California News

On May 8, 2012, the California Assembly Judiciary Committee defeated A.B. 1878 (Beth Gaines-R) by a clean party-line vote of 3-7.  This bill would have provided businesses much needed relief from frivolous ADA lawsuits.

California has long struggled to find the right balance between making sure the disabled have access to public places and protecting businesses from burdensome lawsuits. After lengthy negotiations, advocates for the disabled, trial attorneys and business groups came up with a compromise that took effect in January 2009. It created ground rules to allow businesses to be certified by the state as being in compliance.

MetLife on Monday became the third big life insurer to settle regulatory accusations of failing to keep track of policyholder deaths, trapping money that should have gone promptly to the beneficiaries.

Two former executives of an Orange County company pleaded guilty to foreign corruption charges for bribing overseas government officials in order to win sales contracts.

Senator Dianne Feinstein is urging California legislators to address the problem of so-called “drive-by” lawsuits that are filed against business owners in the state.

The California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse gathered here Wednesday to call for legal reform as more Americans in the lawsuit-happy culture have realized the seriousness of the problem.

The allure of California’s golden sand, flashbulb-perfect movie stars, and laid-back way of life draws nearly 100,000 new residents to the state every year. Some of them will arrive having been unknowingly injured in their original state by the acts of nationwide companies—a defective hip replacement joint installed in Florida; a malignancy traced to asbestos exposure in Texas; a prenatal fetal deformation from improperly disposed chemicals in Ohio. They might not discover their injury for months or decades.

A federal appeals court on Thursday struck down a novel and controversial California law that allowed descendants of 1.5 million Armenians who perished in Turkey nearly a century ago to file claims against life insurance companies accused of reneging on policies.