For the fourth time in a little more than two months, the California Supreme Court has overturned a death sentence. Because the jury couldn’t reach a verdict on a second special circumstances charge of torture, the high court said it was forced to reverse the sentence.

In the face of the most comprehensive effort yet to keep Bank of America on the hook for alleged fraud in a Countrywide mortgage-backed securities case, a California federal district court judge has rejected Allstate’s successor liability claim against BofA.

A California judge took after Google’s lawyers Tuesday for breaking rules aimed at streamlining patent-marking issues at trial. The judge even threatened to take away a key Google defense: the argument that Oracle didn’t mark, or provide notification of, some patents in the suit, a position aimed at limiting exposure for past damages.

It’s the medium, not the message, that did in Ropers Majeski partner Thomas Clarke Jr. A California appeal court has ruled that, by posting a YouTube video in which he solicited plaintiffs for a class action, Clarke opened himself up to a defamation suit and can’t use the state’s anti-SLAPP law to ward it off.

A California judge has selected the first bellwether case against Toyota in consolidated litigation over sudden, unintended acceleration.