And now for the main event…

A couple of weeks ago, I highlighted a few of the blockbuster A.I.-related legal developments I’ll be tracking in the new year. But astonishingly, not everything that matters in 2026 will fall within the ambit of Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Bob Iger, or the “Magnificent Seven” [sic] tech companies. The new year promises a docket stuffed with thorny court battles, personal grudge matches, and unpredictable decisions from the bench—all of which, of course, I’ll be covering in real time as they unfold. Herewith, an early peek behind the curtain…

Is anyone else amused by how casually Donald Trump’s lawsuits against media outlets are labeled billion-dollar cases? Some members of the fourth estate will gladly go to court to defend the right to call the body of water south of Louisiana the Gulf of Mexico, and thereby risk being frozen out of the White House press corps. But when Trump pins a cartoonishly large damages figure to one of his libel claims, the press just repeats it—no scrutiny, no caveats, no serious effort to assess whether the number has any basis in reality.

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Of course, slapping a ludicrous number on a complaint is easy—and makes for good copy. Extracting a sum that could imperil a media company’s existence is another story. This coming year in particular will test how far Trump, the first sitting president to file libel claims, can really get. Even if he clears the familiar hurdles—anti-SLAPP motions, proving falsity, satisfying the actual malice standard for public figures, etcetera—there remains the not‑so‑small matter of proportionality. Damages must bear some relationship to the economic harm caused by the alleged lie. So far, there’s no sign the president’s legal team has done that math.

Still, Trump marches on. There’s his suit against The Wall Street Journal over its article about the bawdy birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein that Trump swears he never wrote. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, an Obama appointee, recently held a hearing on the Journal’s motion to dismiss. (The timing was awkward for Trump: It coincided with a government release of Epstein files that included the very letter at issue.) Arguing for dismissal is the fact that the House Oversight Committee also published the letter, not to mention the lack of defamatory sting and the implausibility that WSJ reporters knowingly published a fake. But there’s always the possibility that owner Rupert Murdoch—named as a co‑defendant—decides to placate the president and cut a settlement check, similar to ABC News’s $15 million donation to the Trump Presidential Library a year ago.

Trump may have a slightly better shot with his newly filed case against the BBC—if he can convince a Florida judge to hear a dispute over how the British broadcaster edited his January 6, 2021, speech to make it sound like he told the crowd he would walk with them to the Capitol and “fight like hell.” The BBC has acknowledged it should have better handled edits, and the botched report has triggered a mini-uproar in the U.K. about the BBC’s editorial standards. But was anyone in the state of Florida, where Trump filed the suit, actually misled? The program never aired in the venue, and Trump’s lawyers can only hypothesize that some Floridian might have used a VPN to bypass the BBC’s geoblocking. That’s an awfully small hook to hang personal jurisdiction on (see also: a Cosby Show copyright case against the Beeb that flamed out a few years ago).

Then there’s Trump’s case against his hometown bête noire, The New York Times. That’s the one targeting Times coverage that dared question his business acumen, including how much of his wealth was inherited, his alleged involvement in questionable tax schemes, and his use of The Apprentice to burnish his brand. A federal judge swiftly tossed the president’s original complaint in September, calling it too unmoored to survive. “A complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective—not a protected platform to rage against an adversary,” wrote U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, a George W. appointee. Undeterred, Trump refiled an amended complaint that is marginally more coherent (you be the judge). The revised salvo is the subject of a pending motion to dismiss, which the court will take up shortly.

If Trump manages to survive dismissal motions, he’ll enter discovery, where the Times will ask how he arrived at damages figures in the billions. That’s already playing out in his case against the Pulitzer board over prizes awarded to the Times and Washington Post for their reporting on Trump’s ties to Russia. Three years in, Trump has survived initial dismissal attempts and upheld those wins on appeal. Now, before summary judgment and any possible trial, the Pulitzer board is seeking a decade of tax returns and medical records to assess whether Trump has actually suffered the harm he claims. His response is due soon. In the meantime, I’ll offer a modest New Year’s resolution for reporters: Stop calling these billion‑dollar cases until Trump shows his work.

Any day now, a JAMS arbitration panel will issue a final award in the increasingly personal war between CAA and the former agents who defected to help launch Range Media. At issue: the value of the equity shares that CAA canceled when Jack Whigham, Dave Bugliari, Michael Cooper, and Mick Sullivan joined Pete Micelli at his well-financed startup—and whether any payout should be docked for alleged disloyalty on the way out.

But don’t expect the ruling to end matters. Both sides could haul the arbitration award into open court, provided they have the stomach for public scrutiny. Meanwhile, CAA has sued Range separately, accusing Micelli & Co. of aiding and abetting client poaching and operating as a thinly veiled, unlicensed agency. Range counterclaims that CAA is flouting California’s competition laws by enforcing noncompetes and threatening defectors. So far, no one’s publicly asked Margot Robbie, Keira Knightley, or Tom Hardy to choose sides, but they’re among the big Hollywood names surfacing in discovery.

I don’t know whether Netflix or Paramount Skydance will ultimately win Warner Bros., but I do know litigation is coming. Even in the relatively clean scenario where Paramount sweetens its offer, Netflix walks away with a $2.8 billion breakup fee, and the Trump administration hands David Ellison the keys to CNN, there will be legal drama. Think state A.G.s, consumer class actions, and even European regulators, if they’re feeling bored.

And if David Zaslav and the Warner Discovery board stick with Netflix? That path all but guarantees shareholder litigation, as I’ve previously laid out, and the Justice Department coming in hot. I’ve been trying to game out the timeline for the inevitable D.O.J. complaint that consolidation in the streaming market violates antitrust law. Best I can tell, it will come next fall, though it could surface as early as a WBD shareholder vote this spring or summer—especially if Netflix and the feds decide there’s no point pretending this ends anywhere but a courtroom.

One of the surreal subplots in the Warner Bros. Discovery bidding war is the South Park litigation between WBD and Paramount. Back in 2023, WBD sued its current suitor for interfering with HBO Max’s $500 million South Park deal by broadcasting Covid-era South Park “specials” on Paramount+. WBD is claiming north of $500 million in damages, which, if taken seriously, would make this one of the largest contractual disputes in Hollywood history.

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A trial-readiness conference is scheduled for May in New York state court, likely landing just as WBD shareholders vote on a merger. So yes, there’s a very real possibility that the two companies could be tangling over South Park in open court just as regulators and investors prepare to go nuts over the acquisition. Hard to imagine Trey Parker and Matt Stone leaving this one alone in the writers room.

No, not that one—the Justice Department’s tentpole case to unwind the Live Nation–Ticketmaster empire, which isn’t expected to go to trial until January 2027. But we will get a warm-up act: a newly certified class action that could bring millions of concertgoers into court against Live Nation next year to challenge Ticketmaster’s long-term exclusive venue contracts.

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu in Los Angeles certified a class on December 12 in Heckman, basically clearing the way for trial. This follows the Supreme Court’s refusal to let Live Nation push the matter into arbitration, meaning the plaintiffs, led by Quinn Emanuel, are likely heading to trial. (The schedule will become clearer in the coming weeks.) And while class actions often settle (especially with billions on the line), this one could force Ticketmaster to publicly defend the “pro-competitive” nature of its business model. That might involve throwing concert venues under the bus. And maybe even the artists themselves.

From NASCAR to trading cards, the sports world is awash in antitrust litigation. The trend picked up steam after the Supreme Court held in American Needle that NFL teams could conspire with one another over licensing. That apparel case led, most famously, to the Sunday Ticket class action over out-of-market game telecasts, resulting in a $4.8 billion verdict—which a trial judge unexpectedly overturned after finding the plaintiffs’ economic experts lacking.

That ruling is now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit. I think it’s very possible the panel revives the verdict or orders a new trial. If so, expect the NFL to ask the Supreme Court to step in and weigh whether some cooperation among rival teams is simply necessary in sports broadcasting. I suspect the justices would bite. It’s been a few years since they last took up sports antitrust—the Alston case over the NCAA’s limits on compensation in 2021—and this would be the perfect occasion to reset the framework. Don’t be surprised if the Super Bowl of sports law gets scheduled for 2026.

Is there anyone—besides those billing by the hour—who thinks this case was ever a good idea? (I’m sure even the lawyers have their doubts at this point.) A year into the messy litigation over what went down during and after the production of It Ends With Us, and the ensuing media pissing match, it’s still unclear what exactly justifies the enormous legal spend.

That said, Blake Lively has notched more pretrial wins than Justin Baldoni, and the case may yet deliver on its early promise to peel back the curtain on the dark arts of celebrity P.R. (Even if it’s hard to imagine a revelation at this point that would shock anyone.) Judge Lewis Liman, in a wry comment just before Christmas, wrote that “the public has a right to know how taxpayer dollars are being used.” In other words, much of the sealed material is about to see daylight. A trial is currently set for May. Then again, maybe the parties will ask themselves the obvious: Is anyone going to come out of this looking like a winner?

Brendan Carr continues to play tough guy. … Netflix inches toward its first libel trial. … Diddy gets sentenced. … Carl Rinsch, too. … Top Gun: Maverick faces a sequel of its own—this time starring Marc Toberoff. … The streaming industry’s patent migraine intensifies. … Bravo navigates more offscreen legal drama. …Trump tries to kill PBS and NPR. … Chris Ruddy takes on the Murdochs. … Jay Penske makes a last stand against Google. … The Walking Dead litigation refuses to die. … TikTok’s government headaches linger. … And then there’s everything that hasn’t hit the docket. Happy New Year!

Did I forget anything? Is there something I should pay more attention to? Email me at Eriq@puck.news.

Thanks, Eriq. See you all next Monday.

Matt

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