Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has almost penalized a pro per appellant for filing a brief containing phony citations, apparently the product of artificial intelligence “hallucinations,” but, after ordering payment of $500 by her, declared that “[e]xecution of the sanction is suspended.”

The Court of Appeal for this district has held that a Los Angeles Superior Court judge properly granted an anti-SLAPP motion in a case where a man sued Simon & Schuster, contending the author of memoirs, his brother-in-law, is falsely portrayed on the inside flap of the dust jacket as a virtuous man when, in actuality, he was charged in the 1980s with three felony counts of receiving of stolen property.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in affirming the dismissal with prejudice of an action brought by a rapper/chef who complains that her persona was pilfered by Amazon.com, has applied a 1992 decision arising under California law declaring that there was no violation of television hostess Vanna White’s right of publicity in using, in a commercial, a robot resembling her standing on a Wheel of Fortune-like set.

(Subscription required) Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Maria Jhai credits her background in anthropology, federal prosecution, and innocence work with teaching her the importance of questioning assumptions, listening carefully and approaching each case with an open mind.