Plaintiff Angelicia Smith filed a master short-form complaint as successor-in-interest to Giovanni Bourne, a Seneca Falls, New York, boy who died by suicide at 11, allegedly from participating in a viral social media challenge, said the Tuesday filing (dockets 4:23-cv-02680 and 4:22-md-03047) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. The complaint asserted claims of liability for design defects and failure to warn and negligence against Meta, Snap, TikTok and Google; fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation against Meta; and wrongful death, survival action and loss of consortium and society against the four social media companies. The short-form complaint, permitted by case management order No. 7, said the child used Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube from 2017 to 2021 and, as a result, suffered addiction/compulsive use, depression, anxiety and self-harm by suicide. Motion-to-dismiss and opposition to the motion-to-dismiss deadlines in the multidistrict legislation are Thursday; the reply to motion-to-dismiss deadline is June 30.

Chipmaker MaxLinear is in breach of its “contractual obligations” to support millions of broadband gateways used to provide internet service to Comcast customers, alleged Comcast in a complaint Friday (docket 1:23-cv-04436) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. MaxLinear tried to terminate its vendor support agreement (VSA) and related statement of work (SOW) in breach of both agreements “as part of a transparent attempt to further its financial interests in patent litigation,” it said. MaxLinear assigned part of its patent portfolio “to a specialized entity that was formed to assert patent infringement claims (in which MaxLinear retains a financial interest) against a host of operating companies, including Comcast,” it said. But the VSA contains an express “covenant not to sue” Comcast that covers the patents it assigned, “irrespective of who owns them,” it said. Each of the VSA and SOW contains a termination provision that prohibits MaxLinear’s “unilateral termination without the requisite notice,” it said. MaxLinear wrote Comcast a May 18 letter purporting to terminate both the VSA and SOW, “with no notice and without any recognition of the applicable termination provisions,” it said. Comcast responded by letter May 24 asking MaxLinear to confirm it was withdrawing its supposed termination notice and that it will continue to perform under the VSA and SOW, but MaxLinear didn’t respond, it said: “In light of MaxLinear’s improper attempted termination, Comcast brings the instant action to enforce its contractual rights and prevent MaxLinear from withholding the services it is contractually obligated to provide.” MaxLinear didn’t comment Tuesday.

Lead plaintiff Walleye Group seeks 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals review of the April 27 decision by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White for Northern California rejecting its class-action suit against former Intelsat officers and shareholders (see 2304270005), said its notice of appeal Thursday (docket 4:20-cv-02341). Walleye alleges insider trading of Intelsat stock before the public found out the FCC wouldn't allow a private auction of the satellite company's C-band spectrum.

U.S. District Judge James Cain for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles signed a memorandum order Thursday (docket 2:21-CV-00923) holding in abeyance for 90 days ZTE’s motion to dismiss the Walker family’s cellphone safety complaint to enable the parties to engage in jurisdictional discovery. Frank Walker’s widow and two sons allege the ZTE cellphone he bought in 2016 caused his death from brain cancer because the phone’s RF emissions exceeded the specific absorption rate standard adopted by the FCC. ZTE contends the complaint should be dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction because it denies any specific contacts with Louisiana. The assertions and evidence the Walkers produced in opposition to the motion are primarily based on ZTE USA’s dealings. Additional jurisdictional discovery is warranted before the court can determine whether ZTE USA’s contacts can be “imputed” to ZTE’s Chinese-based parent company, and whether the ZTE parent “was sufficiently involved in the marketing of its product towards the United States to permit an exercise of personal jurisdiction over it by this court,” said Cain’s order.

Frantz Law, which has filed over 100 lawsuits against social media platforms for their alleged role in a growing mental health crisis among U.S. youth, added a Pennsylvania school district to its portfolio Wednesday. Most of the cases have been assigned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who’s overseeing multidistrict litigation against social media firms in U.S. District Court in Northern California in Oakland. The North Hills School District, with 4,554 students in six schools, alleges (docket 4:23-cv-02546) Facebook and Instagram, Snap, TikTok, WhatsApp and YouTube platforms intentionally market their services to youth, their algorithms are harmful, and they're designed to maximize time spent on them for their own financial profit. Schools are struggling not only to provide students with mental health services but also to deliver an adequate education because of the youth mental health crisis, the complaint said. Students in grades 6-12 identify depression, stress and anxiety as the most prevalent obstacles to learning, said the complaint, saying heavy social media use caused an increase in cyberbullying, sleep deprivation, eating disorders and suicidal tendencies. Claims are for violations of public nuisance law, negligence, racketeering and conspiracy to commit racketeering. The Pittsburgh school district seeks an order that defendants are jointly and severally liable and required to abate the public nuisance. They also seek an award to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; and reasonable attorneys’ fees and legal costs.

July 17 is AT&T’s deadline to answer or otherwise respond to the allegations of Legacy Equity Advisors that AT&T kept it from bidding for the DirecTV and Cricket Wireless divestitures because of the private equity firm’s African American ownership and management (see 2305040065), said U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater for Northern Texas in Dallas in a signed order Tuesday (docket 3:23-cv-00979). Despite Legacy’s reputation and access to “substantial financial resources” from investors Tom Hicks, Bain Capital and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, AT&T imposed “racially motivated barriers to contract” because Legacy is African American owned and operated, alleged the equity firm’s May 4 complaint. AT&T denied the allegations (see 2305050003).

Two Kentucky school districts and the city of Providence, Rhode Island, in tag-along actions, joined the Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, said a Tuesday conditional transfer order, CTO-10 (docket MDL 3047), from the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The lawsuits brought by the Providence and Kentucky’s Montgomery County Board of Education and McLean County School District involve questions of fact common to the other cases in the MDL, which alleges social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok and YouTube are fueling a mental health crisis among minors in the U.S. Since October, when the panel transferred 20 civil actions to the U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland, 83 more actions have transferred to the court and been assigned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, the order said.

The FCC’s $518,000 forfeiture order against Gray Television over an Anchorage market deal where Gray bought the CBS affiliation of a station should be vacated because the agency’s authority extends only to license transfers and not programming, Gray told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an opening brief filed Wednesday in docket 22-14274. The FCC forfeiture order against Gray concerned the broadcaster’s buy of the CBS affiliation -- but not the license -- of Denali Media's station KTVA Anchorage in 2020 and shifting of the programming to Gray’s station KYES-TV Anchorage -- now KAUU -- while continuing to own NBC affiliate KTUU-TV Anchorage. The FCC order (see 2301040059) argued the deal was the “functional equivalent” of a license transfer but Congress didn't delegate authority to the FCC to prohibit transactions that may be the “functional equivalent of” license transfers, Gray said. The FCC also broadened its rules on top-four combinations and rankings and reinterpreted rules against station swaps without providing notice in the middle of the enforcement proceeding, the brief said. “Principles of fair notice do not allow the FCC to modify the rules during a proceeding and penalize the broadcaster based on new interpretations,” said the filing. Gray also took issue with the penalty, which was the maximum allowed under the statute. The FCC imposed a daily base forfeiture penalty ”which departed from FCC precedent” and ignored Gray’s efforts to address the matter, the filing said. Penalizing Gray over a purchase of programming violates the First Amendment, said Gray. “The only governmental interest the FCC identified in the Forfeiture Order is a general interest in promoting competition. That general interest cannot justify the intrusion on Gray’s rights here,” the filings said. The FCC said its ancillary authority allows it to act to close “potential loopholes” but the forfeiture order cites only cases that reference the FCC’s authority over license transfers, Gray said. “If the FCC could invoke its ancillary authority over the purchase of a programming affiliation” in this matter “there would be no principled limit to the FCC’s power over broadcast licensees. This case presents a perfect example of an agency defining its own power well beyond its delegated authority,” Gray said. The FCC didn’t comment.

There’s “no dispute” that Twitter reinstated the accounts of former President Donald Trump and three of his First Amendment plaintiff-appellants, said Twitter’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reply brief Friday (docket 22-15961). Twitter also hasn’t placed “any warning or disclaimer” on any of the plaintiffs’ tweets, so they “received the relief they sought,” rendering their First Amendment claims moot, it said. Attempting to avoid this “simple truth,” the plaintiffs “try to move the goalposts, ushering a new set of grievances,” it said. “But again, Twitter has not taken any content-moderation or de-amplification actions of any sort in regards to the reinstated accounts,” and the plaintiffs’ complaint “never sought relief for anything else,” it said. The plaintiffs haven’t offered “any evidence whatsoever that their novel allegations are the result of government coercion or collusion, the crux of their state-action theories,” it said. Because the accounts’ reinstatement “was due to a bona fide change in business strategy following Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, any claim that Twitter will reverse course is purely speculative,” it said. Musk “swiftly and definitively reoriented Twitter’s strategic vision,” proving yet again that the reinstatement of the plaintiffs’ accounts “had nothing to do with this lawsuit,” it said. The 9th Circuit “should accordingly dismiss” the plaintiffs’ First Amendment claims, it said.

The plaintiff bears the burden of making a prima facie presentation of jurisdiction over a defendant within a forum state, said ZTE’s reply Monday (docket 2:21-cv-00923) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles in support of its motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction (see 2305160049). Frank Walker's widow and two sons allege the defective phones Walker used, plus the industry’s coverup of those phones, led to his death from brain cancer in 2020 because they exceeded the FCC’s specific absorption rate limitations for how much RF radiation is absorbed into the human body. Nothing in the Walker family’s amended complaint or in its opposition “meets that burden,” said ZTE. The Walkers’ opposition asserts unverified internet sources, conclusory allegations and speculation in response to the “verified statements made” in ZTE’s motion to dismiss, said ZTE. The Walkers’ legal argument “based on the stream of commerce cannot succeed because there are insufficient facts to support it,” it said.