Plaintiff Jen Gonzalez’s Sept. 5 class action, seeking to hold Charter Communications accountable for the Disney blackout (see 2309060040), alleges three claims under Florida law but fails to allege a basis for the Middle District of Florida’s subject-matter jurisdiction, said a text-only order Thursday from U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, dismissing the complaint without prejudice. Mizelle’s order granted Gonzalez leave to file an amended complaint by Sept. 21. Gonzalez alleges Charter's Spectrum was the only cable company to fail to reach a carriage deal with Disney-owned ESPN, preventing her and millions of Florida Gators football fans from watching the team’s season opener Aug. 31 against the Utah Utes.

The Aug. 21 reply brief of former Amazon third-party seller Longyan Junkai Information Technology (see 2308220043) “inexplicably fails to address any of Amazon’s arguments” in support of its cross-motion to confirm an arbitration award in its favor and its opposition to Junkai’s petition to vacate that award, said Amazon’s reply Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-04869) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. Junkai seeks recovery of $461,000 in sales proceeds that Amazon seized, and an arbitrator ruled it could keep when Amazon deactivated the seller’s online store for selling counterfeit goods. “Arguments to which a litigant failed to respond are waived, which is fatal” to Junkai’s vacatur petition, said Amazon’s reply. Junkai doesn’t contest that federal law “provides the legal standards for the motions to confirm and vacate” the arbitration award, it said. Junkai cites no federal authority that would provide a basis to vacate the award, it said. Junkai cites “no federal authority at all,” relying on New York state court citations that aren’t precedent in the Southern District of New York, it said. Those citations also don’t, in some cases, even concern the Federal Arbitration Act, “which governs this dispute,” it said. Junkai also doesn’t dispute that any public policy argument in support of vacatur must demonstrate the award violates New York public policy, “which would be the only narrow ground” on which the court could grant the vacatur petition, it said. Junkai’s attempt to demonstrate the arbitrator’s “manifest disregard of the law” as a basis for vacatur fails, said Amazon’s reply. Its public policy argument is “likewise meritless,” it said. Because Junkai fails to establish any ground for vacatur, the court should grant Amazon’s cross-motion and confirm the arbitrator’s “well-reasoned” award, it said.

Charter Communications and Cox Communications oppose conditional transfer order 17 (CTO-17) as it relates to Livingston Parish School Board v. Meta Platforms, transferred last month (see 2309010059) to Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, said their Wednesday notice (docket 3047) before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The internet service provider defendants haven't been named as defendants in any of the cases previously consolidated into the MDL, “each of which targets the creators of social media platforms and similar software products, along with their affiliates,” said the notice. They don’t oppose transfer of the Livingston Parish action in general, but Charter and Cox plan to file a motion to vacate CTO-17 “to the extent it pertains to the claims against them, which should be separated and remanded to the transferor court,” the notice said. The Livingston Parish School Board also submitted a notice of opposition to CTO-17 Wednesday. In addition, four related actions were entered in the MDL in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland Wednesday: Kimber v. Meta Platforms (docket 4:22-cv-06434), Napa Valley Unified School District v. Meta Platforms (docket 4:23-cv-02628), Twin Hills Public Schools v. Meta Platforms (docket 4:23-cv-03186) and Rojeski v. Meta Platforms (docket 4:23-cv-04509), said text-only notices.

The FCC, not a court, has “the exclusive right” to approve the transfer of a broadcast license, said a three-judge panel in the Superior Court of Pennsylvania Thursday in the latest ruling in a long-running and convoluted matter stemming from a low-power broadcaster’s entanglement in a “Nigerian prince”-style online scam. Philadelphia Television Network (PTNI) principal shareholder Richard Glanton used the company’s assets as collateral for a loan he took out to finance payments to the scammer but then defaulted on the loan, eventually leading to PTNI’s assets --including WEFG-LD Philadelphia and its physical facilities -- being transferred to a court-appointed receiver by lower courts in California and Pennsylvania in 2018. That transfer was reversed after the lower court said the receivership order was erroneous and didn’t follow court procedure. However, the station hasn’t been transferred back to PTNI in part because of opposition filings from the receiver and Newport Investment Group, which had acquired Glanton and PTNI’s debts from the original loan. A lower court also ruled that though the assignment to the receiver had been in error, it was outside the court’s authority to transfer the license back to PTNI itself. PTNI appealed that ruling, but in Thursday’s order the Superior Court of Pennsylvania upheld it. “Pointedly, any attempt by this Court to return the license would impugn the authority of the FCC,” the ruling said. The FCC’s power doesn’t extend to the station’s physical assets, however, and the receiver must turn them over to PTNI, the opinion said. “PTNI’s request to return the physical assets, including the tower broadcasting equipment, tower lease, station records, and programming files, does not raise a substantial federal question.” The asset return will be stayed pending an FCC decision on the license, the order said. “PTNI must now turn to the FCC to obtain a determination of possession of the license before it can enforce its possession of the broadcast assets.”

Mark Walters, nationally syndicated talk show host of Armed American Radio, plans to file an amended defamation complaint against OpenAI by Friday, said the parties’ joint preliminary report and discovery plan Monday (docket 1:23-cv-03122) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. Walters alleges OpenAI’s ChatGPT service defamed him to journalist Fred Riehl. OpenAI’s July 21 motion to dismiss Walters’ complaint said the lawsuit "fails to establish the basic elements of a defamation claim" (see 2307240031). OpenAI is evaluating whether Riehl “may be a necessary party to this action who has not been joined,” said Monday’s report. Key to OpenAI’s defense is its claim that Riehl ignored ChatGPT’s terms of use when he shared the defamatory “output” with Walters. One of the issues to be tried in the case is whether Riehl “was an intervening or superseding cause of any purported harm” to Walters, said Monday’s report.

Spectrum “pulled the plug on college football and then blamed Mickey Mouse,” reads the first line of a class action complaint filed Wednesday (docket 8:23-cv-01994) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa that seeks to hold Charter Communications accountable for the Disney blackout, calling Charter's Spectrum the only cable company to fail to reach a carriage deal with Disney-owned ESPN. “Family and friends across America were eagerly waiting” for the start of the college football season with ESPN’s Aug. 31 8 p.m. EDT telecast of the Florida Gators game against the Utah Utes, said the complaint. “Instead, the Gator Nation, along with football fans across the country, experienced a ‘Lucy taking the football away from Charlie Brown’ moment as Spectrum pulled the football game, broadcasted a blackout, and then claimed, ‘Disney made us do it,’” it said. Spectrum “used this moment to rob their own customers of the joy of football season kickoff and their money to boot,” it said. Tampa plaintiff Jen Gonzalez brings her class action for Charter’s failure “to fulfill contractual obligations, and engaging in deceptive trade practices, as they continued billing for services not delivered,” it said. She seeks an order requiring Charter to “supply services” or to reimburse class members “for the channels not provided,” it said. Charter didn't comment. Utah defeated Florida 24-11 in that opening game.

Defendant Factory Mutual Insurance should file a motion to dismiss plaintiff Comcast Spectacor’s complaint, “together with a supporting brief,” by Sept. 14, said an order signed Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-02476) by U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Spectacor won’t be required to file any opposing brief until further order of the court, but it faces the same Sept. 14 deadline to stay the action, said the order. Philadelphia Flyers owner Spectacor alleges Factory Mutual refuses to honor the terms of the property insurance policy the Flyers bought to protect against the type of “catastrophic loss” the team incurred when its games were canceled or curtailed at the Wells Fargo Center in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (see 2306290001).

More than 2,000 former Twitter employees seek an order compelling Twitter, now X, to arbitrate the employees’ claims (see 2307060033), said their memorandum of points and authorities Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-03301) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco in support of their motion to compel. Despite compelling its former employees to arbitrate their claims against the company, Twitter “has taken every opportunity to prevent many of them from actually pursuing their claims in arbitration,” said the memorandum. The court shouldn’t “countenance this behavior and should enter an immediate order compelling Twitter to arbitrate,” it said. The court also should compel Twitter to pay the arbitration fees it was ordered to pay by Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services and the American Arbitration Association “for those cases to proceed,” it said.

Nexstar must produce documents connected with DOJ’s investigations into broadcaster price collusion and the failed Sinclair/Tribune deal, ruled U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago Judge Virginia Kendall last week. In a related but separate order, she said Griffin Communications will be penalized for allowing evidence connected to those matters to be deleted. The rulings are the latest in a long-running antitrust lawsuit brought against numerous broadcasters by advertisers, all stemming from the 2018 DOJ investigation of broadcasters exchanging advertising pacing data that arose from federal inquiries into Sinclair's failed buy of Tribune. Kendall’s ruling compels Nexstar to produce any white papers it or its subsidiaries submitted to DOJ for the pacing and acquisition investigations. Nexstar had asked the court to deny motions to compel such evidence as untimely and outside an agreement between Nexstar and the plaintiffs (see 2306070044, but Kendall ruled Nexstar’s answers to evidence requests was “evasive.” Nexstar “continues to avoid stating outright whether any of its entities submitted whitepapers to the DOJ in connection with the Merger Investigation,” wrote Kendall. “Considering Plaintiffs’ multiple queries about this discoverable information, Nexstar Group has failed to sufficiently respond and must do so now.” Kendall also ruled Griffin Communications was responsible for evidence “spoliation” because Griffin President Rob Krier deleted numerous text messages for years after DOJ notified the company it was under investigation and records must be preserved. Testimony from Krier and other Griffin employees “suggests negligence (perhaps even gross negligence) rather than intent to conceal adverse information,” the judge wrote. “By all accounts, Krier was simply inept at technology.” The judge also blasted the inadequacy of Griffin’s IT department and a lack of attorney oversight. “Griffin is a sophisticated enough corporate entity that the lack of documented attorney involvement in and oversight of a significant litigation hold is baffling,” Griffin must pay up to one third of the fees associated with the plaintiff's motion calling for sanctions against Griffin, Kendall ruled.

The U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco added two class actions to Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, said conditional transfer order CTO-17 (docket 3047) Thursday. Livingston Parish School Board v. Meta Platforms et al. and Charleston County School District v. Meta Platforms bring the number of related actions transferred to the court to 123. The first 20, alleging social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube are fueling a mental health crisis among minors in the U.S., were transferred in October. The cases were assigned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Oppositions are due Thursday.