California Cannabis Claims: Fraud

Welcome back to our litigation series on California cannabis claims. Fraud is one of those claims that clients believe will be easy to pursue, but it actually requires a lot of factual development and proof, even just to...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Hemp CBD: Will Federal Courts Wait to Decide CBD Cases Until the FDA Issues Regulations?

Not long ago Hemp Industry Daily reported on a decision by U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro in the Southern District of Florida in which the Court stayed a putative class action lawsuit against a seller of CBD products...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Arbitration: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

As each state’s cannabis industry matures past the licensing and permitting phases, expect to see a huge uptick in internal and external issues with cannabis businesses: promising partnerships turn into bitter rivalries,...

4y

Canna Law Blog

California Cannabis Claims: Breach of Fiduciary Duty

Welcome back to our litigation series on California cannabis claims. We’re continuing today with a cause of action we unfortunately commonly see in cannabis litigation: the breach of fiduciary duty. Introduction A fiduciary...

4y

Canna Law Blog

California Cannabis Claims: Breach of Contract

Happy 2020, everyone! Our litigation team would like to kick-start the year by starting a series on the most common causes of action that we see in and around the cannabis industry. We hope these overviews help our audience...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Receivership and Distressed Cannabis Assets in California

Succeeding in the cannabis industry is not easy, especially in California. Complex regulation, high taxes, expensive real estate, and competition with the black market are just a handful of factors that challenge cannabis...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Oregon Hemp Litigation: New Cases Demonstrate the Continued Importance of Due Diligence

Although I am a litigator who loves to be in court, I often counsel clients on how to avoid litigation – even though it may mean less work for me in the future!  Front and center in these discussions are: 1) the importance...

4y

Canna Law Blog

California Cannabis Litigation: We Argue the Kern County Appeal in February

  As we have written about previously, we represent a property owner and retailer in an appeal against Kern County pending in the Fifth Appellate District (County of Kern v. Alta Sierra Holistic Exchange Service, Case No....

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Patent Litigation: the Presumption of Validity

I recently received an inquiry as to how difficult it would be to invalidate a competitor’s patent in litigation. In short, it’s pretty tough. A patent is deemed invalid “if the differences between the subject matter...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Litigation Update: JustCBD Files Motion to Dismiss Class Action Lawsuit

A couple of months ago I wrote a “Hemp/CBD litigation forecast.” (See here.) One topic of that post was the rise in class actions against Hemp-CBD companies and I noted the consumer class action complaint filed against...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Patent Litigation: Remedies for Patent Infringement

Continuing our discussion from last week, we received a few follow-up questions on whether patent litigation is really worth the trouble and what can be potentially recovered. In short, the amount of damages you can recover...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis and Insurance Litigation

Recently, Jonathan Bench wrote about the importance of insurance coverage for your hemp or recreational marijuana business. His first article provided the basic anatomy of such policies and his second discussed the importance...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Patent Litigation: What Constitutes Infringement?

As expected, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has continued to increase the number of patents issued containing the words “cannabis” or “marijuana” this year. Because we anticipate that the growing number of...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Oregon Cannabis: Someone Might Want to Challenge this Vape Ban

Early last week, we covered Governor Brown’s Executive Order No. 19-09 ordering a ban of flavored vaping products. That ban is six months in duration, and it covers all flavored tobacco and nicotine vaping products, as...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Litigation: Another Blow to the Illegality Defense (Kennedy v. Helix TCS, Inc.)

Yes, cannabis is still federally illegal. But no, that doesn’t mean cannabis businesses should act as if federal law doesn’t exist. It does, and it probably applies to any cannabis business. Nevertheless, our cannabis...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Trademark Litigation: Web Platform Liability (Mr. T v. Leafly)

On August 22, 2019, actor Mr. T, best known as a star of the TV series “The A-Team,” sued Leafly Holdings Inc. for trademark infringement. The lawsuit was filed after Mr. T’s attorneys sent multiple cease and desist...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Litigation Update: Who Decides Whether You Can Ship Hemp Through Idaho?

Regular readers know that we are in the midst of presenting a 50-state series analyzing how each state treats hemp-derived cannabidiol (“Hemp CBD”). Recently we covered Idaho, which we neatly summarized as “probably...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Hemp/CBD Litigation Forecast: Cloudy with a Chance of Damages

Our cannabis attorneys are often asked by media, clients, and other professionals working in the hemp and CBD marketplace what we think will be the next “big issue” in this developing industry. Often these questions...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Litigation/Bankruptcy Options: Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors

We recently hosted a webinar on alternative dispute resolution options for cannabis companies. In addition to the handful of questions we received on receivership, one topic of particular interest was the potential for cannabis...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Trademark Litigation: Woodstock Case Shows Limits of Federal Trademark Protection

We’ve written extensively about the trademark protection strategies employed by cannabis businesses in light of the challenges they face to obtain federal trademark registrations for their cannabis goods and services....

4y

Canna Law Blog

Weedmaps Dodges Class-Action Lawsuit by Implementing New Advertising Policy

Weedmaps, a major online pot shop directory and cannabis marketplace, announced last week that it will finally no longer allow black-market businesses to advertise on its site. Weedmaps’ announcement follows months of...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Winning Before Fighting: Top 12 Alternative Dispute Resolution Strategies for Cannabis Companies – The Video

In case you were on a boat August 9, or you watched but would like to play it again, please find below the recording from our most recent webinar on alternative dispute resolution strategies in the cannabis industry.  

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Litigation Options: The Benefits of a Receivership

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the “The Top 12 Alternative Dispute Resolution Strategies” webinar last week. We received a ton of questions on a lot of really interesting topics, and we will be spending the next...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Cannabis Patent Litigation: The Claim Construction Process

    In following the progress of the first-ever cannabis patent litigation case, United Cannabis Corporation v. Pure Hemp Collective, Inc., the parties are now in a special phase of patent litigation called “claim construction.”...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Hemp/CBD Litigation: Curaleaf Hit With Federal Class Action Lawsuit Alleging Securities Violations

Just a few weeks ago, Curaleaf Holdings (“Curaleaf”) announced that it would pay $875 million, mostly in stock, to acquire a Chicago based cannabis company, Grassroots. (See here.) This followed news in May that Curaleaf...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Winning Before Fighting: Top 12 Alternative Dispute Resolution Strategies for Cannabis Companies (Webinar)

Many people think owning and operating a cannabis business is a dream job. The reality is that any dream job can quickly become a nightmare when your business gets pulled into a dispute. Failing to resolve disputes early...

4y

Canna Law Blog

New Trademark Litigation Against “Stoney Patch” Cannabis Products Calls Out an Industry Trend of Copycats

We’ve followed and written extensively about trademark litigation in the cannabis space for the last several years, which you can read about here: UPS Sues Multiple Cannabis Delivery Companies for Trademark Infringement The...

4y

Canna Law Blog

Oregon Hemp Litigation: Failure to Pay for 10,000 Pounds of Seeds Alleged

As we predicted, litigation concerning hemp production continues to rise. At this point, it is the rare week that we do not see at least one new lawsuit on the state or federal docket– and that is just in Oregon. Given...

4y

Canna Law Blog