Fla. Judge Orders Stay of T-Mobile Data Breach Case Pending MDL Decision

U.S. District Court Judge Kent Wetherell ordered the stay of a data breach lawsuit against T-Mobile pending determination of whether it will be transferred to a multidistrict litigation, said a Wednesday order (docket 3:23-cv-01220) in U.S. District Court for Northern Florida in Pensacola. Wetherell noted the “lack of record activity” in Cortazal v. T-Mobile, which he attributed to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation’s consideration whether to create an MDL for this and 15 other cases against the carrier, whose most recent data breach occurred in November and was discovered by the company in January. The panel scheduled oral argument for May 25 on the petition to transfer the data breach class actions against T-Mobile for consolidation under a single judge (see 2304250048). T-Mobile said there’s a “strong likelihood” the JPML will resolve the petition in less than two months. The company filed a reply Monday in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego in support of a stay, pending JPML action, in one of the class actions, Shoemaker v. T-Mobile, over the opposition of the 46 named plaintiffs in that case.