- OLC Opinion: ADA's State "Integration Mandate" Not Required by Lawon August 6, 2026 at 7:17 AM
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a slip opinion concluding that neither Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act nor Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to treat patients with severe mental illness or disabilities in the "most integrated setting" appropriate to their needs — and that federal regulations imposing that requirement, in place in some form since 1978, exceed what Congress actually authorized. The opinion, signed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit, was written for the White House Counsel's Office in response to a formal request for OLC's legal views on the so-called "integration mandate."
OLC opinions are formal legal advice the department's Office of Legal Counsel gives to the President and executive agencies; they bind Executive Branch practice going forward but are not court rulings and do not themselves change what a federal court would hold. This opinion answers three questions the White House Counsel's Office posed: whether the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, already settled that the statutes impose an integration mandate; if not, whether Congress could constitutionally impose one; and whether Congress in fact did so. OLC answers the first and third questions no, and concludes that because there is no statutory mandate to interpret, it does not need to resolve the constitutional question directly — though it says the serious constitutional doubts such a mandate would raise reinforce its reading of the statutory text.
The opinion's reading of Olmstead is narrower than how the decision is understood by most federal courts. Olmstead itself was fractured: a five-justice majority held that "unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination" under Title II, but only a four-justice plurality, led by Justice Ginsburg, went on to say that community-based treatment becomes mandatory once a state's own treatment professionals find it appropriate, the patient does not object, and it can reasonably be accommodated given the state's resources. Because that three-factor test never commanded a majority, OLC applies the Supreme Court's "narrowest grounds" rule from Marks v. United States to conclude Olmstead's binding holding is limited to the bare proposition that unjustified institutionalization can be discriminatory — without settling what counts as adequate justification for treating a patient in an institution. OLC acknowledges this view cuts against how most federal circuit courts have treated Olmstead's plurality language as binding, but says that disagreement is the kind of "contested legal question" the political branches and courts are meant to work out over time.
Turning to the statutory text, the opinion argues "discrimination" in Section 504 and Title II, understood by its ordinary meaning when each law was passed, means treating similarly situated people differently without adequate justification — not an affirmative duty to provide services in a particular setting. It points to Title III of the ADA, which explicitly requires public accommodations to operate in "the most integrated setting appropriate," and argues Title II's omission of that same language was intentional. Under OLC's reading, a state does not discriminate by treating a patient with mental illness in an institution so long as it has any non-arbitrary reason for doing so — including resource and space constraints, safety concerns, or the patient's own medical needs — and disability discrimination occurs only when disability itself, rather than the needs disability creates, is the sole basis for the treatment setting chosen.
The opinion separately walks through why reading an integration mandate into the statutes would raise serious constitutional problems under three possible sources of congressional power: Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the opinion says would require a legislative record showing a pattern of irrational state discrimination that a universal integration mandate does not appear to have; the Interstate Commerce Clause, which the opinion argues does not reach a purely in-state choice about where to treat a patient; and the Spending Clause, under which conditions on federal funds must be stated unambiguously, which OLC says neither statute does with respect to treatment setting. Because of these doubts, OLC applies the constitutional avoidance canon to reinforce its narrower statutory reading.
The opinion's bottom line is that the Department of Health and Human Services' regulation at 45 C.F.R. § 84.76(b) and the Department of Justice's regulation at 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d) — the regulations that first created the "most integrated setting" requirement and that the Olmstead Court leaned on in reaching its own holding — exceed the authority Congress gave those agencies, since Section 504 authorizes only regulations "necessary to carry out" the antidiscrimination provision and a general integration requirement is not necessary to eliminate discrimination as OLC defines it. The opinion recommends the regulations be rescinded, along with related sub-regulatory guidance the Department of Justice has issued interpreting Olmstead broadly, on the ground that such guidance never had the force of law in the first place. The opinion also notes that DOJ's Civil Rights Division has for two decades used the integration mandate and Olmstead to secure consent decrees and settlement agreements committing roughly a dozen states to specific deinstitutionalization benchmarks — agreements this opinion does not purport to unwind, but whose legal foundation it calls into question going forward.
The opinion is explicit about its own limits: it addresses only patients with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities of the kind at issue in Olmstead, expressly reserving how its reasoning would apply to physical disabilities, and it states it is not questioning the general constitutionality of Section 504 or Title II outside the integration-mandate context. It also acknowledges, more than once, that its interpretation departs from the near-uniform practice of federal appellate courts and from HHS and DOJ's own consistent position since the late 1970s, framing that departure as the product of an independent legal analysis conducted under current Supreme Court methodology (including 2024's Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes) rather than as a rejection of Olmstead itself.
This summary is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. An OLC opinion states the Executive Branch's own legal position; it does not overrule Olmstead v. L.C. or the federal appellate decisions applying it, and any change to existing regulations, consent decrees, or DOJ enforcement practice would require separate agency or judicial action. Readers should consult the full opinion for its complete legal reasoning and qualifications.
- Top Court Rules Drugmaker Has No Duty to Speed Safer Drug to Marketon August 6, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Gilead Sciences, Inc. developed tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), an HIV antiretroviral medication marketed as Viread and used in numerous combination HIV therapies, obtaining FDA approval in October 2001. While TDF was still in trials, Gilead began investigating a related compound, tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF), as a possible backup. A brief 2001 phase I/II trial — 30 subjects over two weeks — suggested TAF could match TDF's antiviral effect at a much lower dose, potentially with less kidney, bone, and tooth toxicity. In 2004, Gilead announced it was discontinuing TAF development, stating TAF's profile did not appear meaningfully different from TDF's. Plaintiffs, a large group of TDF users who allege they developed renal, bone, or tooth injuries from the drug, contend Gilead's stated reason was pretextual and that Gilead actually shelved TAF to protect TDF sales and later timed TAF's eventual release to extend patent-driven profits across both drugs. Gilead disputes that it knew TAF was safer at the time and says it resumed TAF development in 2010 to address bone and kidney concerns in an aging HIV population, ultimately winning FDA approval for TAF in November 2015. Plaintiffs do not contend TDF itself is defective, and they acknowledge some patients still prefer TDF to TAF; their theory is that Gilead's delay in developing and commercializing TAF was itself negligent and caused their injuries.
By the time Gilead moved for summary judgment, only negligence and fraudulent concealment claims remained. The San Francisco County Superior Court denied summary judgment on both. Gilead petitioned for a writ of mandate, and the Court of Appeal granted the petition as to the fraudulent concealment claim but left the negligence claim intact, holding in a published 2024 decision that a drug manufacturer's duty of reasonable care can, in some circumstances, extend beyond the duty to avoid marketing a defective product — specifically, that a manufacturer who has invented a drug it knows to be safer and at least equally effective than one it is currently selling may owe a duty of reasonable care regarding when to commercialize it. (Gilead Tenofovir Cases (2024) 98 Cal.App.5th 911.) The Court of Appeal further held the foreseeability and public-policy factors from Rowland v. Christian did not support an exception to that duty on the record before it.
In the case of Gilead Tenofovir Cases, No. S283862 (Cal. Sup. Ct., August 2026) — the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remanded with directions to grant summary judgment for Gilead on all remaining causes of action. Chief Justice Guerrero and Justice Kruger (joined by Justices Corrigan and Desautels) each filed separate concurring opinions; Justice Evans filed a dissent
Writing for the majority, Justice Groban expressed "significant doubt" that California law recognizes a manufacturer's negligence duty independent of a product defect at all, noting decades of precedent tying a manufacturer's duty under Civil Code section 1714 to the duty to design, manufacture, and market products free from defects, citing Merrill v. Navegar, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 465. But the majority found it unnecessary to resolve that threshold question. Even assuming a broader duty could exist, the Court held that the foreseeability and public-policy factors from Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 compel an exception to it here, applied "categorically" rather than to Gilead's specific case, consistent with Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 993.
On foreseeability, the majority held a manufacturer generally cannot reliably know, based only on early-phase clinical data, that an alternative drug is in fact safer than and as effective as an existing one; the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act itself generally requires two adequate, well-controlled studies (typically phase III trials) before FDA approval, and only about 25 to 30 percent of drugs that reach phase III succeed. Because that comparative knowledge is essentially unattainable during the early development stages at issue here, the Court held harm to existing-drug users was not reasonably foreseeable from a decision to pause a still-unproven alternative, and separately found the causal chain from that decision to any eventual injury too attenuated, given the intervening, independent, and uncertain decisions of regulators, physicians, and patients that stand between a development decision and any patient's actual treatment.
On the public-policy factors, the majority found moral blame difficult to assess categorically, since manufacturers may delay developing a backup drug for many morally neutral reasons, including allocating resources toward diseases with no existing treatment; found the policy of preventing future harm cut both ways, since a duty could speed development of safer alternatives but could equally distort research priorities, discourage manufacturers from investigating backup candidates at all, or push manufacturers to delay releasing improved drugs until every conceivable alternative has been fully vetted; and found the burden on manufacturers substantial, since phase III trials alone can cost tens of millions of dollars and take years, with no guarantee of eventual approval. The Court noted Gilead's own estimate that completing TAF's remaining development would cost roughly $100 million. Taken together, the majority held drug manufacturers owe no duty of care, when deciding whether and when to develop and commercialize an allegedly safer alternative, to users of a current, concededly nondefective drug — while emphasizing the ruling does not immunize manufacturers from ordinary defect, failure-to-warn, or fraud-based claims.
Chief Justice Guerrero concurred in the result but not the reasoning, arguing the majority should not have assumed a broader duty of care exists at all. In her view, decades of settled products liability law establish that a defect is an essential element of any negligence claim against a manufacturer, citing Jiminez v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1971) 4 Cal.3d 379, and because plaintiffs expressly disclaimed any allegation that TDF was defective, their claim should have failed on that threshold ground without needing to reach Rowland's foreseeability or policy factors at all. Justice Kruger, joined by Justices Corrigan and Desautels, separately concurred to elaborate on aspects of the majority's Rowland analysis. Justice Evans dissented, arguing the majority's application of Rowland effectively guaranteed the outcome by treating the manufacturer's own alleged profit motive and superior knowledge as insufficient to establish moral blame, and characterizing the majority's holding as granting drug manufacturers sweeping immunity from liability for delay-driven development decisions.
- Contract Formed Upon Carriers Acceptance of Policy-Limits Demandon August 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Doyle Archer, insured by Farmers Insurance Exchange (Farmers) under a policy with $15,000 per-person bodily injury liability limits, rear-ended Kathleen Ann Wood's vehicle at a red light in Hesperia, California, pushing it into another car. On July 30, 2021, Wood's attorney sent Farmers a letter offering to settle Wood's personal injury claim against Archer for the "total available policy limit of $100,000, or less," conditioned on written acceptance by a stated deadline and delivery of a declaration confirming the available policy limits; the letter added that "[i]f this demand exceeds the policy, then we hereby make a policy limit demand." On August 25, 2021, within the deadline, Farmers sent a letter agreeing to pay Wood the maximum $15,000 available to her individually under the policy's per-person limit (with the remaining $15,000 of the policy's $30,000 per-accident limit going to other passengers involved in the collision) and enclosing the requested declaration pages.
After Farmers' acceptance, Archer completed an asset declaration, submitted at Wood's request, representing that he owned one vehicle and had $5,000 in the bank; Wood's own investigation later identified other assets Archer did not disclose. Wood refused to sign the settlement paperwork and, on November 29, 2021, sued Archer directly. When Farmers' subsequent demand that Wood honor the settlement went unanswered, Farmers sued Wood for breach of contract, declaratory relief, and specific performance; the two actions were consolidated in San Bernardino County Superior Court.
Farmers moved for summary judgment, or in the alternative summary adjudication, on its declaratory relief cause of action, arguing it had fully performed every term of Wood's written settlement offer and that a binding agreement resulted. The trial court denied the motion, and Farmers petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal issued an order to show cause why the requested relief should not be granted, teeing up the single question whether Farmers' August 25, 2021 letter accepting Wood's policy-limits demand created a binding settlement agreement.
In the published case of Farmers Insurance Exchange v. The Superior Court for the County of San Bernardino, No. E087128 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 2, August 2026) — the Court of Appeal granted Farmers' petition for writ of mandate, directing the trial court to vacate its order denying summary judgment or adjudication and enter a new order granting Farmers summary adjudication on its declaratory relief claim. This opinion was originally filed on July 9, 2026 and was not initially certified for publication; on August 4, 2026, the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, ordered it published, explaining in an attached order that the opinion advances a new construction of governing law, addresses an apparent conflict in the law, and involves a legal issue of continuing public interest. It is now citable authority.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice McKinster reviewed the summary adjudication question de novo, applying the settled rule that a writ of mandate will issue where denial of summary adjudication would force trial on a nonactionable claim, citing Rancho Cucamonga Central School Dist. v. Superior Court (2025) 116 Cal.App.5th 718. Because a settlement agreement is governed by ordinary contract principles, requiring mutual consent to the same terms judged by objective, outward manifestations rather than either party's subjective understanding, citing Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter (2019) 7 Cal.5th 781 and Civil Code sections 1550 and 1580, the court found the undisputed correspondence between the parties established a binding agreement as a matter of law: Wood's counsel offered to settle for the "policy limit" if her stated $100,000 figure exceeded what the policy actually provided, and Farmers accepted by tendering its actual $15,000 per-person limit along with the declaration pages Wood's letter had required.
The panel rejected Wood's argument that Farmers' response was actually a counteroffer, since it offered $15,000 rather than the $100,000 stated in her letter, explaining that her own letter's plain language made clear a demand for "the policy limit" applied whenever her stated figure exceeded the actual coverage available, so Farmers' tender of the true per-person limit tracked, rather than varied from, the terms she had proposed. The court found this case squarely governed by CSAA Ins. Exchange v. Hodroj (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 272, which held that where parties agree on a settlement's material terms intending to later reduce the agreement to a more formal writing, a later disagreement over the content of that formal writing does not retroactively void the underlying agreement or transform a rejected draft into a counteroffer that discharges the original deal.
The panel likewise rejected Wood's alternative argument that, even if a contract was formed, Archer's incomplete asset declaration breached the agreement and gave her the right to rescind. The court explained Wood's original settlement offer was never made contingent on any asset declaration from Archer at all; that requirement arose only afterward, and its inclusion did not operate as a novation displacing the settlement Farmers had already accepted, again citing Hodroj's holding that later-added terms in a follow-up writing do not unwind an already-binding settlement. Because no triable issue of material fact remained as to contract formation, the panel held Farmers was entitled to summary adjudication on its declaratory relief cause of action, granted the petition, and awarded Farmers its costs.
- Employer's Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements Unconscionableon August 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM
GEO Secure Services, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The GEO Group, Inc. (collectively, GEO), is a private contractor providing housing and transportation services for federal detainees. GEO hired Jeffrey Cluck to work at its El Centro detention facility in July 2022. As part of its standard onboarding process, GEO had Cluck electronically sign two documents the same day: a two-page Arbitration Agreement requiring binding arbitration of disputes arising from his employment, with a 30-day opt-out window requiring a mailed or faxed letter to GEO's legal department; and a separate Confidentiality Agreement in which Cluck promised not to disclose GEO's confidential information, not to compete using company resources, and not to solicit GEO employees for a competitor. The Confidentiality Agreement further provided that any breach would cause GEO "irreparable harm" entitling it to special remedies, and that any dispute arising from that agreement would be litigated, without a jury, in a Florida court.
In December 2023, Cluck and a co-plaintiff filed a putative class action alleging wage and hour violations. GEO moved to compel arbitration of Cluck's claims under the Arbitration Agreement. Cluck opposed, arguing the Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements, read together, were unconscionable.
The San Bernardino County Superior Court denied GEO's motion to compel arbitration. It declined to read the two agreements together, reasoning the Confidentiality Agreement did not itself address resolution of employment disputes. Even considered alone, however, the court found the Arbitration Agreement procedurally unconscionable because it referenced American Arbitration Association discovery rules GEO never provided to Cluck, and substantively unconscionable on two grounds: it bound Cluck to arbitrate against a broad list of GEO-affiliated entities without binding those entities to arbitrate against him, and it failed to carve out sexual harassment and sexual assault claims as required by the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (9 U.S.C. §§401–402). GEO timely appealed.
In the partially published case of Cluck v. GEO Secure Services, LLC, No. D087341 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 1, August 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying GEO's motion to compel arbitration, though on different grounds than the trial court relied upon. This opinion is certified for publication with the exception of Part E of the Discussion (addressing severance), which remains nonpublished under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1110. The published portions are fully citable.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Dato explained that while the appeal was pending, the California Supreme Court decided Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. (2026) 19 Cal.5th 93, which addressed how an arbitration agreement and a separately signed confidentiality agreement interact in an unconscionability analysis; the court requested and received supplemental briefing on Fuentes's effect. Under the general framework confirmed in Fuentes and Ramirez v. Charter Communications, Inc. (2024) 16 Cal.5th 478, a contract is unconscionable where one party lacked meaningful choice and the resulting terms are unreasonably one-sided, with procedural and substantive unconscionability assessed on a sliding scale.
On procedural unconscionability, the panel held the Arbitration Agreement was a contract of adhesion, and that its opt-out provision did not meaningfully cure that oppression. Although an opt-out clause ordinarily undercuts a finding of procedural unconscionability, citing Gentry v. Superior Court (2007) 42 Cal.4th 443, the court found this particular opt-out process too cumbersome to count: the form provided only a single "AGREED AND RECEIVED" signature line with no box to decline, and an employee wishing to opt out had to draft a separate signed statement and mail or fax it to Florida within 30 days of a new job — a real but practically unrealistic path that steered nearly every new hire into arbitration by default.
Turning to substance, the panel parted ways with the trial court's refusal to read the Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements together. Applying Civil Code section 1642, which requires agreements relating to the same matter, between the same parties, and made as part of substantially one transaction to be construed together, and following Alberto v. Cambrian Homecare (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 482 and Silva v. Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (2025) 111 Cal.App.5th 1311, the court held both agreements governed the same general subject — how disputes between Cluck and GEO arising from his employment would be resolved — even though the Confidentiality Agreement addressed a narrower slice of that subject than the Arbitration Agreement's broad sweep. The panel rejected GEO's argument that each agreement's integration clause required reading them independently, since neither clause referenced the other, and rejected GEO's argument that the Confidentiality Agreement's mandatory character (as opposed to the Arbitration Agreement's technical opt-out right) took it outside section 1642's reach, since Cluck in fact signed both agreements as part of a single hiring transaction and never opted out of either.
Reading the two agreements together, the panel found they carved out an unfair asymmetry: the broadly worded Arbitration Agreement swept in the wage, overtime, and rest-period claims Cluck himself was most likely to bring, while the narrower Confidentiality Agreement's separate forum-selection, jury-waiver, and irreparable-harm provisions preserved a Florida court — not arbitration — for the competition and confidentiality claims GEO itself was most likely to bring against an employee. Because GEO offered no business justification for that one-sidedness, the panel had to presume it was substantively unconscionable, and found the imbalance particularly stark given that Cluck's claims would proceed in arbitration under a cumbersome opt-out default, while GEO's own claims would proceed in a distant judicial forum, without a jury, with Cluck pre-conceding irreparable harm from any breach. Given this significant degree of both procedural and substantive unconscionability, the panel held the arbitration agreement, considered together with the Confidentiality Agreement, was unenforceable, and it declined to reach the trial court's separate rulings on the discovery provision, the mutuality of claims against GEO's affiliated entities, or the sexual harassment carve-out. The panel affirmed the order denying arbitration and awarded Cluck his costs on appeal.
- Suspension of SCIF Attorney for Failing Cybersecurity Tests Affirmedon August 4, 2026 at 8:00 AM
Sylvia Bedrossian worked as a staff attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund (the Fund) beginning in 2004, eventually rising to attorney IV, a position responsible for litigating workers' compensation cases involving confidential and sensitive information. Like all Fund employees, Bedrossian was required to complete annual cybersecurity training, and the Fund periodically sent randomized, simulated "phishing" test emails to its roughly 4,000 employees to assess their security awareness; clicking a link, replying, or opening an attachment in one of these test emails counted as a failure, and repeated failures could lead to discipline.
Between December 2021 and December 2022, Bedrossian failed three separate phishing tests, opening emails on her Fund-issued phone and clicking links in messages that purported to come from a non-Fund address requesting login credentials, from state vehicle registration, and from a WeWork account invitation the Fund did not actually use. After her first failure, the Fund required her to attend one-on-one remedial training with a security analyst; according to the administrative law judge's later factual findings, Bedrossian was "accusatory and condescending" toward the analyst during that session, question her employment status and access to private information, and cut the session short, later sending an email accusing the Fund's security department of trying to entrap employees. After her second and third failures, the Fund issued a notice of adverse action suspending Bedrossian without pay for five days, citing both the repeated test failures and her conduct toward the analyst as grounds for discipline under Government Code section 19572.
Bedrossian appealed her suspension to the State Personnel Board (SPB), which held an investigatory hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) at which both Bedrossian and the security analyst testified. The ALJ found Bedrossian not credible and the analyst credible, resolving the key factual disputes in the Fund's favor, and concluded the Fund had proven multiple statutory grounds for discipline — inexcusable neglect of duty, discourteous treatment of another employee, willful disobedience, and other conduct discrediting the employer — while dismissing separate incompetency and insubordination charges the Fund had also alleged. Applying the factors for assessing an appropriate penalty set out in Skelly v. State Personnel Board, the ALJ found the five-day suspension appropriate, and the SPB adopted that recommendation.
Bedrossian then petitioned the Los Angeles County Superior Court for a writ of administrative mandamus, arguing the SPB acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction, denied her a fair hearing, and abused its discretion. The trial court determined that because state law did not require the SPB to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less, review under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and instead reviewed the petition as an ordinary writ of mandate under section 1085. The court found Bedrossian had forfeited several arguments — based on free speech, federal phishing law, wire fraud, the state's larceny statute, and entrapment — by failing to raise them before the SPB, addressed those arguments on the merits anyway, and rejected them, and otherwise found no basis to disturb the SPB's decision. The court denied the petition.
In the unpublished case of Bedrossian v. California State Personnel Board, No. B349445 (Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., Div. 1, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying Bedrossian's petition for writ of mandate. This opinion is marked "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS" and, under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), may not be cited or relied upon by courts or parties except in the limited circumstances that rule allows.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Presiding Justice Rothschild first confirmed the trial court had applied the correct standard of review. Because the SPB was not legally required to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less under Government Code section 19576, administrative mandamus under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and the trial court correctly proceeded under the traditional mandamus standard of section 1085, which permits relief only where a petitioner clearly establishes a right to have discretion exercised in a particular manner, citing Taylor v. State Personnel Board (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 498 and Coelho v. State Personnel Bd. (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 968.
On the sufficiency of the evidence, the panel held Bedrossian forfeited any substantial-evidence challenge by failing to cite the record or explain why the evidence supporting the SPB's findings was inadequate, offering only her own contrary factual assertions instead. On the merits of her argument that her conduct caused no harm to public service, the panel applied the framework from Skelly v. State Personnel Board (1975) 15 Cal.3d 194, which identifies harm, or risk of harm, to the public service as a key factor in assessing whether discipline is excessive. The court held it did not need to decide whether actual harm occurred, because repeated clicking on phishing test emails containing recognizable red flags was likely, if repeated, to compromise data the Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect, and because Bedrossian's discourteous treatment of the security analyst independently harmed the Fund's public service interests, citing Caveness v. State Personnel Board (1980) 113 Cal.App.3d 617, which held that discourtesy toward a supervisor or coworker injures the working relationship and is itself harmful to public service.
Finally, the panel agreed that Bedrossian forfeited her free speech, entrapment, wire fraud, and larceny arguments by not raising them before the SPB in the first instance, since an administrative agency must be given the opportunity to decide the issues before a party may raise them in later judicial review. The panel rejected Bedrossian's argument that her February 2022 email accusing Fund staff of entrapment, which was in the administrative record, was itself sufficient to preserve an entrapment defense, holding that a litigant must explicitly raise a legal theory before the agency to avoid forfeiting it, rather than relying on an evidentiary exhibit that touches on the same subject. Finding no error in the trial court's judgment, the panel affirmed and awarded the Fund its costs on appeal.
- CWCI Reports Substantial Unexplained Increase in CT Claimson August 4, 2026 at 8:00 AM
The share of California’s workers’ compensation claims identified as Cumulative Trauma (CT) nearly doubled between 2018 and 2025, with the sharpest growth occurring after 2021, according to a new California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) study. The study found that the increase was widespread, extending beyond regions and industries that historically accounted for the largest share of CT claims, but traditional factors such as population and employment growth, overall claim volume and changes in worker tenure explain relatively little of the increase, raising questions about what is driving the continued growth of CT claims.
The study uses data from CWCI’s Industry Research Information System (IRIS) to examine CT claim trends statewide and evaluate factors that may help explain the increase. It found that CT claims rose from about 1 in 11 California workers’ compensation claims in 2018 to 1 in 6 in 2025, with most of the increase coming after the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other key findings from the study include:
- - Growth was widespread. CT rates increased across every region, industry, body-part category and worker-tenure group examined. Los Angeles continued to have the highest CT rate, but some of the largest increases were in regions where CT claims historically were less common, including the Bay Area and Central Valley.
- - CT claims became less geographically concentrated. CT claim volume in the Central Valley increased 136% between 2018 and 2025, while in the Inland Empire/Orange County region it increased 98%. Los Angeles, despite having the highest CT rate in both years, had the smallest increase in CT claim volume at 25%.
- - Traditional workforce factors explain little of the growth. CT claims increased in regions with both expanding and contracting labor markets. Population and employment trends, declining overall claim volume and changes in worker tenure did not account for a significant share of the statewide increase.
- - Multiple filings contributed to the growth but more workers filing CTs was the primary driver. 87% of the increase in the CT rate analyzed at the individual-worker level was attributable to more workers filing at least one CT claim; 13% was associated with an increase in the average number of CT claims per worker.
- - The types of body-part claims shifted. While rising CT rates within body-part categories accounted for most of the increase, the mix of claims shifted toward categories with relatively high CT rates. The largest increases were in Soft Tissue, Other Facial Soft Tissue and Mental Disorder claims.
- - Applicant attorney representation shifted geographically. Southern California applicant attorneys increasingly represented claimants in CT cases involving Northern California employers, with their share increasing from 23% in 2019 to 79% in 2025. This expansion coincided with the widespread adoption of remote and virtual hearings during the pandemic, which reduced practical barriers to representing workers and litigating cases across the state. At the same time, the share of CT cases involving Northern California employers that were filed in Southern California venues increased from 15% to 38%.
The study identifies several areas for future research, including how the geographic expansion of applicant attorney representation, changes in law firm concentration, and attorney business practices may be related to the growth of CT claims. CWCI says further analysis of these factors will help stakeholders better understand the evolving CT litigation landscape in California.
Overall, the study documents a substantial, widespread increase in CT claims that cannot be fully explained by population and employment growth, overall claim frequency, or changes in workforce composition, suggesting that broader structural changes within the system merit closer examination as CT claims continue to grow. CWCI has published its study as a Report to the Industry, California Cumulative Trauma Claims: 2018–2025: Trends and Factors Associated with Growth which is available for free at www.cwci.org.
- California Laws Might Not Protect Remote Workers in Other Stateson August 3, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Pejman Saberin worked remotely from his home in Utah as an engineer for Alation, Inc., a data analysis and software company doing business in California, from September 2021 until his termination in October 2023. While returning from vacation, Saberin was arrested in Florida; his sister emailed Alation requesting additional time off, stating he had been injured in an accident, but Alation learned of the actual arrest through its own research. After Saberin was released from detention around October 24, 2023, Alation terminated his employment. The criminal case against him was dismissed in March 2024. Saberin sued in San Mateo County Superior Court, alleging Alation's consideration of his arrest violated Government Code section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7, both of which restrict an employer's use of an arrest that did not result in conviction.
The parties stipulated to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration under two employment documents Saberin had signed, one of which stated it was "governed by the laws of the State of California" and required arbitration of employment-related claims "PURSUANT TO CALIFORNIA LAW." Alation moved before the arbitrator to have California law declared inapplicable on extraterritoriality grounds, since Saberin worked exclusively from Utah and the termination decision was made by two Alation executives, Daniel Rose and Christos Mousouris, while they were both physically in Illinois (though Mousouris normally worked remotely from California). A third Alation employee, Liz Laber, who worked from California, provided "input" to that decision. The arbitrator agreed with Alation, reasoning that applying California law to a worker with no connection to the state, terminated by decision-makers acting entirely outside it, would produce an "absurd result." Because the parties then stipulated they could identify no other state's law that would support Saberin's claims, the arbitrator entered an award requiring Saberin to take nothing.
Saberin petitioned the San Mateo County Superior Court to vacate the arbitration award under Code of Civil Procedure section 1286.2, subdivision (a)(4), arguing the arbitrator exceeded his powers by applying the wrong extraterritoriality test and by failing to conduct a statute-specific analysis of section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7. The trial court denied the petition, finding the arbitrator had adequately considered Saberin's connections to California and correctly applied the framework from Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., and that Saberin had not shown a violation of any statutory right sufficient to justify disturbing the award.
In the published case of Saberin v. Alation, Inc., No. A174549 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 5, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying Saberin's petition to vacate the arbitration award. The Opinion commences by noting "The growth in remote work spurred by the pandemic is well- documented. We now confront one of the many issues created by that growth: When do California’s employment laws protect remote workers who are terminated by employers with their “principal offices” in California?"
Reaching the merits, the panel first held the choice-of-law provision in Saberin's Inventions Agreement did not resolve the case, since a contractual incorporation of California law presumptively incorporates California's own presumption against extraterritorial application of its statutes, citing the federal district court's reasoning in O'Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2014) 58 F.Supp.3d 989. The court then applied the statute-specific framework required by Ward v. United Airlines, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 732, which held courts must examine each statute's text, purpose, and legislative history to determine what California connections suffice to trigger it, rather than applying a single all-purpose test. Neither Government Code section 12952 nor Labor Code section 432.7 specifies its own geographic reach in its text, but the panel found both statutes' legislative history showed the Legislature intended to protect workers and applicants in California and to regulate employer conduct occurring in California. Because Saberin never worked in California, was arrested outside California, and reported to a supervisor working from Washington state, the statutes' worker-protection purpose was not implicated; the only remaining question was whether Alation's conduct — the termination decision itself — occurred in California.
On that question, the panel held it did not. The decision-makers, Rose and Mousouris, made the termination decision while both were physically in Illinois, and the panel declined to treat Laber's undefined "input" from California, which the arbitrator found to be a "tenuous thread," as sufficient to establish that the unlawful conduct occurred in-state; the court deferred to the arbitrator's factual finding on that point under Moncharsh. The panel likewise rejected the argument that Mousouris's status as a California-based remote employee was enough, distinguishing Campbell v. Arco Marine, Inc. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1850 and a case addressing employers "shuttling" decision-makers out of state specifically to dodge California law, since nothing suggested Alation's Illinois meeting was arranged for that purpose or that Saberin himself had any connection to California to begin with. The panel found this result consistent with, not contrary to, a FEHA regulation stating that out-of-state employees are unprotected unless the unlawful conduct occurred in California or was "ratified" by California-based decision-makers, since nothing showed Laber ratified or substantively participated in the termination decision.
- 9th Circuit Declines to Compel Arbitration of ERISA Claimon August 3, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Cathy Pover is a participant in The Capital Retirement Savings Plan, a defined-contribution retirement plan sponsored by her former employer, The Capital Group Companies, Inc., a global asset manager. Participants direct their own investments from a menu of options Capital Group provides, and Capital Group collects a transaction fee from the funds included on that menu. In 2020, the Plan's Administrative Committee amended the Plan to add an arbitration requirement covering any claim relating to the Plan, along with a waiver barring participants from bringing any "class, collective or representative" claim; the waiver separately provided that if it were ever found unenforceable, any class, collective, or representative claim would instead proceed in court rather than arbitration.
Pover sued Capital Group and its Plan fiduciaries "in a representative capacity on behalf of the Plan," alleging the company breached its duties of prudence and loyalty by retaining a set of underperforming mutual funds on the Plan's investment menu because those funds generated substantial fee income, rather than replacing them with better-performing alternatives. She sought plan-wide relief under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA; 29 U.S.C. §1001 et seq.), including an order requiring the fiduciaries to restore the Plan's losses, disgorgement, removal of the breaching fiduciaries, and reformation of the Plan's investment lineup.
Capital Group moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA; 9 U.S.C. §2). Pover opposed, arguing the Plan's representative-action waiver was unenforceable under the judicially created "effective-vindication doctrine," because it prevented her from bringing the plan-wide claim ERISA's enforcement provisions specifically authorize. The United States District Court for the Central District of California agreed, holding the waiver impermissibly stripped Pover of her substantive right to sue on the Plan's behalf, and that the waiver's own terms made it non-severable from the arbitration requirement for any claim later found to fall within it. The court denied Capital Group's motion to compel arbitration, and Capital Group appealed.
In the published case of Pover v. The Capital Group Companies, Inc., No. 24-5298 (9th Cir., July 2026) — the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying Capital Group's motion to compel arbitration.
Writing for the majority, Judge Forrest explained that ERISA gives plan participants a cause of action, under 29 U.S.C. §1132(a)(2) (ERISA §502(a)(2)), to enforce the duties 29 U.S.C. §1109(a) (ERISA §409) imposes on plan fiduciaries, and that the Supreme Court has twice confirmed such claims are brought "in a representative capacity on behalf of the plan as a whole," first for defined-benefit plans in Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Russell (1985) 473 U.S. 134, and later for defined-contribution plans like Pover's in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc. (2008) 552 U.S. 248. Under the effective-vindication doctrine, arbitration agreements that operate as a prospective waiver of a party's right to pursue statutory remedies are unenforceable on public policy grounds, citing American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant (2013) 570 U.S. 228 and Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. 639.
Applying that framework, the panel held Pover's claims were necessarily representative in nature, since a section 502(a)(2) claim always proceeds on the plan's behalf regardless of whether the underlying injury is felt plan-wide or within an individual account. Following its recent decision in Platt v. Sodexo, S.A. (2025) 148 F.4th 709, which held a similarly worded waiver of "any purported class or representative proceeding" unenforceable, the majority found no meaningful difference between that language and the Capital Group Plan's bar on claims brought on a "class, collective or representative basis." The majority separately rejected Capital Group's argument, based on LaRue, that a defined-contribution plan participant may only recover losses to her individual account in arbitration while equitable plan-wide relief remains off the table; the court held LaRue does not permit "slic[ing] and dic[ing]" a participant's plan-wide and individual-account injuries in that manner, aligning itself with the Second and Sixth Circuits' rejection of the same argument. Because the Plan's own waiver provision specified that any representative claim found unenforceable in arbitration must instead proceed in court, the panel held the district court correctly declined to sever the waiver from the arbitration clause and correctly denied the motion to compel.
Judge VanDyke dissented on two independent grounds. First, on the merits, he argued the majority misapplied Platt by failing to analyze the Plan's specific language, contending that under ordinary rules of interpretation the phrase "class, collective or representative" should be read to bar only collective-style representative suits (akin to class actions), not the distinct "principal-agent" style of representative suit — like a section 502(a)(2) claim brought on a plan's behalf — that the Supreme Court described in Viking River Cruises. Second, and more fundamentally, Judge VanDyke argued the panel should never have reached the merits at all, because the Plan's incorporation of the American Arbitration Association's rules constituted clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties delegated threshold arbitrability questions, including effective-vindication defenses, to the arbitrator rather than the courts. He would have excused Capital Group's failure to raise that delegation argument in the district court under the court's recognized exceptions to forfeiture, since the question was purely legal and the record was fully developed, and would have sent the case to arbitration on that basis.
- Demise of Opioid Era Now Followed by New Generation of Pain Drugson July 30, 2026 at 8:56 AM
For most of the last three decades, American medicine leaned hard on opioids to treat pain, from post-surgical recovery to chronic back and joint conditions, until the human cost of that reliance became impossible to ignore. Widespread prescribing that began in earnest in the 1990s, encouraged in part by since-discredited assurances that the drugs carried low addiction risk, fed a public health crisis that federal data now tie to roughly 85,000 new cases of opioid use disorder every year and hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths over the past two decades. Yet for all the resulting scrutiny, litigation, and prescribing restrictions, medicine was left with a genuine problem it could not simply regulate away: pain itself, still real, still common, and for a long stretch of time still lacking any new pharmaceutical alternative. The FDA had not approved a fundamentally new class of pain medicine in more than twenty years, leaving physicians and patients caught between undertreated pain on one side and opioid risk on the other.
That drought is now breaking, and the pace of change has accelerated markedly over the past eighteen months. Vertex Pharmaceuticals' January 2025 approval of Journavx, the first non-opioid oral pain signal inhibitor, proved a genuinely new mechanism could work and clear the FDA — and it appears to have set off a wave of capital, competition, and clinical momentum across the pharmaceutical industry that shows no sign of slowing. The story below surveys where that momentum stands today: an established leader still scaling up commercially, a widening field of challengers racing to refine and improve on its approach, and companies pursuing entirely different paths, from gene therapy to modified opioid-receptor chemistry, all aimed at the same goal of giving pain sufferers real relief without the addiction risk that defined the last generation of pain medicine.
Pacira BioSciences announced July 27, 2026 that it has moved its most advanced pipeline candidate, PCRX-201, onto a scalable, U.S.-based commercial manufacturing process and enrolled the first patient in Part B of its Phase 2 ASCEND study — a milestone the company says de-risks the path toward a possible late-stage registrational trial. PCRX-201 (enekinragene inzadenovec) is a locally administered gene therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee, built on Pacira's proprietary high-capacity adenovirus vector platform, and it has already earned Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation from the FDA and Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product status from European regulators based on Phase 1 data showing durable pain and function improvements through three years. The two-part ASCEND trial will ultimately enroll roughly 135 knee osteoarthritis patients, with topline data from Part A expected by year-end 2026.
Pacira frames its whole non-opioid portfolio — which already includes the commercially available local anesthetic EXPAREL, the intra-articular injection ZILRETTA for knee osteoarthritis, and iovera°, a drug-free cold-based nerve-blocking device — as part of that same mission, alongside PCRX-201's earlier-stage gene therapy approach.
The field's biggest recent milestone belongs to Vertex Pharmaceuticals, whose drug Journavx (suzetrigine) became, in January 2025, the first new class of pain medicine approved by the FDA in more than two decades and the first approved non-opioid oral "pain signal inhibitor." Journavx works by selectively blocking NaV1.8, a sodium channel expressed almost exclusively on peripheral pain-sensing neurons rather than in the brain, which Vertex says avoids opioids' addictive potential entirely. Commercial uptake has been slower than some analysts hoped — Vertex reported roughly $29 million in first-quarter 2026 Journavx sales, below expectations — but the company says prescription volume is expected to more than triple in 2026 versus 2025 as insurance coverage widens, and in March 2026 it presented Phase 4 data showing more than 90% of surgical patients using Journavx as part of multimodal pain control remained entirely opioid-free through recovery. Vertex is also testing suzetrigine in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, with two Phase 3 studies expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2026, though the company's attempt to follow up with a next-generation compound, VX-993, hit a setback in mid-2025 when a trial of VX-993 failed to outperform placebo; Vertex continues a separate Phase 2 study of VX-993 in diabetic neuropathic pain.
Vertex's approval and commercial rollout have visibly reshaped the competitive landscape, drawing new entrants and capital into the same NaV1.8 mechanism and adjacent sodium-channel targets. Latigo Biotherapeutics, a Thousand Oaks, California biotech that raised a $150 million Series B in 2025, filed for a Nasdaq IPO in July 2026 built around two oral NaV1.8 inhibitors: LTG-001, in Phase 2 development for acute pain (including a positive, statistically significant pivotal-track trial in patients undergoing abdominoplasty) with Phase 3 bunionectomy and safety trials planned for the second half of 2026, and LTG-305, an earlier-stage candidate for chronic pain now in Phase 1. Latigo's own securities filings name a lengthening list of rivals working the same general territory, including Vertex, Eli Lilly (partnered with NaV1.7-focused biotech SiteOne Therapeutics), Grünenthal, and Merck, along with companies pursuing adjacent ion-channel targets such as NaV1.7 (Xenon Pharmaceuticals) and Kv7 potassium channels (Biohaven, Xenon). SiteOne itself, beyond its Lilly-partnered NaV1.7 program, is also developing NaV1.8 candidates and a topical NaV1.7-targeted treatment for ocular surface pain, illustrating how far the sodium-channel approach has spread beyond Vertex's original compound.
A different mechanism is advancing at Tris Pharma, which in July 2026 launched a dedicated subsidiary, Adneuris Therapeutics, to carry its lead candidate cebranopadol toward an FDA new drug application expected later this year. Cebranopadol is a "dual-NMR agonist," acting on both the nociceptin/orphanin FQ peptide (NOP) receptor and the traditional mu-opioid peptide (MOP) receptor — meaning it is not a non-opioid drug in the strict sense Journavx and the NaV1.8 inhibitors are, since it still engages opioid receptor pathways, but the company says the added NOP activity is designed to preserve strong analgesia while reducing misuse potential, respiratory depression, and dependence risk relative to a pure MOP agonist like oxycodone. Tris reported positive results from two Phase 3 trials (branded ALLEVIATE) in acute pain, plus a human abuse-potential study comparing cebranopadol against opioids, and the FDA has granted the drug Fast Track designation specifically for chronic low back pain. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has separately awarded Tris a five-year, $16.6 million grant to study cebranopadol's potential to treat opioid and substance use disorders directly. Adneuris has already begun building out international commercial rights, signing a licensing deal with China's Zhejiang Conba Pharmaceutical worth an upfront $17.5 million plus more than $100 million in potential milestones.
Each approach carries different regulatory and reimbursement hurdles — a genuinely non-opioid mechanism like NaV1.8 inhibition faces a comparatively lower bar for demonstrating reduced abuse liability, while a compound like cebranopadol will need to build its safety case relative to opioids directly. But for insurers and employers, the practical takeaway is the same across all of them: multiple, mechanistically distinct alternatives to opioids are now advancing through late-stage trials or early commercialization at once, with real implications for post-surgical and workplace-injury pain management formularies before the end of this decade.
- High Gas Prices Drive Comp Mileage Rate to 76¢ on July 1on July 30, 2026 at 8:56 AM
The Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) has announced that the mileage reimbursement rate for medical and medical-legal travel expenses has increased by 3.5 cents to 76 cents per mile, effective July 1, 2026.
California Labor Code §4600(e)(2), in conjunction with Government Code §19820 and DPA regulations, requires claims administrators to reimburse injured workers for medical mileage at the rate adopted by the Department of Personnel Administration (DPA) for non-represented (excluded) state employees, which is tied to the IRS published mileage rate.
The IRS normally adjusts the standard mileage rate each fall for the next calendar year based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile, but the IRS Commissioner just announced that in recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2026.
The new rate must be paid for travel on or after July 1, 2026, regardless of the date of injury. Labor Code section 4600, Government Code section 19820 and the California Department of Human Resources regulations establish the mileage reimbursement rate for medical and medical-legal travel and tie it to the rate established by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
IRS bulletin IR-2026-29, issued July 13, 2026, announced the rate increase. Mid-year mileage rate increases are rare, but are now becoming more common. There was was one in 2011 and another in 2022.
But there have been multiple mileage rate changes with January effective dates over the past decade, so the DWC has downloadable mileage-expense forms that show the applicable rates based on the travel date.
The California Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Workers’ Compensation monitors the administration of workers’ compensation claims and provides administrative and judicial services to help resolve disputes related to claims for workers’ compensation benefits.
- OLC Opinion: ADA's State "Integration Mandate" Not Required by Lawon August 6, 2026 at 7:17 AM
The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a slip opinion concluding that neither Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act nor Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to treat patients with severe mental illness or disabilities in the "most integrated setting" appropriate to their needs — and that federal regulations imposing that requirement, in place in some form since 1978, exceed what Congress actually authorized. The opinion, signed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit, was written for the White House Counsel's Office in response to a formal request for OLC's legal views on the so-called "integration mandate."
OLC opinions are formal legal advice the department's Office of Legal Counsel gives to the President and executive agencies; they bind Executive Branch practice going forward but are not court rulings and do not themselves change what a federal court would hold. This opinion answers three questions the White House Counsel's Office posed: whether the Supreme Court's 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, already settled that the statutes impose an integration mandate; if not, whether Congress could constitutionally impose one; and whether Congress in fact did so. OLC answers the first and third questions no, and concludes that because there is no statutory mandate to interpret, it does not need to resolve the constitutional question directly — though it says the serious constitutional doubts such a mandate would raise reinforce its reading of the statutory text.
The opinion's reading of Olmstead is narrower than how the decision is understood by most federal courts. Olmstead itself was fractured: a five-justice majority held that "unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination" under Title II, but only a four-justice plurality, led by Justice Ginsburg, went on to say that community-based treatment becomes mandatory once a state's own treatment professionals find it appropriate, the patient does not object, and it can reasonably be accommodated given the state's resources. Because that three-factor test never commanded a majority, OLC applies the Supreme Court's "narrowest grounds" rule from Marks v. United States to conclude Olmstead's binding holding is limited to the bare proposition that unjustified institutionalization can be discriminatory — without settling what counts as adequate justification for treating a patient in an institution. OLC acknowledges this view cuts against how most federal circuit courts have treated Olmstead's plurality language as binding, but says that disagreement is the kind of "contested legal question" the political branches and courts are meant to work out over time.
Turning to the statutory text, the opinion argues "discrimination" in Section 504 and Title II, understood by its ordinary meaning when each law was passed, means treating similarly situated people differently without adequate justification — not an affirmative duty to provide services in a particular setting. It points to Title III of the ADA, which explicitly requires public accommodations to operate in "the most integrated setting appropriate," and argues Title II's omission of that same language was intentional. Under OLC's reading, a state does not discriminate by treating a patient with mental illness in an institution so long as it has any non-arbitrary reason for doing so — including resource and space constraints, safety concerns, or the patient's own medical needs — and disability discrimination occurs only when disability itself, rather than the needs disability creates, is the sole basis for the treatment setting chosen.
The opinion separately walks through why reading an integration mandate into the statutes would raise serious constitutional problems under three possible sources of congressional power: Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the opinion says would require a legislative record showing a pattern of irrational state discrimination that a universal integration mandate does not appear to have; the Interstate Commerce Clause, which the opinion argues does not reach a purely in-state choice about where to treat a patient; and the Spending Clause, under which conditions on federal funds must be stated unambiguously, which OLC says neither statute does with respect to treatment setting. Because of these doubts, OLC applies the constitutional avoidance canon to reinforce its narrower statutory reading.
The opinion's bottom line is that the Department of Health and Human Services' regulation at 45 C.F.R. § 84.76(b) and the Department of Justice's regulation at 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d) — the regulations that first created the "most integrated setting" requirement and that the Olmstead Court leaned on in reaching its own holding — exceed the authority Congress gave those agencies, since Section 504 authorizes only regulations "necessary to carry out" the antidiscrimination provision and a general integration requirement is not necessary to eliminate discrimination as OLC defines it. The opinion recommends the regulations be rescinded, along with related sub-regulatory guidance the Department of Justice has issued interpreting Olmstead broadly, on the ground that such guidance never had the force of law in the first place. The opinion also notes that DOJ's Civil Rights Division has for two decades used the integration mandate and Olmstead to secure consent decrees and settlement agreements committing roughly a dozen states to specific deinstitutionalization benchmarks — agreements this opinion does not purport to unwind, but whose legal foundation it calls into question going forward.
The opinion is explicit about its own limits: it addresses only patients with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities of the kind at issue in Olmstead, expressly reserving how its reasoning would apply to physical disabilities, and it states it is not questioning the general constitutionality of Section 504 or Title II outside the integration-mandate context. It also acknowledges, more than once, that its interpretation departs from the near-uniform practice of federal appellate courts and from HHS and DOJ's own consistent position since the late 1970s, framing that departure as the product of an independent legal analysis conducted under current Supreme Court methodology (including 2024's Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes) rather than as a rejection of Olmstead itself.
This summary is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. An OLC opinion states the Executive Branch's own legal position; it does not overrule Olmstead v. L.C. or the federal appellate decisions applying it, and any change to existing regulations, consent decrees, or DOJ enforcement practice would require separate agency or judicial action. Readers should consult the full opinion for its complete legal reasoning and qualifications. - Top Court Rules Drugmaker Has No Duty to Speed Safer Drug to Marketon August 6, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Gilead Sciences, Inc. developed tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), an HIV antiretroviral medication marketed as Viread and used in numerous combination HIV therapies, obtaining FDA approval in October 2001. While TDF was still in trials, Gilead began investigating a related compound, tenofovir alafenamide fumarate (TAF), as a possible backup. A brief 2001 phase I/II trial — 30 subjects over two weeks — suggested TAF could match TDF's antiviral effect at a much lower dose, potentially with less kidney, bone, and tooth toxicity. In 2004, Gilead announced it was discontinuing TAF development, stating TAF's profile did not appear meaningfully different from TDF's. Plaintiffs, a large group of TDF users who allege they developed renal, bone, or tooth injuries from the drug, contend Gilead's stated reason was pretextual and that Gilead actually shelved TAF to protect TDF sales and later timed TAF's eventual release to extend patent-driven profits across both drugs. Gilead disputes that it knew TAF was safer at the time and says it resumed TAF development in 2010 to address bone and kidney concerns in an aging HIV population, ultimately winning FDA approval for TAF in November 2015. Plaintiffs do not contend TDF itself is defective, and they acknowledge some patients still prefer TDF to TAF; their theory is that Gilead's delay in developing and commercializing TAF was itself negligent and caused their injuries.
By the time Gilead moved for summary judgment, only negligence and fraudulent concealment claims remained. The San Francisco County Superior Court denied summary judgment on both. Gilead petitioned for a writ of mandate, and the Court of Appeal granted the petition as to the fraudulent concealment claim but left the negligence claim intact, holding in a published 2024 decision that a drug manufacturer's duty of reasonable care can, in some circumstances, extend beyond the duty to avoid marketing a defective product — specifically, that a manufacturer who has invented a drug it knows to be safer and at least equally effective than one it is currently selling may owe a duty of reasonable care regarding when to commercialize it. (Gilead Tenofovir Cases (2024) 98 Cal.App.5th 911.) The Court of Appeal further held the foreseeability and public-policy factors from Rowland v. Christian did not support an exception to that duty on the record before it.
In the case of Gilead Tenofovir Cases, No. S283862 (Cal. Sup. Ct., August 2026) — the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeal and remanded with directions to grant summary judgment for Gilead on all remaining causes of action. Chief Justice Guerrero and Justice Kruger (joined by Justices Corrigan and Desautels) each filed separate concurring opinions; Justice Evans filed a dissent
Writing for the majority, Justice Groban expressed "significant doubt" that California law recognizes a manufacturer's negligence duty independent of a product defect at all, noting decades of precedent tying a manufacturer's duty under Civil Code section 1714 to the duty to design, manufacture, and market products free from defects, citing Merrill v. Navegar, Inc. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 465. But the majority found it unnecessary to resolve that threshold question. Even assuming a broader duty could exist, the Court held that the foreseeability and public-policy factors from Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 compel an exception to it here, applied "categorically" rather than to Gilead's specific case, consistent with Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 993.
On foreseeability, the majority held a manufacturer generally cannot reliably know, based only on early-phase clinical data, that an alternative drug is in fact safer than and as effective as an existing one; the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act itself generally requires two adequate, well-controlled studies (typically phase III trials) before FDA approval, and only about 25 to 30 percent of drugs that reach phase III succeed. Because that comparative knowledge is essentially unattainable during the early development stages at issue here, the Court held harm to existing-drug users was not reasonably foreseeable from a decision to pause a still-unproven alternative, and separately found the causal chain from that decision to any eventual injury too attenuated, given the intervening, independent, and uncertain decisions of regulators, physicians, and patients that stand between a development decision and any patient's actual treatment.
On the public-policy factors, the majority found moral blame difficult to assess categorically, since manufacturers may delay developing a backup drug for many morally neutral reasons, including allocating resources toward diseases with no existing treatment; found the policy of preventing future harm cut both ways, since a duty could speed development of safer alternatives but could equally distort research priorities, discourage manufacturers from investigating backup candidates at all, or push manufacturers to delay releasing improved drugs until every conceivable alternative has been fully vetted; and found the burden on manufacturers substantial, since phase III trials alone can cost tens of millions of dollars and take years, with no guarantee of eventual approval. The Court noted Gilead's own estimate that completing TAF's remaining development would cost roughly $100 million. Taken together, the majority held drug manufacturers owe no duty of care, when deciding whether and when to develop and commercialize an allegedly safer alternative, to users of a current, concededly nondefective drug — while emphasizing the ruling does not immunize manufacturers from ordinary defect, failure-to-warn, or fraud-based claims.
Chief Justice Guerrero concurred in the result but not the reasoning, arguing the majority should not have assumed a broader duty of care exists at all. In her view, decades of settled products liability law establish that a defect is an essential element of any negligence claim against a manufacturer, citing Jiminez v. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (1971) 4 Cal.3d 379, and because plaintiffs expressly disclaimed any allegation that TDF was defective, their claim should have failed on that threshold ground without needing to reach Rowland's foreseeability or policy factors at all. Justice Kruger, joined by Justices Corrigan and Desautels, separately concurred to elaborate on aspects of the majority's Rowland analysis. Justice Evans dissented, arguing the majority's application of Rowland effectively guaranteed the outcome by treating the manufacturer's own alleged profit motive and superior knowledge as insufficient to establish moral blame, and characterizing the majority's holding as granting drug manufacturers sweeping immunity from liability for delay-driven development decisions. - Contract Formed Upon Carriers Acceptance of Policy-Limits Demandon August 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM
Doyle Archer, insured by Farmers Insurance Exchange (Farmers) under a policy with $15,000 per-person bodily injury liability limits, rear-ended Kathleen Ann Wood's vehicle at a red light in Hesperia, California, pushing it into another car. On July 30, 2021, Wood's attorney sent Farmers a letter offering to settle Wood's personal injury claim against Archer for the "total available policy limit of $100,000, or less," conditioned on written acceptance by a stated deadline and delivery of a declaration confirming the available policy limits; the letter added that "[i]f this demand exceeds the policy, then we hereby make a policy limit demand." On August 25, 2021, within the deadline, Farmers sent a letter agreeing to pay Wood the maximum $15,000 available to her individually under the policy's per-person limit (with the remaining $15,000 of the policy's $30,000 per-accident limit going to other passengers involved in the collision) and enclosing the requested declaration pages.
After Farmers' acceptance, Archer completed an asset declaration, submitted at Wood's request, representing that he owned one vehicle and had $5,000 in the bank; Wood's own investigation later identified other assets Archer did not disclose. Wood refused to sign the settlement paperwork and, on November 29, 2021, sued Archer directly. When Farmers' subsequent demand that Wood honor the settlement went unanswered, Farmers sued Wood for breach of contract, declaratory relief, and specific performance; the two actions were consolidated in San Bernardino County Superior Court.
Farmers moved for summary judgment, or in the alternative summary adjudication, on its declaratory relief cause of action, arguing it had fully performed every term of Wood's written settlement offer and that a binding agreement resulted. The trial court denied the motion, and Farmers petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal issued an order to show cause why the requested relief should not be granted, teeing up the single question whether Farmers' August 25, 2021 letter accepting Wood's policy-limits demand created a binding settlement agreement.
In the published case of Farmers Insurance Exchange v. The Superior Court for the County of San Bernardino, No. E087128 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 2, August 2026) — the Court of Appeal granted Farmers' petition for writ of mandate, directing the trial court to vacate its order denying summary judgment or adjudication and enter a new order granting Farmers summary adjudication on its declaratory relief claim. This opinion was originally filed on July 9, 2026 and was not initially certified for publication; on August 4, 2026, the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, ordered it published, explaining in an attached order that the opinion advances a new construction of governing law, addresses an apparent conflict in the law, and involves a legal issue of continuing public interest. It is now citable authority.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice McKinster reviewed the summary adjudication question de novo, applying the settled rule that a writ of mandate will issue where denial of summary adjudication would force trial on a nonactionable claim, citing Rancho Cucamonga Central School Dist. v. Superior Court (2025) 116 Cal.App.5th 718. Because a settlement agreement is governed by ordinary contract principles, requiring mutual consent to the same terms judged by objective, outward manifestations rather than either party's subjective understanding, citing Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter (2019) 7 Cal.5th 781 and Civil Code sections 1550 and 1580, the court found the undisputed correspondence between the parties established a binding agreement as a matter of law: Wood's counsel offered to settle for the "policy limit" if her stated $100,000 figure exceeded what the policy actually provided, and Farmers accepted by tendering its actual $15,000 per-person limit along with the declaration pages Wood's letter had required.
The panel rejected Wood's argument that Farmers' response was actually a counteroffer, since it offered $15,000 rather than the $100,000 stated in her letter, explaining that her own letter's plain language made clear a demand for "the policy limit" applied whenever her stated figure exceeded the actual coverage available, so Farmers' tender of the true per-person limit tracked, rather than varied from, the terms she had proposed. The court found this case squarely governed by CSAA Ins. Exchange v. Hodroj (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 272, which held that where parties agree on a settlement's material terms intending to later reduce the agreement to a more formal writing, a later disagreement over the content of that formal writing does not retroactively void the underlying agreement or transform a rejected draft into a counteroffer that discharges the original deal.
The panel likewise rejected Wood's alternative argument that, even if a contract was formed, Archer's incomplete asset declaration breached the agreement and gave her the right to rescind. The court explained Wood's original settlement offer was never made contingent on any asset declaration from Archer at all; that requirement arose only afterward, and its inclusion did not operate as a novation displacing the settlement Farmers had already accepted, again citing Hodroj's holding that later-added terms in a follow-up writing do not unwind an already-binding settlement. Because no triable issue of material fact remained as to contract formation, the panel held Farmers was entitled to summary adjudication on its declaratory relief cause of action, granted the petition, and awarded Farmers its costs. - Employer's Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements Unconscionableon August 5, 2026 at 11:30 AM
GEO Secure Services, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of The GEO Group, Inc. (collectively, GEO), is a private contractor providing housing and transportation services for federal detainees. GEO hired Jeffrey Cluck to work at its El Centro detention facility in July 2022. As part of its standard onboarding process, GEO had Cluck electronically sign two documents the same day: a two-page Arbitration Agreement requiring binding arbitration of disputes arising from his employment, with a 30-day opt-out window requiring a mailed or faxed letter to GEO's legal department; and a separate Confidentiality Agreement in which Cluck promised not to disclose GEO's confidential information, not to compete using company resources, and not to solicit GEO employees for a competitor. The Confidentiality Agreement further provided that any breach would cause GEO "irreparable harm" entitling it to special remedies, and that any dispute arising from that agreement would be litigated, without a jury, in a Florida court.
In December 2023, Cluck and a co-plaintiff filed a putative class action alleging wage and hour violations. GEO moved to compel arbitration of Cluck's claims under the Arbitration Agreement. Cluck opposed, arguing the Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements, read together, were unconscionable.
The San Bernardino County Superior Court denied GEO's motion to compel arbitration. It declined to read the two agreements together, reasoning the Confidentiality Agreement did not itself address resolution of employment disputes. Even considered alone, however, the court found the Arbitration Agreement procedurally unconscionable because it referenced American Arbitration Association discovery rules GEO never provided to Cluck, and substantively unconscionable on two grounds: it bound Cluck to arbitrate against a broad list of GEO-affiliated entities without binding those entities to arbitrate against him, and it failed to carve out sexual harassment and sexual assault claims as required by the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (9 U.S.C. §§401–402). GEO timely appealed.
In the partially published case of Cluck v. GEO Secure Services, LLC, No. D087341 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 1, August 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying GEO's motion to compel arbitration, though on different grounds than the trial court relied upon. This opinion is certified for publication with the exception of Part E of the Discussion (addressing severance), which remains nonpublished under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1110. The published portions are fully citable.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice Dato explained that while the appeal was pending, the California Supreme Court decided Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. (2026) 19 Cal.5th 93, which addressed how an arbitration agreement and a separately signed confidentiality agreement interact in an unconscionability analysis; the court requested and received supplemental briefing on Fuentes's effect. Under the general framework confirmed in Fuentes and Ramirez v. Charter Communications, Inc. (2024) 16 Cal.5th 478, a contract is unconscionable where one party lacked meaningful choice and the resulting terms are unreasonably one-sided, with procedural and substantive unconscionability assessed on a sliding scale.
On procedural unconscionability, the panel held the Arbitration Agreement was a contract of adhesion, and that its opt-out provision did not meaningfully cure that oppression. Although an opt-out clause ordinarily undercuts a finding of procedural unconscionability, citing Gentry v. Superior Court (2007) 42 Cal.4th 443, the court found this particular opt-out process too cumbersome to count: the form provided only a single "AGREED AND RECEIVED" signature line with no box to decline, and an employee wishing to opt out had to draft a separate signed statement and mail or fax it to Florida within 30 days of a new job — a real but practically unrealistic path that steered nearly every new hire into arbitration by default.
Turning to substance, the panel parted ways with the trial court's refusal to read the Arbitration and Confidentiality Agreements together. Applying Civil Code section 1642, which requires agreements relating to the same matter, between the same parties, and made as part of substantially one transaction to be construed together, and following Alberto v. Cambrian Homecare (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 482 and Silva v. Cross Country Healthcare, Inc. (2025) 111 Cal.App.5th 1311, the court held both agreements governed the same general subject — how disputes between Cluck and GEO arising from his employment would be resolved — even though the Confidentiality Agreement addressed a narrower slice of that subject than the Arbitration Agreement's broad sweep. The panel rejected GEO's argument that each agreement's integration clause required reading them independently, since neither clause referenced the other, and rejected GEO's argument that the Confidentiality Agreement's mandatory character (as opposed to the Arbitration Agreement's technical opt-out right) took it outside section 1642's reach, since Cluck in fact signed both agreements as part of a single hiring transaction and never opted out of either.
Reading the two agreements together, the panel found they carved out an unfair asymmetry: the broadly worded Arbitration Agreement swept in the wage, overtime, and rest-period claims Cluck himself was most likely to bring, while the narrower Confidentiality Agreement's separate forum-selection, jury-waiver, and irreparable-harm provisions preserved a Florida court — not arbitration — for the competition and confidentiality claims GEO itself was most likely to bring against an employee. Because GEO offered no business justification for that one-sidedness, the panel had to presume it was substantively unconscionable, and found the imbalance particularly stark given that Cluck's claims would proceed in arbitration under a cumbersome opt-out default, while GEO's own claims would proceed in a distant judicial forum, without a jury, with Cluck pre-conceding irreparable harm from any breach. Given this significant degree of both procedural and substantive unconscionability, the panel held the arbitration agreement, considered together with the Confidentiality Agreement, was unenforceable, and it declined to reach the trial court's separate rulings on the discovery provision, the mutuality of claims against GEO's affiliated entities, or the sexual harassment carve-out. The panel affirmed the order denying arbitration and awarded Cluck his costs on appeal. - Suspension of SCIF Attorney for Failing Cybersecurity Tests Affirmedon August 4, 2026 at 8:00 AM
Sylvia Bedrossian worked as a staff attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund (the Fund) beginning in 2004, eventually rising to attorney IV, a position responsible for litigating workers' compensation cases involving confidential and sensitive information. Like all Fund employees, Bedrossian was required to complete annual cybersecurity training, and the Fund periodically sent randomized, simulated "phishing" test emails to its roughly 4,000 employees to assess their security awareness; clicking a link, replying, or opening an attachment in one of these test emails counted as a failure, and repeated failures could lead to discipline.
Between December 2021 and December 2022, Bedrossian failed three separate phishing tests, opening emails on her Fund-issued phone and clicking links in messages that purported to come from a non-Fund address requesting login credentials, from state vehicle registration, and from a WeWork account invitation the Fund did not actually use. After her first failure, the Fund required her to attend one-on-one remedial training with a security analyst; according to the administrative law judge's later factual findings, Bedrossian was "accusatory and condescending" toward the analyst during that session, question her employment status and access to private information, and cut the session short, later sending an email accusing the Fund's security department of trying to entrap employees. After her second and third failures, the Fund issued a notice of adverse action suspending Bedrossian without pay for five days, citing both the repeated test failures and her conduct toward the analyst as grounds for discipline under Government Code section 19572.
Bedrossian appealed her suspension to the State Personnel Board (SPB), which held an investigatory hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) at which both Bedrossian and the security analyst testified. The ALJ found Bedrossian not credible and the analyst credible, resolving the key factual disputes in the Fund's favor, and concluded the Fund had proven multiple statutory grounds for discipline — inexcusable neglect of duty, discourteous treatment of another employee, willful disobedience, and other conduct discrediting the employer — while dismissing separate incompetency and insubordination charges the Fund had also alleged. Applying the factors for assessing an appropriate penalty set out in Skelly v. State Personnel Board, the ALJ found the five-day suspension appropriate, and the SPB adopted that recommendation.
Bedrossian then petitioned the Los Angeles County Superior Court for a writ of administrative mandamus, arguing the SPB acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction, denied her a fair hearing, and abused its discretion. The trial court determined that because state law did not require the SPB to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less, review under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and instead reviewed the petition as an ordinary writ of mandate under section 1085. The court found Bedrossian had forfeited several arguments — based on free speech, federal phishing law, wire fraud, the state's larceny statute, and entrapment — by failing to raise them before the SPB, addressed those arguments on the merits anyway, and rejected them, and otherwise found no basis to disturb the SPB's decision. The court denied the petition.
In the unpublished case of Bedrossian v. California State Personnel Board, No. B349445 (Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., Div. 1, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying Bedrossian's petition for writ of mandate. This opinion is marked "NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS" and, under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), may not be cited or relied upon by courts or parties except in the limited circumstances that rule allows.
Writing for a unanimous panel, Presiding Justice Rothschild first confirmed the trial court had applied the correct standard of review. Because the SPB was not legally required to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less under Government Code section 19576, administrative mandamus under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and the trial court correctly proceeded under the traditional mandamus standard of section 1085, which permits relief only where a petitioner clearly establishes a right to have discretion exercised in a particular manner, citing Taylor v. State Personnel Board (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 498 and Coelho v. State Personnel Bd. (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 968.
On the sufficiency of the evidence, the panel held Bedrossian forfeited any substantial-evidence challenge by failing to cite the record or explain why the evidence supporting the SPB's findings was inadequate, offering only her own contrary factual assertions instead. On the merits of her argument that her conduct caused no harm to public service, the panel applied the framework from Skelly v. State Personnel Board (1975) 15 Cal.3d 194, which identifies harm, or risk of harm, to the public service as a key factor in assessing whether discipline is excessive. The court held it did not need to decide whether actual harm occurred, because repeated clicking on phishing test emails containing recognizable red flags was likely, if repeated, to compromise data the Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect, and because Bedrossian's discourteous treatment of the security analyst independently harmed the Fund's public service interests, citing Caveness v. State Personnel Board (1980) 113 Cal.App.3d 617, which held that discourtesy toward a supervisor or coworker injures the working relationship and is itself harmful to public service.
Finally, the panel agreed that Bedrossian forfeited her free speech, entrapment, wire fraud, and larceny arguments by not raising them before the SPB in the first instance, since an administrative agency must be given the opportunity to decide the issues before a party may raise them in later judicial review. The panel rejected Bedrossian's argument that her February 2022 email accusing Fund staff of entrapment, which was in the administrative record, was itself sufficient to preserve an entrapment defense, holding that a litigant must explicitly raise a legal theory before the agency to avoid forfeiting it, rather than relying on an evidentiary exhibit that touches on the same subject. Finding no error in the trial court's judgment, the panel affirmed and awarded the Fund its costs on appeal. - CWCI Reports Substantial Unexplained Increase in CT Claimson August 4, 2026 at 8:00 AM
The share of California’s workers’ compensation claims identified as Cumulative Trauma (CT) nearly doubled between 2018 and 2025, with the sharpest growth occurring after 2021, according to a new California Workers’ Compensation Institute (CWCI) study. The study found that the increase was widespread, extending beyond regions and industries that historically accounted for the largest share of CT claims, but traditional factors such as population and employment growth, overall claim volume and changes in worker tenure explain relatively little of the increase, raising questions about what is driving the continued growth of CT claims.
The study uses data from CWCI’s Industry Research Information System (IRIS) to examine CT claim trends statewide and evaluate factors that may help explain the increase. It found that CT claims rose from about 1 in 11 California workers’ compensation claims in 2018 to 1 in 6 in 2025, with most of the increase coming after the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Other key findings from the study include:
- - Growth was widespread. CT rates increased across every region, industry, body-part category and worker-tenure group examined. Los Angeles continued to have the highest CT rate, but some of the largest increases were in regions where CT claims historically were less common, including the Bay Area and Central Valley.
- - CT claims became less geographically concentrated. CT claim volume in the Central Valley increased 136% between 2018 and 2025, while in the Inland Empire/Orange County region it increased 98%. Los Angeles, despite having the highest CT rate in both years, had the smallest increase in CT claim volume at 25%.
- - Traditional workforce factors explain little of the growth. CT claims increased in regions with both expanding and contracting labor markets. Population and employment trends, declining overall claim volume and changes in worker tenure did not account for a significant share of the statewide increase.
- - Multiple filings contributed to the growth but more workers filing CTs was the primary driver. 87% of the increase in the CT rate analyzed at the individual-worker level was attributable to more workers filing at least one CT claim; 13% was associated with an increase in the average number of CT claims per worker.
- - The types of body-part claims shifted. While rising CT rates within body-part categories accounted for most of the increase, the mix of claims shifted toward categories with relatively high CT rates. The largest increases were in Soft Tissue, Other Facial Soft Tissue and Mental Disorder claims.
- - Applicant attorney representation shifted geographically. Southern California applicant attorneys increasingly represented claimants in CT cases involving Northern California employers, with their share increasing from 23% in 2019 to 79% in 2025. This expansion coincided with the widespread adoption of remote and virtual hearings during the pandemic, which reduced practical barriers to representing workers and litigating cases across the state. At the same time, the share of CT cases involving Northern California employers that were filed in Southern California venues increased from 15% to 38%.
The study identifies several areas for future research, including how the geographic expansion of applicant attorney representation, changes in law firm concentration, and attorney business practices may be related to the growth of CT claims. CWCI says further analysis of these factors will help stakeholders better understand the evolving CT litigation landscape in California.
Overall, the study documents a substantial, widespread increase in CT claims that cannot be fully explained by population and employment growth, overall claim frequency, or changes in workforce composition, suggesting that broader structural changes within the system merit closer examination as CT claims continue to grow. CWCI has published its study as a Report to the Industry, California Cumulative Trauma Claims: 2018–2025: Trends and Factors Associated with Growth which is available for free at www.cwci.org. - California Laws Might Not Protect Remote Workers in Other Stateson August 3, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Pejman Saberin worked remotely from his home in Utah as an engineer for Alation, Inc., a data analysis and software company doing business in California, from September 2021 until his termination in October 2023. While returning from vacation, Saberin was arrested in Florida; his sister emailed Alation requesting additional time off, stating he had been injured in an accident, but Alation learned of the actual arrest through its own research. After Saberin was released from detention around October 24, 2023, Alation terminated his employment. The criminal case against him was dismissed in March 2024. Saberin sued in San Mateo County Superior Court, alleging Alation's consideration of his arrest violated Government Code section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7, both of which restrict an employer's use of an arrest that did not result in conviction.
The parties stipulated to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration under two employment documents Saberin had signed, one of which stated it was "governed by the laws of the State of California" and required arbitration of employment-related claims "PURSUANT TO CALIFORNIA LAW." Alation moved before the arbitrator to have California law declared inapplicable on extraterritoriality grounds, since Saberin worked exclusively from Utah and the termination decision was made by two Alation executives, Daniel Rose and Christos Mousouris, while they were both physically in Illinois (though Mousouris normally worked remotely from California). A third Alation employee, Liz Laber, who worked from California, provided "input" to that decision. The arbitrator agreed with Alation, reasoning that applying California law to a worker with no connection to the state, terminated by decision-makers acting entirely outside it, would produce an "absurd result." Because the parties then stipulated they could identify no other state's law that would support Saberin's claims, the arbitrator entered an award requiring Saberin to take nothing.
Saberin petitioned the San Mateo County Superior Court to vacate the arbitration award under Code of Civil Procedure section 1286.2, subdivision (a)(4), arguing the arbitrator exceeded his powers by applying the wrong extraterritoriality test and by failing to conduct a statute-specific analysis of section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7. The trial court denied the petition, finding the arbitrator had adequately considered Saberin's connections to California and correctly applied the framework from Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., and that Saberin had not shown a violation of any statutory right sufficient to justify disturbing the award.
In the published case of Saberin v. Alation, Inc., No. A174549 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 5, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's order denying Saberin's petition to vacate the arbitration award. The Opinion commences by noting "The growth in remote work spurred by the pandemic is well- documented. We now confront one of the many issues created by that growth: When do California’s employment laws protect remote workers who are terminated by employers with their “principal offices” in California?"
Reaching the merits, the panel first held the choice-of-law provision in Saberin's Inventions Agreement did not resolve the case, since a contractual incorporation of California law presumptively incorporates California's own presumption against extraterritorial application of its statutes, citing the federal district court's reasoning in O'Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2014) 58 F.Supp.3d 989. The court then applied the statute-specific framework required by Ward v. United Airlines, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 732, which held courts must examine each statute's text, purpose, and legislative history to determine what California connections suffice to trigger it, rather than applying a single all-purpose test. Neither Government Code section 12952 nor Labor Code section 432.7 specifies its own geographic reach in its text, but the panel found both statutes' legislative history showed the Legislature intended to protect workers and applicants in California and to regulate employer conduct occurring in California. Because Saberin never worked in California, was arrested outside California, and reported to a supervisor working from Washington state, the statutes' worker-protection purpose was not implicated; the only remaining question was whether Alation's conduct — the termination decision itself — occurred in California.
On that question, the panel held it did not. The decision-makers, Rose and Mousouris, made the termination decision while both were physically in Illinois, and the panel declined to treat Laber's undefined "input" from California, which the arbitrator found to be a "tenuous thread," as sufficient to establish that the unlawful conduct occurred in-state; the court deferred to the arbitrator's factual finding on that point under Moncharsh. The panel likewise rejected the argument that Mousouris's status as a California-based remote employee was enough, distinguishing Campbell v. Arco Marine, Inc. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1850 and a case addressing employers "shuttling" decision-makers out of state specifically to dodge California law, since nothing suggested Alation's Illinois meeting was arranged for that purpose or that Saberin himself had any connection to California to begin with. The panel found this result consistent with, not contrary to, a FEHA regulation stating that out-of-state employees are unprotected unless the unlawful conduct occurred in California or was "ratified" by California-based decision-makers, since nothing showed Laber ratified or substantively participated in the termination decision. - 9th Circuit Declines to Compel Arbitration of ERISA Claimon August 3, 2026 at 9:54 AM
Cathy Pover is a participant in The Capital Retirement Savings Plan, a defined-contribution retirement plan sponsored by her former employer, The Capital Group Companies, Inc., a global asset manager. Participants direct their own investments from a menu of options Capital Group provides, and Capital Group collects a transaction fee from the funds included on that menu. In 2020, the Plan's Administrative Committee amended the Plan to add an arbitration requirement covering any claim relating to the Plan, along with a waiver barring participants from bringing any "class, collective or representative" claim; the waiver separately provided that if it were ever found unenforceable, any class, collective, or representative claim would instead proceed in court rather than arbitration.
Pover sued Capital Group and its Plan fiduciaries "in a representative capacity on behalf of the Plan," alleging the company breached its duties of prudence and loyalty by retaining a set of underperforming mutual funds on the Plan's investment menu because those funds generated substantial fee income, rather than replacing them with better-performing alternatives. She sought plan-wide relief under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA; 29 U.S.C. §1001 et seq.), including an order requiring the fiduciaries to restore the Plan's losses, disgorgement, removal of the breaching fiduciaries, and reformation of the Plan's investment lineup.
Capital Group moved to compel arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA; 9 U.S.C. §2). Pover opposed, arguing the Plan's representative-action waiver was unenforceable under the judicially created "effective-vindication doctrine," because it prevented her from bringing the plan-wide claim ERISA's enforcement provisions specifically authorize. The United States District Court for the Central District of California agreed, holding the waiver impermissibly stripped Pover of her substantive right to sue on the Plan's behalf, and that the waiver's own terms made it non-severable from the arbitration requirement for any claim later found to fall within it. The court denied Capital Group's motion to compel arbitration, and Capital Group appealed.
In the published case of Pover v. The Capital Group Companies, Inc., No. 24-5298 (9th Cir., July 2026) — the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's order denying Capital Group's motion to compel arbitration.
Writing for the majority, Judge Forrest explained that ERISA gives plan participants a cause of action, under 29 U.S.C. §1132(a)(2) (ERISA §502(a)(2)), to enforce the duties 29 U.S.C. §1109(a) (ERISA §409) imposes on plan fiduciaries, and that the Supreme Court has twice confirmed such claims are brought "in a representative capacity on behalf of the plan as a whole," first for defined-benefit plans in Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Russell (1985) 473 U.S. 134, and later for defined-contribution plans like Pover's in LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc. (2008) 552 U.S. 248. Under the effective-vindication doctrine, arbitration agreements that operate as a prospective waiver of a party's right to pursue statutory remedies are unenforceable on public policy grounds, citing American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant (2013) 570 U.S. 228 and Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana (2022) 596 U.S. 639.
Applying that framework, the panel held Pover's claims were necessarily representative in nature, since a section 502(a)(2) claim always proceeds on the plan's behalf regardless of whether the underlying injury is felt plan-wide or within an individual account. Following its recent decision in Platt v. Sodexo, S.A. (2025) 148 F.4th 709, which held a similarly worded waiver of "any purported class or representative proceeding" unenforceable, the majority found no meaningful difference between that language and the Capital Group Plan's bar on claims brought on a "class, collective or representative basis." The majority separately rejected Capital Group's argument, based on LaRue, that a defined-contribution plan participant may only recover losses to her individual account in arbitration while equitable plan-wide relief remains off the table; the court held LaRue does not permit "slic[ing] and dic[ing]" a participant's plan-wide and individual-account injuries in that manner, aligning itself with the Second and Sixth Circuits' rejection of the same argument. Because the Plan's own waiver provision specified that any representative claim found unenforceable in arbitration must instead proceed in court, the panel held the district court correctly declined to sever the waiver from the arbitration clause and correctly denied the motion to compel.
Judge VanDyke dissented on two independent grounds. First, on the merits, he argued the majority misapplied Platt by failing to analyze the Plan's specific language, contending that under ordinary rules of interpretation the phrase "class, collective or representative" should be read to bar only collective-style representative suits (akin to class actions), not the distinct "principal-agent" style of representative suit — like a section 502(a)(2) claim brought on a plan's behalf — that the Supreme Court described in Viking River Cruises. Second, and more fundamentally, Judge VanDyke argued the panel should never have reached the merits at all, because the Plan's incorporation of the American Arbitration Association's rules constituted clear and unmistakable evidence that the parties delegated threshold arbitrability questions, including effective-vindication defenses, to the arbitrator rather than the courts. He would have excused Capital Group's failure to raise that delegation argument in the district court under the court's recognized exceptions to forfeiture, since the question was purely legal and the record was fully developed, and would have sent the case to arbitration on that basis. - Demise of Opioid Era Now Followed by New Generation of Pain Drugson July 30, 2026 at 8:56 AM
For most of the last three decades, American medicine leaned hard on opioids to treat pain, from post-surgical recovery to chronic back and joint conditions, until the human cost of that reliance became impossible to ignore. Widespread prescribing that began in earnest in the 1990s, encouraged in part by since-discredited assurances that the drugs carried low addiction risk, fed a public health crisis that federal data now tie to roughly 85,000 new cases of opioid use disorder every year and hundreds of thousands of overdose deaths over the past two decades. Yet for all the resulting scrutiny, litigation, and prescribing restrictions, medicine was left with a genuine problem it could not simply regulate away: pain itself, still real, still common, and for a long stretch of time still lacking any new pharmaceutical alternative. The FDA had not approved a fundamentally new class of pain medicine in more than twenty years, leaving physicians and patients caught between undertreated pain on one side and opioid risk on the other.
That drought is now breaking, and the pace of change has accelerated markedly over the past eighteen months. Vertex Pharmaceuticals' January 2025 approval of Journavx, the first non-opioid oral pain signal inhibitor, proved a genuinely new mechanism could work and clear the FDA — and it appears to have set off a wave of capital, competition, and clinical momentum across the pharmaceutical industry that shows no sign of slowing. The story below surveys where that momentum stands today: an established leader still scaling up commercially, a widening field of challengers racing to refine and improve on its approach, and companies pursuing entirely different paths, from gene therapy to modified opioid-receptor chemistry, all aimed at the same goal of giving pain sufferers real relief without the addiction risk that defined the last generation of pain medicine.
Pacira BioSciences announced July 27, 2026 that it has moved its most advanced pipeline candidate, PCRX-201, onto a scalable, U.S.-based commercial manufacturing process and enrolled the first patient in Part B of its Phase 2 ASCEND study — a milestone the company says de-risks the path toward a possible late-stage registrational trial. PCRX-201 (enekinragene inzadenovec) is a locally administered gene therapy for osteoarthritis of the knee, built on Pacira's proprietary high-capacity adenovirus vector platform, and it has already earned Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation from the FDA and Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product status from European regulators based on Phase 1 data showing durable pain and function improvements through three years. The two-part ASCEND trial will ultimately enroll roughly 135 knee osteoarthritis patients, with topline data from Part A expected by year-end 2026.
Pacira frames its whole non-opioid portfolio — which already includes the commercially available local anesthetic EXPAREL, the intra-articular injection ZILRETTA for knee osteoarthritis, and iovera°, a drug-free cold-based nerve-blocking device — as part of that same mission, alongside PCRX-201's earlier-stage gene therapy approach.
The field's biggest recent milestone belongs to Vertex Pharmaceuticals, whose drug Journavx (suzetrigine) became, in January 2025, the first new class of pain medicine approved by the FDA in more than two decades and the first approved non-opioid oral "pain signal inhibitor." Journavx works by selectively blocking NaV1.8, a sodium channel expressed almost exclusively on peripheral pain-sensing neurons rather than in the brain, which Vertex says avoids opioids' addictive potential entirely. Commercial uptake has been slower than some analysts hoped — Vertex reported roughly $29 million in first-quarter 2026 Journavx sales, below expectations — but the company says prescription volume is expected to more than triple in 2026 versus 2025 as insurance coverage widens, and in March 2026 it presented Phase 4 data showing more than 90% of surgical patients using Journavx as part of multimodal pain control remained entirely opioid-free through recovery. Vertex is also testing suzetrigine in diabetic peripheral neuropathy, with two Phase 3 studies expected to complete enrollment by the end of 2026, though the company's attempt to follow up with a next-generation compound, VX-993, hit a setback in mid-2025 when a trial of VX-993 failed to outperform placebo; Vertex continues a separate Phase 2 study of VX-993 in diabetic neuropathic pain.
Vertex's approval and commercial rollout have visibly reshaped the competitive landscape, drawing new entrants and capital into the same NaV1.8 mechanism and adjacent sodium-channel targets. Latigo Biotherapeutics, a Thousand Oaks, California biotech that raised a $150 million Series B in 2025, filed for a Nasdaq IPO in July 2026 built around two oral NaV1.8 inhibitors: LTG-001, in Phase 2 development for acute pain (including a positive, statistically significant pivotal-track trial in patients undergoing abdominoplasty) with Phase 3 bunionectomy and safety trials planned for the second half of 2026, and LTG-305, an earlier-stage candidate for chronic pain now in Phase 1. Latigo's own securities filings name a lengthening list of rivals working the same general territory, including Vertex, Eli Lilly (partnered with NaV1.7-focused biotech SiteOne Therapeutics), Grünenthal, and Merck, along with companies pursuing adjacent ion-channel targets such as NaV1.7 (Xenon Pharmaceuticals) and Kv7 potassium channels (Biohaven, Xenon). SiteOne itself, beyond its Lilly-partnered NaV1.7 program, is also developing NaV1.8 candidates and a topical NaV1.7-targeted treatment for ocular surface pain, illustrating how far the sodium-channel approach has spread beyond Vertex's original compound.
A different mechanism is advancing at Tris Pharma, which in July 2026 launched a dedicated subsidiary, Adneuris Therapeutics, to carry its lead candidate cebranopadol toward an FDA new drug application expected later this year. Cebranopadol is a "dual-NMR agonist," acting on both the nociceptin/orphanin FQ peptide (NOP) receptor and the traditional mu-opioid peptide (MOP) receptor — meaning it is not a non-opioid drug in the strict sense Journavx and the NaV1.8 inhibitors are, since it still engages opioid receptor pathways, but the company says the added NOP activity is designed to preserve strong analgesia while reducing misuse potential, respiratory depression, and dependence risk relative to a pure MOP agonist like oxycodone. Tris reported positive results from two Phase 3 trials (branded ALLEVIATE) in acute pain, plus a human abuse-potential study comparing cebranopadol against opioids, and the FDA has granted the drug Fast Track designation specifically for chronic low back pain. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has separately awarded Tris a five-year, $16.6 million grant to study cebranopadol's potential to treat opioid and substance use disorders directly. Adneuris has already begun building out international commercial rights, signing a licensing deal with China's Zhejiang Conba Pharmaceutical worth an upfront $17.5 million plus more than $100 million in potential milestones.
Each approach carries different regulatory and reimbursement hurdles — a genuinely non-opioid mechanism like NaV1.8 inhibition faces a comparatively lower bar for demonstrating reduced abuse liability, while a compound like cebranopadol will need to build its safety case relative to opioids directly. But for insurers and employers, the practical takeaway is the same across all of them: multiple, mechanistically distinct alternatives to opioids are now advancing through late-stage trials or early commercialization at once, with real implications for post-surgical and workplace-injury pain management formularies before the end of this decade. - High Gas Prices Drive Comp Mileage Rate to 76¢ on July 1on July 30, 2026 at 8:56 AM
The Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) has announced that the mileage reimbursement rate for medical and medical-legal travel expenses has increased by 3.5 cents to 76 cents per mile, effective July 1, 2026.
California Labor Code §4600(e)(2), in conjunction with Government Code §19820 and DPA regulations, requires claims administrators to reimburse injured workers for medical mileage at the rate adopted by the Department of Personnel Administration (DPA) for non-represented (excluded) state employees, which is tied to the IRS published mileage rate.
The IRS normally adjusts the standard mileage rate each fall for the next calendar year based on an annual study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile, but the IRS Commissioner just announced that in recognition of recent gasoline price increases, the IRS made this special adjustment for the final months of 2026.
The new rate must be paid for travel on or after July 1, 2026, regardless of the date of injury. Labor Code section 4600, Government Code section 19820 and the California Department of Human Resources regulations establish the mileage reimbursement rate for medical and medical-legal travel and tie it to the rate established by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
IRS bulletin IR-2026-29, issued July 13, 2026, announced the rate increase. Mid-year mileage rate increases are rare, but are now becoming more common. There was was one in 2011 and another in 2022.
But there have been multiple mileage rate changes with January effective dates over the past decade, so the DWC has downloadable mileage-expense forms that show the applicable rates based on the travel date.
The California Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Workers’ Compensation monitors the administration of workers’ compensation claims and provides administrative and judicial services to help resolve disputes related to claims for workers’ compensation benefits.