Plaintiff Ramon Fontanez voluntarily dismissed with prejudice his Americans With Disabilities Act claims against American International Industries for running a website that’s inaccessible to blind and visually impaired people, said his attorney’s notice Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-05583) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. It took nearly eight months for the parties to finalize a settlement agreement they announced in early December (see 2212070020).

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers for Southern Ohio in Columbus designated Christopher Jones, senior counsel with Calfee Halter, as the mediator in the sex-discrimination lawsuit brought against T-Mobile by Heidi Cramer, its former director-sales, said a text-only entry Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-03800). Jones’ bio says he has 30 years of experience in environmental law, including four years as chief of the Environmental Enforcement Section of the Ohio attorney general’s office. Cramer alleges T-Mobile assigned her “sole blame” for the wrongful actions of her male co-workers when they engaged in a scheme of artificially inflating sales to small- and medium-sized business customers (see 2210260038).

Former Amazon third-party seller Zongheng Domain Network wants U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon for Southern New York in Manhattan to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor because the arbitrator’s ruling is “completely irrational, manifestly disregards the law" and “violates a strong public policy,” said the seller’s memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-03334) in support of its amended vacatur petition. The arbitrator wrongly found Section 2 of Amazon’s contract with the seller is “a valid liquidated damage clause and enforceable,” said the memorandum. Rochon’s July 20 order denied the seller’s motion to remand the vacatur petition to New York County Supreme Court where it originated before Amazon removed it (see 2307210035). The seller seeks recovery of $508,000 in sales proceeds that Amazon seized, and the arbitrator let Amazon keep, when it deactivated the seller’s online store for allegedly manipulating customer product reviews (see 2305080023).

Respondent Amazon “failed its burden to establish” that the Southern District of New York has subject-matter jurisdiction over the motion of former third-party seller Longyan Junkai Information Technology to remand to New York County Supreme Court its petition to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor, said Junkai’s reply memorandum Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-04869) in support of remand. 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 (see 2306270041). Amazon removed Junkai’s vacatur petition to the Southern District of New York June 9, and “the removing party bears the burden of proving that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction,” said Junkai’s reply memorandum. A federal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction “can be established through either diversity jurisdiction or federal question jurisdiction,” but Amazon established neither, it said. Nor do sections 203 or 205 of the Federal Arbitration Act provide federal question jurisdiction, as Amazon contends, it said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler for Northern California in San Francisco scheduled an in-person initial case management conference Nov. 2 at 11 a.m. PDT in the lawsuit filed Monday in which the X platform, formerly Twitter, alleges the Center for Countering Digital Hate is running a "scare campaign" to drive away owner Elon Musk’s advertisers (see 2308010034), said Beeler’s order Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-03836). The center claims hate and disinformation are “spreading like wildfire on the platform under Musk’s ownership.”

Altice USA denies the three plaintiffs “have viable claims on the merits” in a May 8 class action challenging the fees and taxes they were charged as Suddenlink, now Optimum, internet subscribers (see 2305110004). So said Altice’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00380) in U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia in Huntington in support of its motion to compel those claims to arbitration and to stay the litigation pending the outcome of that litigation. The class action seeks to hold Altice accountable under the West Virginia Consumer Credit Protection Act for the allegedly unlawful practice of “cramming its customers' bills with illegal fees and charges.” As a “threshold matter,” said Altice’s memorandum, the plaintiffs’ claims don’t belong in the Southern District of West Virginia. That’s because each plaintiff agreed to resolve all disputes with Suddenlink by arbitration “on individual basis,” it said. The Federal Arbitration Act requires the plaintiffs “to honor their obligations,” it said. The plaintiffs “previously recognized their obligation to arbitrate the very claims that they are now asserting in the complaint,” it said. Two months before filing their lawsuit, and represented by the same counsel, Benjamin Sheridan of Klein & Sheridan in Hurricane, West Virginia, each of the three plaintiffs sent Altice a separate arbitration-demand letter, said the memorandum. The plaintiffs’ “invocation” of arbitration precludes them by law “from turning around and pursuing the same claims in court,” it said. It’s “telling” that the complaint fails to mention the plaintiffs’ prior demands for arbitration, said the memorandum. The complaint instead indicates plaintiffs’ “about-face” is due to a decision denying Suddenlink’s motion to compel arbitration in another case, it said. But the other case predates the plaintiffs’ demands for arbitration, and therefore can’t “justify” their “implicit request” that the court should “disregard their prior demands,” it said.

The reply brief from former Amazon third-party seller Longyan Junkai Information Technology to remand its petition to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor to New York County Supreme Court was due July 24, but no brief was filed, said U.S. District Judge John Koeltl for Southern New York in Manhattan in a signed order Friday (docket 1:23-cv-04869). His order extended Junkai’s deadline to Aug. 4. If no reply is filed by then, the motion to remand “will be decided on the current papers,” said the order. Junkai seeks recovery of $461,000 in sales proceeds that Amazon seized when it deactivated the seller’s online store for selling counterfeit goods (see 2306270041).

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) opposes NetChoice’s Friday motion for a four-day deadline extension to Aug. 7 to file its reply brief in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction to bar Griffin from enforcing the state’s social media age verification law when it takes effect Sept. 1 (see 2307100005), said Griffin’s opposition Saturday (docket 5:23-cv-05105) in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas in Fayetteville. Griffin doesn’t oppose NetChoice’s request to expand the reply brief’s 10-page limit to 15 pages, said his opposition. But Griffin couldn’t consent to the requested deadline extension because it would “impact the ability to comply with other deadlines” in the court’s July 12 scheduling order, it said. Aug. 8 is the deadline for exchanging witness and exhibit lists, it said. If NetChoice’s reply brief deadline is extended to Aug. 7, that would give Griffin less than 24 hours “to coordinate with experts on testimony and exhibits,” and would “prejudice” his ability to do so, it said.

Journalists in Montana should be free “to exercise their right to gather the news,” including through the use of “modern tools of the trade,” like TikTok, said the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC). They seek leave to file an amicus brief in support of a preliminary injunction to bar Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) from enforcing SB-419, the state’s TikTok ban, when the measure takes effect Jan. 1, said their motion Thursday (docket 9:23-cv-00056) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula. They join previous motions for leave from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, plus the ACLU in tandem with Electronic Freedom Foundation and NetChoice together with the Chamber of Progress (see 2307270022). All the motions are unopposed, and they seek by Aug. 4 to file amicus briefs in support of the injunction. They all picked the proposed deadline because it’s two weeks before Knudsen’s consolidated brief is due. Montana’s effort to restrict access to TikTok forecloses an entire medium for “gathering and publishing the news,” said the Reporters Committee and MLRC motion. That burdens the rights of local journalists “who rely on TikTok for its unique features” and to reach an audience that couldn’t be reached nearly as well by other means, it said.

The parties reached a settlement in plaintiff Jose Alarcon’s debt-collection complaint against T-Mobile, said Alarcon’s settlement notice Wednesday (docket 2:22-cv-07831) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. The parties request 60 days to finalize the settlement and anticipate filing a joint motion of dismissal with prejudice then, said the notice. Alarcon had alleged under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act that T-Mobile made no attempt to investigate his identity theft claims, but instead kept trying to collect from him the debt on the fraudulent account and reported his delinquency to the major credit agencies (see 2211040006). T-Mobile asserted that any violation of the statute, if one occurred at all, was the result of “bona fide error.”