but the professor has plausibly shown she was being pressured to stay away from the garden issue and later fired for engaging in protected activity. The claims can only proceed on the basis of her first firing, as claims related to her second firing are barred by res judicata.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chen, Filed On: January 2, 2024, Case #: 3:18cv5932, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Employment
J. Chen dismisses all civil rights and immigration claims from a group that sued the Trump administration in 2018 when their protection status as immigrants from a half dozen countries, such as Haiti and El Salvador, was revoked. The group has continued with their claims after a series of back-and-forth appeals, but most of the protections in dispute have since been reinstated and the claims now fail for being moot.
Court: USDC Northern District of California, Judge: Chen, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: 3:18cv1554, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, Immigration