June 20, 2017, Update
California enacted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, effective January 1, 2017 (Probate Code Sections 870-884). This new law governs how the digital assets of the deceased person will be accessible by anyone who claims to have a right to the assets.
Obergefell v. Hodges, 14-556
JUSTICE KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court filed June 26, 2015. Below are excerpts from the opinion.
The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity. The petitioners in these cases seek to find that liberty by marrying someone of the same sex and having their marriages deemed lawful on the same terms and conditions as marriages between persons of the opposite sex.
July 31, 2018, Update:
Did Ninth Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee hammer the nail into the coffin of the California Resale Royalties Act (CRRA)?
On July 6, 2018, a three member panel of Ninth Circuit Judges, Danny J. Boggs, Jay S. Bybee, and Paul J. Watford, decided the case Chuck Close v. Sotheby’s Inc. (2018 DJDAR 6669). Judge Jay S. Bybee wrote the opinion for the court. Judge Bybee was appointed to the Ninth Circuit by President George W. Bush. He gained some notoriety from his role as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, United States Department of Justice, when the media reported on his signed August 2002, “Torture Memo.”