U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon for Southern New York in Manhattan scheduled an initial pretrial conference for July 26 at 10:30 a.m. on Amazon third-party seller Shenzhen Zongheng Domain Network's petition to vacate a $507,619 arbitration award in Amazon’s favor, said a notice Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-03334). Amazon declined to disburse the $507,619 in sales proceeds to the seller after learning it was manipulating customer product reviews (see 2304210001). Amazon “suddenly deactivated” Shenzhen Zongheng’s accounts in July 2021 with “no prior warning,” and simultaneously “froze” its sales proceeds, said the seller’s petition.

U.S. District Judge James Cain for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles signed an electronic order Monday (docket 2:21-cv-00923) setting a May 15 deadline for the surviving wife and two sons of Frank Walker to respond to ZTE’s Oct. 17 motion to dismiss their complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction. ZTE’s reply is due May 22, said the order. The Walkers allege the defective phones Frank 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 (SAR) limitations for how much RF radiation is absorbed into the human body. ZTE agreed Nov. 1 to stay the briefing on its motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction until the court resolved the motion from AT&T, Cricket, CTIA, Microsoft, Motorola and the Telecommunications Industry Association to dismiss the case because the Walkers’ claims are preempted by federal law (see 2211020028). Cain last Friday dismissed, on federal preemption grounds, all claims that the industry covered up information showing that many cellphones don’t comply with the SAR standard (see 2304230001). Not preempted, said Cain’s ruling, were the family’s claims under the Louisiana Products Liability Act that the phones Walker used were somehow defective in that they deviated from the federal SAR standard. In an electronic order Tuesday, Cain stayed all deadlines for the defendants other than ZTE until ZTE's motion to dismiss is resolved.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court docketed Cisco’s appeal Friday of the March 22 order of the Northern District of California granting summary judgment for defendants Poly and its hardware and software architect Wilson Chung against Cisco’s allegations that they misappropriated two Cisco trade secrets. Appellant Cisco’s mediation questionnaire is due Friday, said the 9th Circuit’s time schedule order (docket 23-15590). Cisco’s opening brief is due July 28, and the answering brief from appellees Poly and Chung is due a month later, said the order. Cisco’s reply brief is due 21 days after service of the appellees’ brief, it said. Cisco alleges that Chung resigned in February 2019 to go work for Poly a month later, and that he took Cisco’s trade secrets on his way out the door and shared them with Poly. Two allegedly stolen trade secrets with exotic names are at issue in the 9th Circuit, as they were in the district court. The codename Project Sunkist was for a Bluetooth wireless headset with a voice microphone, and ultimately was released as the Cisco 730 headset. Project Polaris was for a videoconferencing desktop product, and ultimately was released as the Webex Desk Pro. The March 22 order granting summary judgment for Chung and Poly, signed by U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton for Northern California in Oakland, said Cisco “appears to be relying on speculation” that Chung not only shared trade secrets with Poly in the past but may also do so in the future. If trade secrets “had indeed been shared, there would be evidence on Poly’s systems,” said the order. “There being none in the record, Cisco cannot simply seek to fill in the blanks with speculation.”

Conditional transfer orders were finalized for six more school districts and individuals Friday by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) to join the over 190 similar cases against social media platforms for their alleged role in a U.S. mental health crisis among U.S. youth. The cases are consolidated, or waiting to be consolidated, (docket 4:22-md-3047) under U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Northern California. Orders were filed Friday for school districts in Kentucky counties Martin, Larue, Bullitt, and Jefferson; Gervais, Oregon; and Pittsburgh. Also Friday, Blackhawk School District, Beaver County, Pennsylvania, filed a similar complaint (docket 2:23-cv-00657) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, suing Facebook, Instagram, Snap, TikTok, YouTube and What’s App for violations of public nuisance law, negligence, gross negligence, and racketeering. Plaintiff seeks an order that defendants are jointly and severally liable; that they are enjoined from further actions contributing to public nuisance; equitable relief to fund prevention education and treatment for excessive and problematic use of social media; actual, compensatory and statutory damages; and attorneys’ fees and legal costs. At least 16 cases brought by San Diego-based law firm Frantz Law, including the Blackhawk suit, are part of the social media MDL. The firm filed another suit in March on behalf of the Blackhawk School District, based in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, against Norfolk Southern Railway, over the firm's February freight train derailment and toxic chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, about 25 miles away. Counts in that case include negligence, liability, private and public nuisance, future health monitoring and trespass.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for Southern New York in Manhattan scheduled a one-week jury trial to begin Aug. 7 against defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their roles in the threatening and intimidating robocall campaign to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election, said his order Friday (docket 1:20-cv-08668). He ordered the parties within a week to submit a joint proposed timeline for all pretrial submissions. Marrero’s August scheduling defied the defendants’ request to delay the trial until January to accommodate a change in counsel (see 2304210033). Marrero previously granted summary judgment against Wohl and Burkman (see 2303090003), and the jury will decide on the scope of relief sought, including damages, attorneys’ fees and costs.

AT&T and T-Mobile have agreed on Dallas-based Chris Nolland as a mediator in AT&T’s false advertising claims against T-Mobile, said their joint notice Thursday (docket 4:22-cv-00760) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Sherman. Nolland has conducted more than 3,000 mediations and arbitrations since starting his practice in 1993, said his website. AT&T’s underlying complaint alleges T-Mobile’s ad and marketing statements are false under the Lanham Act when they claim that AT&T bans senior discounts and that “92% of seniors in the U.S. can’t get a wireless discount from Verizon or AT&T because they don’t live in Florida. U.S. District Judge Amos Mazzant in January denied AT&T’s application for a preliminary injunction to stop T-Mobile’s BannedSeniors.com campaign (see 2301190009). Days earlier, the judge denied T-Mobile’s motion to dismiss AT&T’s application.

There’s wide disagreement between the parties about when a jury trial should be scheduled against defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their roles in the threatening and intimidating robocall campaign to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election, they wrote U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for Southern New York in a joint letter Thursday (docket 1:20-cv-08668). Marrero previously granted summary judgment against Wohl and Burkman (see 2303090003), and the jury will decide on the scope of relief sought, including damages, attorneys’ fees and costs. The plaintiffs propose that trial begin Aug. 7 or in the alternative, the week beginning July 31, said the letter. The plaintiffs anticipate the trial would last about a week, it said. The defendants propose the trial begin Jan. 8, and they anticipate the trial would last about two weeks, it said. “We remind the court that there were almost a dozen depositions and at least two experts to contend with and cross examination will no doubt take time,” said the letter. The defendants have been informed the plaintiffs will be calling 11 witnesses, it said. The January date is needed to allow the defendants more time to prepare, the letter said. The Gerstman Schwartz law firm is “winding down its affairs,” and the attorneys who handled the vast majority of the depositions are no longer with the firm, it said. The defendants’ principal attorney, David Schwartz, is a new partner at Aidala Bertuna and he has discussed with Wohl and Burkman the proposal for the new firm to pick up the case, it said.

Delaware Chancery Court will hold a hearing June 22 on the fairness of a proposed settlement of a class-action shareholder lawsuit against Charter Communications regarding its Time Warner Cable and BrightHouse Networks acquisitions, Charter said in an SEC filing Friday (docket 11418-VCG). The suit alleged Charter's issuing of stock to shareholder Liberty Broadband to help finance the transactions breached its duties to other shareholders. Charter in the SEC filing said the sides reached a tentative agreement to settle in January.

Without SES partnering with Intelsat, there would be no payments for accelerated clearing of the C band, SES told the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in a supplemental brief (docket 3:22-cv-668) Tuesday. SES said it "played an irreplaceable, leading role" in the companies' C-band transition work as the two jointly developed transition plans, shared equally with Intelsat in C-Band Alliance (CBA) costs, and jointly engaged and directed lobbyists, consultants and attorneys. It said it was only the CBA agreement that governed the joint work of the two companies after the FCC's November 2019 decision to auction the C-band spectrum, and said Intelsat never identified any other contract giving the terms for their joint work after that auction announcement. After the public auction announcement, SES and Intelsat jointly funded the CBA and its activities, SES said. SES is appealing a U.S. Bankruptcy Court's rejection of its lawsuit against Intelsat over the CBA's collapse (see 2210190020). Its brief was in response to questions by U.S. District Judge Robert Payne on such issues as what work SES did to assist Intelsat in the C-band clearing and how CBA expenses were handled.

Verizon is one of six named defendants in a state-court complaint that was removed Wednesday to U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky in Louisville (docket 3:23-cv-00195) in which plaintiff Michael Santoro seeks damages for alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act because they failed to correct their false reporting on Santoro’s credit reports. Santoro alleges Verizon in July reported an “inaccurate collection status” on his Trans Union and Experian credit reports. The reports showed his Verizon account was past due as of July 2021, when in fact he had paid off the account two years earlier, said the complaint. Verizon's failure to investigate Santoro’s disputes amount to negligent noncompliance with the FCRA for which Verizon is liable for Santoro’s actual damages, plus statutory damages and recovery of his attorneys' fees, it said.