The appeals court left it to the district court to determine whether Ohana and the Ellison Trust’s employer status may be decided as a matter of law or must be submitted to a jury. Following the bankruptcy filing of Hawaii Island Air, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling that the owners of two-thirds of the airline’s stock—the Au Defendants—were an “employer” under Hawaii’s Dislocated Workers Act. However, the appeals court reversed the lower court’s rulings as to employer…

The proposals are important steps towards providing individual investors with more access to private market investment opportunities. At an SEC public meeting on September 30, 2026, Chairman Paul S. Atkins issued a statement on proposals to expand “responsible retailization” of private markets by “embracing investment growth and innovation across all asset classes, while protecting individual investors with appropriate safeguards.” There were three items on the meeting agenda. First, the…

Several federal agencies refused to provide information to the Government Accountability Office for a probe into whether personnel from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) adhered to privacy and cybersecurity standards in their work at the agencies, GAO said in a report published today. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau went so far as to accuse GAO of “serving at the behest of a few congressional members to harass and impede the CFPB and its efforts to implement the…

The states filed a second lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana against 30 individuals and entities that “have flooded illegal abortion pills into pro-life states.” Three Republican states have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the shield laws in New York, Massachusetts, and California, arguing that the “sole purpose” of the laws is “to facilitate abortion by mail in pro-life states.” The states of Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama allege that they “invested in the promise of…

The Fed adopted two final stress test rules and proposed a revised noninterest income model for the 2027 stress test. The Federal Reserve Board has finalized two rules that require annual public input on its supervisory stress test models and scenarios and that average stress test results over two years when setting stress capital buffer requirements, according to a Fed press release. The Fed also requested comment on a revised noninterest income model for the 2027 stress test. Governor…

Hearst’s FIRST WARNING WEATHER and TRAFFIC marks are sufficiently similar to Gray Local Media’s registered FIRST ALERT marks to support plausible allegations of consumer confusion. The similarity between competing television stations’ weather and traffic marks, combined with their use for essentially the same services in the same markets, allows Gray Local Media to pursue trademark claims against Hearst, a media corporation, over its FIRST WARNING WEATHER and FIRST WARNING TRAFFIC branding.…

The court only dismissed one parent company because there was no facial indication that it participated in or ratified the alleged price-fixing scheme. Industrial equipment renters plausibly alleged that various rental companies and Rouse Services LLC (Rouse), a construction equipment information services company, entered into an unlawful agreement in both restraint of trade and information exchange, held the federal district court in Chicago. The court also found the plaintiffs alleged…

The consumer sufficiently alleged both a design defect and causation, and evidence of a subsequent recall of the subject cooler reinforced his theories of defect. In an action arising from a consumer’s finger injury when the tow handle of a roller cooler allegedly pinched his finger during movement, a federal district court in California denied the cooler manufacturer’s motion to dismiss. Applying the consumer-expectations test, the court found that removing a cooler from a bear box was…

Among other things, the employee allegedly overheard trainers say that “white people are cannibals,” that “racism is in white people’s DNA,” and that “white people are like the devil.” Reversing in part a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the City of Seattle against the racial discrimination claims asserted by a former city employee, the Ninth Circuit determined that the evidence presented by the employee, accepted as true, would show that he was subjected to racially…