The Brief, September 2, 2026
NATIONAL
The in-chambers stay we covered last week became a full-Court ruling August 31: National Park Service v. National Trust for Historic Preservation, No. 26A203, stays the injunction that halted East Wing construction. The unsigned opinion rests on standing: "distress at or disagreement with the activities of others is not a basis under Article III for a plaintiff to bring a federal lawsuit." Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, dissented: "The White House is an iconic American building whose symbolism and history are wrapped up in its architecture." When the claimed injury is distress at government action, standing is the whole ballgame.
In Emmerich Newspapers v. Particle Media (No. 25-60550, published August 27), the Fifth Circuit declined to adopt Perfect 10's server test and held display-right liability turns on whether the defendant itself transmits the work: "Simply, one cannot transmit content it does not have. We call this 'the transmit requirement.'" Embedding is now judged differently in the Fifth and Ninth Circuits; advise clients circuit by circuit and watch for a cert petition.
CALIFORNIA & LA
The Legislature guts private CIPA pen register web-tracking suits, retroactively (3 minute read)
SB 690 passed the Assembly 66-0 and the Senate 40-0 on August 28 and is enrolled. It amends Penal Code section 637.2 so a section 638.51 pen register claim arising from "conduct occurring on an internet website, online application, or mobile application may be brought under this section only by the Attorney General," retroactive to pending claims commenced within two years before the operative date. If signed, the workhorse theory behind the web-tracking class-action wave is dead for private plaintiffs, including cases already on file.
In Hickenbottom v. Medical Solutions LLC (D086542, Fourth District, Division One, published August 26), an employer denied arbitration once moved again on a different arbitration agreement. The court held it was a renewed motion under CCP section 1008(b), so the missing affidavit left the trial court without jurisdiction and the appeal was dismissed: "The fact that the two motions were based on different provisions in different contracts does not change the fact that both asked the court for the same thing." Invoke every arbitration agreement in the first motion; there is no second bite.
Ari Law P.C. v. Autonation.com (A173620, First District, Division Four, published August 26) affirmed a $29,055 award under CCP sections 128.5 and 128.7 despite a hearing-date mismatch between the served and filed copies of the motion. Expressly disagreeing with the Second District's Galleria Plus and J.N. v. Goldberg decisions, the court held the mismatch "does not require reversing the court's order where the motion served and subsequently filed were substantively the same." With a live split, keep the served copy's date accurate anyway until the Supreme Court sorts it out.
ORANGE COUNTY
Israel Claustro, who resigned from the bench with his January guilty plea to one count of mail fraud, was sentenced August 27 to one year of probation and a $5,000 fine. He owned a medical corporation despite a legal prohibition and paid a suspended doctor more than $300,000 for medical-legal reports submitted under other doctors' names. As reported by Voice of OC, he told the court: "I deceived the people of the State of California so I could continue to earn extra income." A judge's fraud case ending in straight probation is a benchmark for white-collar outcomes in the Santa Ana courthouse.
One day after the city moved to comply with Judge Bancroft's August 19 order we covered, the OC Registrar of Voters rejected the three charter-reform measures August 28. As reported by Voice of OC, County Counsel Leon Page's letter invoked the 88-day Elections Code deadline that expired August 7, warning the measures "would substantially interfere with the printing and distribution of election materials." The city will seek further direction from the court: a mandamus order colliding with statutory ballot deadlines, and no clean precedent on which gives way.
AI & PRACTICE
SB 574 passed the Assembly 75-0 and the Senate 39-0 on August 31 and is enrolled. It adds Business and Professions Code section 6068.1, requiring attorneys to keep client confidences out of unsecured generative AI and to verify and correct AI outputs, and amends CCP section 128.7 so a filed paper "shall not contain any citations that an attorney responsible for submitting the pleading has not personally verified, including any citation provided by generative artificial intelligence." If signed, a hallucinated citation in a California filing becomes a statutory sanctions violation, not just an ethics problem.
In Booker v. Kroger (No. 1:26-cv-02006-SDG, N.D. Ga., August 28), plaintiff's counsel filed briefs with four fake, false and misleading citations, denied using AI when asked, then admitted it. Judge Grimberg imposed $1,000 per citation, doubled to $8,000 because counsel "deliberately lied to this Court" about his AI use, adding: "You can use whatever AI tools you like, but only human beings will be held responsible for the outcome." Courts price the cover-up higher than the hallucination; candor about AI use is the cheapest mitigation.