California

A California appellate court last week affirmed a lower court ruling that a bank manager presented enough evidence to allow his defamation claim against McGraw-Hill to proceed, thus rejecting the publisher's anti-SLAPP argument. The manager alleged that he was defamed by statements about the mortgage crisis in a BusinessWeek article.

The California Supreme Court on Monday granted a stay on a Sacramento trial court order requiring a juror to turn over his Facebook postings made while serving as jury foreperson during a criminal trial.

A California appellate court denied Thursday a request to overturn a Sacramento trial court order requiring a juror to consent to Facebook's release of the online postings made by the juror while he served as the jury foreperson in a criminal trial. The juror's attorney vowed Friday to continue to challenge the order in court.

A California state court in Placer County heard arguments Tuesday on a motion from the local district attorney's office for a controversial gag order in a shopping mall arson case. The attorney for the accused and the Sacramento Bee opposed the gag order, which, if granted as proposed, would apply not only to the parties and their attorneys, but also to investigating agencies and their employees as well.

A California judge ordered Dole Food Co. Inc. to pay about $200,000 in court costs and attorney’s fees to two documentary filmmakers who it had sued over a documentary about the company's practices. Dole previously voluntarily dropped its defamation lawsuit against the filmmakers, who, Dole alleged, implied the company had caused the deaths of Nicaraguan farm workers.

A state judge in California granted Friday a defense attorney’s request to seal the transcript of criminal grand jury testimony on the grounds that releasing the document to the public would interfere with the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

The transcript of the testimony, sealed by Judge Lisa Novak of the San Mateo County Superior Court, details evidence the grand jury used to determine that the defendant, Alexander Robert Youshock, 18, should stand trial for an alleged failed massacre attempt at his high school, the San Mateo Daily Journal reported.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital civil liberties group based in San Francisco, has received information through a federal Freedom of Information Act request documenting how U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services uses social networking sites to investigate petitions for citizenship.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Monday that allows legal guardians of murdered children to request that autopsy reports and medical records concerning the murder be permanently sealed from public inspection.

Eight Bell, Calif., city officials were arrested last week on corruption charges after public records requests and a subsequent investigation by the Los Angeles Times revealed government corruption and prompted a larger investigation by the Los Angeles County district attorney.