Members of the firm have represented clients in a wide variety of civil and commercial litigation disputes including: contractual, partnership, real estate, intellectual property (trademark and copyright), defamation, civil rights, trade secret and unfair competition, right of publicity, lender liability and bad faith before state and federal trial and appellate courts, arbitration tribunals and administrative agencies. Members of the firm have defended third-party infringement claims including those brought against manufacturers of garments, women’s accessories, furniture, musical instruments, toys and consumer products, merchandisers, film producers, catalogue publishers and restaurants.
One notable matter resulted in the landmark decision of Comedy III v. Saderup, (2002) 25 Cal. 4th 387, [106 Cal. Rptr. 2d 126], involving the right of publicity and a new standard established by the California Supreme Court for determining when the Constitution protects a person’s right to expression against the right of publicity for portraits of famous persons.
Our representation has also included litigation on behalf of municipalities and officers of non-profit entities. This representation included municipal power sellers’ pursuit of millions of dollars for energy supplied during the California energy crisis of 2000-2001. This litigation involved the successful defense against the claims by all the primary California investor owned utilities that the ISO tariff was amended by FERC to impose refund liability on municipal sellers of electricity. Our clients recovered millions of dollars in this litigation.
