The Brief, August 26, 2026
NATIONAL
On August 24 the Court granted the stay application in Trump v. California, No. 26A124, putting on hold the District of Massachusetts judgment that had blocked Executive Order 14399 on citizenship verification and mail-in ballots in federal elections. The per curiam rests on justiciability, not the merits: "The Government is likely to prevail on the merits of its argument that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to enter the judgment." Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson dissented. Interim-docket stays on jurisdiction are now the government's fastest route around broad relief.
The ruling we flagged last week arrived August 21: an in-chambers order signed by the Chief Justice alone stays the D.D.C. preliminary injunction in case 1:25-cv-4316 "pending further order of the undersigned or of the Court." No reasoning, no recorded vote of the full Court, and application 26A203 remains pending rather than resolved. Watch the device itself: the single-Justice interim stay keeps appearing on the emergency docket.
CALIFORNIA & LA
In Mitchell v. Lilac Solutions (A173736, First District, Division Four, published August 20), employment defendants holding signed arbitration agreements answered, served twelve sets of written discovery, noticed depositions and filed cross-complaints, then moved to compel arbitration roughly three months in. The court affirmed denial, applying the Supreme Court's Quach standard that the waiver inquiry "is exclusively focused on the waiving party's words or conduct," with no showing of prejudice required. File the motion to compel first or concurrently: testing the litigation waters now comes close to forfeiting the clause.
In Gharraee v. Trader Joe's Company (F091184, published August 24), Trader Joe's e-submitted its notice of appeal within the 60-day deadline, the system bounced it because a Stanislaus County local rule excluded notices of appeal from e-filing, and the paper refile landed late. The Court of Appeal denied the motion to dismiss, deeming the notice filed on first submission and holding local rule 1.14(G) "is inconsistent with rule 2.253 and therefore invalid." The working lesson: e-submit early enough to cure a rejection inside the window.
Doe v. Adventist Health System/West (B344951, Second District, Division Three, opinion filed July 24) was certified for publication August 24. Patients allege the health system's websites, including a patient portal and a health-risk-assessment page, sent identifiable health information to Meta and Google through embedded trackers; the trial court denied class certification entirely, and the Court of Appeal held: "We reverse the court's denial of class certification of the HRA form subclass and partially reverse as to the patient portal subclass." Now citable, it hands plaintiffs a certification roadmap in pixel litigation.
ORANGE COUNTY
Last week's hearing produced a same-day ruling August 19: Orange County Superior Court Judge Julianne Bancroft rejected the city's Elections Code notice challenge and ordered all four initiatives forward, including the Picerne-backed Responsible Housing Initiative. As reported by Voice of OC, the court wrote that its own repeated orders were meant "to prevent the delays that the City now contends prevent these initiatives from going on the November 2026 ballot," leaving the city a choice between the 2026 and 2028 ballots, with written justification required to delay. Pre-election notice challenges face a steep climb, and courts will not credit delay the challenger itself created.
In People v. Dumbrava (G065074, published August 20), an appeal from Orange County Superior Court, the Santa Ana panel affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss five large-capacity magazine counts premised on the Kellett bar on successive prosecutions. The court held the People were entitled to refile the previously dismissed charges under Penal Code section 1387, and alternatively that the unavailable-evidence exception to Kellett applied. Citable Division Three authority for any mandatory-joinder fight over dismissed and refiled charges.
AI & PRACTICE
In Capital Standard, LLC v. U.S. Bank (No. 2D2024-1392, Florida Second DCA, August 21), the amended initial brief cited real cases for propositions they do not contain at least thirty-one times, and the reply brief added fifteen more. The court was blunt: "it is obvious to us that generative AI was not merely Attorney Keefe's 'supplemental research tool,' as he claims, but his primary or only one." Sanctions: 1,500 dollars to the clerk, the opponent's appellate fees, both briefs stricken, and a Florida Bar referral. Courts now read pervasive hallucination as proof AI was the primary research method, so the "I only used it a little" defense actively backfires.
On August 21 the justices held Santa Fe attorney Stephen Aarons in contempt over fabricated AI-generated content in a Doña Ana County murder appeal brief, removed him from the case, ordered 5,000 dollars paid to a client protection fund, and referred him to the Disciplinary Board. As reported by the Santa Fe New Mexican, Justice Michael Vigil told him: "But when you put your name on the brief and file it, you are attesting you have checked the brief and it is accurate." Contempt and removal from the representation are now on the sanctions menu, and four decades of experience bought no leniency.