Samantha E. Wood, the petitioner, is a transgender adult film star who has been known as “Candi Bimbo Doll” for over a decade, according to her petition for a name change. Because this identity has been “embraced” and consistently used by her, she filed a petition to legally change her... Read More »
O.E. was an eighth-grade student at St. Mary’s School in Aliso Viejo in Orange County, California. In violation of the contract he signed when he enrolled, he shared a “collection of rap lyrics” that contained racist, sexist, sexual and violent lyrics with a fellow student. He was expelled and enrolled... Read More »
Bryce Dixon arrived at the University of Southern California (USC) as a top-rated football tight end from Ventura, California, in 2014. The following spring, he was expelled for violating the University’s “affirmative consent” policy by engaging in nonconsensual sex with a student athletic trainer. He challenged his expulsion in Los... Read More »
J.S., a 13-year-old who committed new crimes while on probation for robbery and battery, was judged to not be eligible to have his records sealed by the juvenile court. After being convicted and serving 15 months in juvenile detention, he was placed on probation and made a ward of the... Read More »
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County issued an order that required its firefighters and other healthcare workers to get vaccinated by September 30, 2021. Those with opposite, approved religious beliefs, however, were exempt from the order, if they passed an interview with the County’s health department,... Read More »
The State of Florida, under the leadership of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, enacted the Individual Freedom Act in the spring of 2022, which became effective July 1 of that year. The Act is commonly referred to as Stop WOKE, for Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees but also referencing... Read More »
California’s seniors are protected by the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act (Elder Abuse Act). Carol Ruth Denney, a 70-year-old woman who lived in the same apartment complex in Berkeley, California, for 30 years, received a protective order against her neighbor’s caretaker Joe Wright in 2020. The following... Read More »
In 2007, Netflix broadcast a movie titled “13 Reasons Why” that told the story of a teenager’s suicide and its effect on her friends. Isabella “Bella” Herndon, a minor, watched the show and tragically committed suicide shortly after it aired. Four years after her death, her father and brothers sued... Read More »
Even though the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reduced the time COVID-19 sufferers need to isolate, time has not been reduced for COVID-based lawsuits. This week, a California appellate court decided that college students who filed a class action suit asking for tuition refunds because they were promised “in-person... Read More »
California’s Penal Code (CPC) §1089 says that a juror can be removed for “good cause” if he or she refuses to deliberate. People v. Gaines provides a new definition of what this refusal must consist of to meet the law’s discharge criteria. Rodney Louis Gaines was on trial for elder... Read More »
Facebook (now Meta Platforms) was created in 2004 to connect people to anyone who sought to be connected. Just two years later, privacy issues began to plague the young company. First, it was connecting users to News Feed, a service that told users what was new with their Facebook Friends,... Read More »
“What Ashford University did to its students was unconscionable and illegal,” said the California Attorney General who sued the online institution and won over $22 million in penalties. A California appellate court lowered the amount by just under one million because of statute of limitations violations, but the defendants, Ashford... Read More »
Myralyn OA Nartey was a doctoral student at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2009, she entered the doctoral program at the university’s Fielding School of Public Health. When she sought to defend her dissertation in 2014, she was told she had to “throw away” her entire thesis... Read More »
In the past four years, California has enacted two “Racial Justice Acts” (Acts) that allow individuals to petition courts for relief if they believe there was racial bias in their charges, convictions or sentences. The laws were enacted due to concern that criminal prosecutions and sentences in the state “are... Read More »
Police officers went to Brett Parkins’ home to search it because he was suspected of aiming a laser pointer at an aircraft. Parkins’ girlfriend was about to allow the officers to enter his Huntington Beach, California, home when he yelled, “Don’t let the cops in and don’t talk to them.” ... Read More »
