Div. Two of the Fourth District Court of Appeal has held that a trial judge in a criminal proceeding erred in quashing a defense subpoena relating to the victim of an alleged kidnapping, who was purportedly taken by her fiancé from a conservator’s facility after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, based on a finding that a probate court order declaring her to be “gravely disabled” was dispositive of her incompetence to testify.

(Subscription required) Saturday marks 30 years since President Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act, creating Section 230's immunity shield for online platforms. Courts are still grappling with its limits in cases testing whether social media companies can be held liable for allegedly addictive algorithms. 

(Subscription required) U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Kang ruled Meta inflated its defense in the social media addiction MDL by counting dormant accounts in average time-on-app figures. The company must reproduce the data with a far tighter margin of error, handing plaintiffs more precise metrics for damages and causation arguments.

(Subscription required) The 9th Circuit en banc held immigration judges must conduct a case-specific inquiry into whether severe traffic can constitute "exceptional circumstances," overruling part of a 2021 precedent and remanding a family's removal case to the BIA.