A private judge, not a Los Angeles jury, will render a verdict in the lawsuit seeking more than $770 million in damages from City National Bank over its alleged role in aiding a Ponzi scheme led by actor Zachary Horwitz.

U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder recently ruled in favor of a request by the Los Angeles bank to have the case handled by a “judicial referee,” an alternative form of dispute resolution that is similar to arbitration.

In arbitration, which has been criticized for its use by corporate and sexual harassment defendants to hide findings of wrongdoing, hearings are private and the judgments typically final and not made public. By contrast, hearings before judicial referees are technically open to the public, with the judgments also public and subject to appeal.

However, judicial referees can be an attractive option to defendants facing potentially large verdicts since the positions are typically filled by former judges — the kind of arbiters generally seen as being less likely than juries to return multi-billion dollar runaway verdicts.

“It is far less likely, in general, to inflame the passions of a retired judge who has significant experience in handling cases than it is to a jury who, in a lot of instances, this is their one and only case they are ever sitting on,” said attorney John Nadolenco, managing partner of Mayer Brown’s Los Angeles office.

The lawsuit was filed in February by a court-appointed receiver who is trying to recover losses incurred by investors in a Ponzi scheme led by Horwitz, a small-time actor who claimed he had a business acquiring film rights and licensing them to Netflix and other streaming platforms for foreign distribution.

Horwitz, who appeared in a handful of films under the stage name Zach Avery, had no such deals and forged contracts and emails to dupe investors, who poured more than $700 million into the scheme from 2013-19, when by the end of the year Horwitz had trouble raising money. He was arrested in 2021, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, owing some $230 million in restitution.

In the lawsuit, the receiver Michele Vives alleged the bank “substantially assisted” Horwitz by “adding an air of legitimacy” to the scheme and — driven by a desire to earn interest on a line of credit and sell Horwitz other services — “bent the rules” and accepted “incomprehensible explanations” about the sources of the funds and the flow of money in the accounts.

The bank said that the case should not be heard by a jury because the terms of the business accounts Horwitz opened at the bank for his company, 1inMM Capital, and related entities allow the bank to have judicial referees resolve disputes. Vives’ attorney unsuccessfully argued that the agreement did not apply to the receiver and that, in any case, the judge had the discretion on whether to appoint a referee. Snyder issued her ruling July 25.

City National defended its decision to block the case from going to a jury.

“Although City National does not comment in detail on pending litigation, we consistently abide by the terms of our agreements. City National will continue to defend itself vigorously and strongly disagrees with the receiver’s allegations,” the bank said in a statement.

An attorney for Vives declined comment, saying the receiver does not talk about active cases.

The two sides must now seek and pay for a referee to handle the litigation, which could move faster than in federal court, due to the busy calendar of district court judges. The law requires that the court post where the proceedings are held so the public can attend.

Ann Kough, a former Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who has worked as an arbitrator and judicial referee for two decades, said she has never had a member of the public attend a judicial reference hearing but that doesn’t mean the public wasn’t aware of the proceedings.

“It’s not really a matter of somebody coming into a room and wanting to listen, but they can see all the documents because they’re part of the the court record,” she said.

While the City National lawsuit has the potential to recover hundreds of millions of dollars for investors fleeced in the Ponzi scheme, the receiver also is seeking to recover funds from investors who made money on the scheme before it fell apart. Those include “aggregators” who brought multiple investors into the scheme and funneled money up to Horwitz.

In addition, the receiver has reached a settlement with a professional services firm that worked with Horwitz and is in settlement discussions with a “major financial institution” that did business with him. Other potential sources of funds include the sale of films Horwitz invested in with the scheme’s proceeds, according to an Aug. 5 update of the receiver’s activities filed in federal court.

Tom Lochtefeld, 61, who lost $150,000 in retirement funds invested in 2019, said he was disappointed to hear that the case was being heard by a judicial referee.

“It should be fully transparent and decided by a judge and jury as far as I’m concerned,” said the Connecticut resident.

Americans claimed more than $8 billion in climate-friendly tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act last year, according to new data released by the Treasury Department, a “significant” number that is higher than initially expected, officials said.

The bulk of the money, more than $6 billion, helped households install rooftop solar panels, small wind turbines and other renewable energy systems. These credits were most popular in sunny states, including much of the Southwest and Florida, the data shows.

Credits that helped Americans improve the energy efficiency of their homes by installing an electric heat pump or boiler, adding insulation, replacing windows and making other upgrades were most popular in the Northeast and Midwest.

A version of both tax credits has existed for years, but they were expanded and extended under the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which invested at least $370 billion in clean energy programs across the U.S. economy. The tax incentives have proven so popular that the law’s final price tag is likely to be higher.

The new Treasury data offers the first detailed snapshot of how these more generous benefits were used in their first full year, by whom and where.

Wally Adeyemo, deputy secretary of the Treasury, told reporters on Tuesday that the tax credits have been “more popular than initially projected.”

More than 3.4 million households claimed at least one of the subsidies last year, adding up to more than $8 billion in total savings, according to the Treasury analysis. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation initially suggested the credits would cost $2.4 billion in their first year and around $4 billion in subsequent years.

The credit for solar panels was especially popular, the Treasury data shows, with more than 750,000 American households claiming it last year. A credit for heat pumps, meanwhile, was claimed on more than 260,000 tax returns. Some households may have claimed both.

(Because the I.R.A. expanded an earlier, expired tax credit for energy-saving home improvements, some more efficient natural gas-burning appliances were also eligible for the subsidy.)

Former President Donald J. Trump has said that if he is elected in November and Republicans gain control of Congress, he would push to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, particularly the tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles, which were not included in the new Treasury analysis. But in a letter this week to House Speaker Mike Johnson, 18 House Republicans argued against repeal, saying it would harm investments made in the economy.

Mr. Adeyemo stressed that the upfront savings from the tax credits were only a part of the story, noting that households that install solar panels and switch to more efficient appliances would see lower utility bills for years to come.

Making the switch to cleaner energy also helps to guard against “spikes in fossil fuel energy prices, while improving the quality of the air we breathe and reducing carbon emissions,” Mr. Adeyemo said.

Treasury officials also highlighted that nearly half of the households that claimed at least one of the tax credits had incomes of less than $100,000. But about 75 percent of all tax filers had incomes under $100,000 in 2023, which meant that the credits still disproportionately benefited wealthier taxpayers.

James M. Sallee, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, said that this distribution appears to be “substantially less regressive” than in previous years.

But he noted that tax credits tend to benefit wealthier people for a variety of reasons: They require consumers to pay up front and wait until tax season to recoup the cost and they sometimes require itemizing tax returns, a practice more common among more affluent households. The I.R.A.’s clean energy and efficiency credits also mostly apply to homeowners, who are usually wealthier than renters.

“The I.R.A. tried to break that trend by capping income on a number of provisions,” Dr. Sallee said. But, he added, “it’s hard to break away from when you operate through the tax code, which favors the rich.”

The Inflation Reduction Act did fund some rebates at the point of sale, which could help reduce upfront costs for more lower- and moderate-income homeowners looking to buy efficient appliances and make other improvements.

But those rebates have been slower to roll out than the federal tax credits because they require state and tribal governments to set up programs to manage them. So far, only New York and Wisconsin have started their rebate programs but another 19 states and the District of Columbia have applied for funding and expect to offer rebates by the end of the year.

In an effort to crack down on shared memberships and prevent nonmembers from sneaking in, Costco is installing card scanners at the entrances of its warehouses, the company announced on its website.

The popular destination for bulk shopping has until now had a notably lax entrance policy, requiring shoppers simply to flash their membership cards to an employee as they walk into a store. The new scanners, which will check the name and photo on the card, will be monitored by employees.

“Prior to entering, all members must scan their physical or digital membership card by placing the barcode or QR Code against the scanner,” the Costco website says. “Guests must also be accompanied by a valid member for entry.”

If a guest does not have a photo included on their membership card, they will be required to show a valid photo ID.

“If your membership is inactive, expired, or you would like to sign up for a new membership, the attendant will ask that you stop by the membership counter prior to entering the warehouse to shop,” the company said.

The big box retailer is known for its budget-friendly, bulk assortment of products and has 139 locations in California, the most of any state. The company did not specify when the membership card scanners will be rolled out.