The parties in four shareholder derivative lawsuits against Verizon and its officers and board members for allegedly duping investors over the company’s ownership of toxic lead cables (see 2310130045) agree that the cases “should be consolidated for all purposes, including pre-trial proceedings and trial,” said their stipulation and proposed order Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-21123) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Trenton.

Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

The U.S. Supreme Court should reject Ambassador Animal Hospital's Nov. 20 cert petition to reverse the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming the district court’s dismissal of Ambassador’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint, said respondent Elanco’s brief Friday (docket 23-552) in opposition to the petition.

After buying Twitter, now called X, Elon Musk falsely asserted that certain company executives were being terminated “for cause,” but it was a “sham” designed to deprive them of their severance benefits, alleged a fraud complaint Monday (docket 4:24-cv-01304) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland.

The Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana, plus five individual social media users, are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to “rewrite” the constitutional boundary between the public and private sectors by affirming the 5th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s “sweeping and unprecedented” social media injunction against Biden administration officials (see 2309110001), said DOJ’s reply brief Monday in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411). Oral argument is March 18.

The New York Times Co.'s copyright infringement challenge to Microsoft’s large language models (LLMs) for AI (see 2312270044) harkens back to the entertainment industry’s alarmist reaction to the VCR, said Microsoft’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:23-cv-11195) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan in support of its motion to dismiss three claims of the Times’ complaint.

Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.

Statements in Fertility Center of Las Vegas’ (FCLV) privacy policy that it doesn’t share patients’ private information with third parties are "false,” alleged a class action Thursday (docket 2:24-cv-00411) in U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas.

The district court erred in concluding that TikTok and its individual users were likely to prevail on the merits of their First Amendment, supremacy clause and commerce clause challenges to SB-419, Montana’s statewide TikTok ban, said Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s (R) opening brief Friday (docket 24-34) at the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court. He's seeking to reverse the injunction that blocks him from enforcing the ban (see 2312010003).

Some 21% of data breach victims don’t realize their identity has been compromised until more than two years after it has happened, said a class action (docket 8:24-cv-00433) brought by three plaintiffs vs. loanDepot Friday in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana.