(Subscription required) On April 16, seven states formed the Consortium of Privacy Regulators to share expertise, align enforcement strategies, and strengthen oversight of state privacy laws through long-term, cross-jurisdictional collaboration.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that the right to a trial by jury guaranteed by the Seventh Amendment for “[s]uits at common law” attaches to a claim for statutory damages under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, based on noncompliance with certain federal disability laws, finding that the request is legal in nature even if it is predicated on a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act, for which injunctive relief is the only option.

A federal statute limiting a state’s homestead exemption to $189,050 where a debt stems from “fraud, deceit, or manipulation in a fiduciary capacity” does not apply—despite a Los Angeles Superior Court judgment establishing that the debtor committed elder financial fraud—the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s Bankruptcy Appellate Panel has held, explaining that the deception preceded the perpetrator having gained control of the victim’s family trust.

Two judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday repudiated their recent concurrence in the view that the judicially crafted rule that administrative law judges hearing appeals from rulings of the commissioner of social security must set forth a “germane reason” for rejecting the views of lay witnesses.