Snapchat parent company Snap settled a lawsuit brought by parents who blamed the messaging app for the deaths of their two sons, per a stipulation of dismissal (docket 2:19-cv-04504) filed Friday with the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. The suit was scheduled for trial in August. The Wisconsin parents in their complaint blamed Snapchat's Speed Filter -- which allows overlaying someone's real-life speed onto a video or photo -- for leading to the 2017 high-speed crash that killed three teens. Terms of the settlement weren't released.

A U.S. district court judge denied Dish Network’s motion to seal the judge’s summary judgment order, which dismissed a discrimination case brought by Circle City Broadcasting against the MVPD. Dish sought to redact a sentence fragment in the order concerning its retransmission consent rate offerings to Circle City: “for the longest time offering zero dollars, and at the eleventh hour offering only pennies per subscriber” sealed. Dish argued the phrase revealed sensitive info about its retrans negotiations (see 2304060056). “The Court intentionally wrote its summary judgment opinion in general terms and in a way that omitted any secret details,” wrote Southern District of Indiana Judge Tanya Walton Pratt in an order Thursday denying the request. Circle City said it will appeal the summary judgment order dismissing the racial discrimination claim (see 2304030072). Dish didn’t comment.

Circle City Broadcasting opposes a Dish Network motion seeking to seal court documents in Circle City’s unsuccessful discrimination case against Dish that mention the retransmission consent rates offered by Dish to the broadcaster, said an opposition filing in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana Thursday (see 2304030072). Dish told the court a 17-word sentence fragment in Chief U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt’s summary judgment order describing Dish’s negotiations with Circle City reveals sensitive information about its negotiation practices. The fragment says Dish refused to contract with Circle City for fees after it bought two Indiana TV stations “for the longest time offering zero dollars, and at the eleventh hour offering only pennies per subscriber.” This information “is highly sensitive and accordingly guarded, particularly given the risk of competitive harm that disclosing such information presents in the competitive retransmission-consent industry,” said Dish’s brief asking for the sentence to be redacted. “Although Circle City lost the summary judgment motion, it is ultimately a media company,” said Circle City’s filing. “It believes in the First Amendment. It believes that the basis for a public body’s decision should be available to the public.” The judge’s order doesn’t discuss the specifics of Dish’s retrans contracts but uses generalities, and that similar language was used in Circle City’s publicly available complaint, Circle City said. “Dish offered the contract to Circle City for pennies on the dollar compared to the rates it paid the prior broadcaster, Nexstar,” said the complaint. The court sealed other items in the case containing sensitive contract information, Dish said: “Any public harm which could conceivably be claimed to exist is outweighed by the interest of the parties in maintaining the confidentiality of the documents in question.”

Plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone in the fake local ring back tones (LRBTs) case against T-Mobile oppose the carrier’s motion for judgment on the pleadings about the plaintiffs’ conspiracy and punitive damages claims (see 2302270050), said their opposition Tuesday (docket 1:19-cv-07190) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. T-Mobile “has three claims pending against it that overlap with the same discovery that is relevant to conspiracy,” it said. With the dismissal of the claims against T-Mobile’s co-conspirator Inteliquent, the plaintiffs assert “the appropriate course at this stage” is to deny T-Mobile's motion without prejudice, it said. That will allow the plaintiffs to receive some of the call detail record (CDR) discovery that Inteliquent is producing, it said. The court can then set a new deadline for the plaintiffs “to amend to address the deficiencies with the conspiracy claim,” it said. The plaintiffs expect the CDRs “will allow them to add new allegations concerning LECs harmed by the conspiracy in Illinois and/or other states whose conspiracy law is consistent with Illinois,” it said. T-Mobile is alleged to have conspired to insert fake LRBTs instead of connecting calls to rural areas with expensive routing fees. T-Mobile asserts the plaintiffs failed to state a cognizable civil conspiracy claim under state law and claims for damages should be dismissed.

A federal judge in Indiana ruled in favor of Dish Network and DirecTV in a pair of racial discrimination suits brought by Black-owned broadcaster Circle City Broadcasting over the MVPDs’ carriage of several Indiana TV stations. Chief U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt for Southern Indiana in Indianapolis granted motions for summary judgment from the MVPDs Friday. Pratt found in both cases that Circle City didn’t provide sufficient evidence that the lack of a carriage deal with either company was based on racial bias. When Nexstar owned the stations, they were carried by Dish and DirecTV, but after Circle City bought the stations, it was unable to reach carriage agreements with the satellite companies. DirecTV told the court it has a standing policy against paying for carriage of stand-alone Big Four stations, while Dish said the rates Circle City was requesting were too high. Circle City CEO DuJuan McCoy told us he plans to appeal the decision, and also called on the FCC to block a rumored combination of Dish and DirecTV. “If they discriminate individually, they will surely continue and increase their discriminatory practices as one company. We plan to appeal this decision as well as do everything in our power to prevent their rumored merger from happening.” A Dish-DirecTV merger has been the subject of media speculation for years. Dish Chairman Charlie Ergen regularly gets asked about it during quarterly Dish earnings calls, and customarily responds by saying that he thinks it's "inevitable" Dish and DirecTV will become a single company one day.

Plaintiff Robert Graham doesn’t dispute that he “assented” to an arbitration agreement with AT&T in 2018, or that his claims “fall within that arbitration agreement’s scope,” said AT&T’s reply brief Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-05155) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta in support of its motion to stay Graham’s case pending the outcome of that arbitration. Graham, who alleges AT&T’s handset upgrade exchange program was a “bait-and-switch scheme,” had “no contract” with AT&T and so “no reason” exists to compel his dispute to arbitration, said his March 16 opposition to AT&T’s motion to stay (see 2303170037). Graham presents no evidence in opposition to AT&T’s motion “at all,” said AT&T’s reply brief. Graham does claim -- without any supporting evidence -- that he never signed a contract “in connection with the new equipment upgrade in 2020 that is the subject of his complaint,” it said. But whether Graham signed a new contract in 2020 “has no bearing” on AT&T’s motion to stay, “which is based on the 2018 arbitration agreement,” it said. Though Graham “asserts certain aspects of the 2020 transactions involve fraud, overreaching, or unconscionability, these arguments go to enforceability of the contract as a whole, as opposed to the arbitration agreement specifically,” it said. Such arguments “must be heard by an arbitrator,” rather than in federal court, it said.

Altice USA’s opening brief is due May 26 in its three related appeals (dockets 23-1142, 23-1145 and 23-1146) in the 4th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court of the district court’s denial of its motion to compel its Suddenlink customers' complaints to arbitration, said a clerk’s order Tuesday. The plaintiff-appellees’ response brief is due June 26, and any Altice reply is due 21 days from service of the response brief, it said. The plaintiffs in all three actions in U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia in Charleston alleged Altice’s Suddenlink broadband and pay-TV offering failed to provide “safe, adequate and reliable service to its West Virginia subscribers” (see 2302090037). Altice rebranded Suddenlink Optimum in August.

AT&T and its debt collector Afni violated the Pennsylvania Fair Credit Extension Uniformity Act and other statutes when they tried to hold plaintiff Ellen Rubinstein responsible for nearly $1,500 in fraudulent charges on an AT&T account opened in her name by an identity thief, alleged Rubinstein’s complaint Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-01139) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. AT&T claimed to have investigated her dispute, only to contact her Dec. 13 with a finding that the fraudulent charges were hers, it said. Rubinstein, a King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, resident “devoted exorbitant time and energy jumping through the various hoops insisted upon by AT&T, yet the telecommunications giant could not bother to even explain why it disbelieved Rubinstein’s sworn statement,” it said. The actions of AT&T and Afni “were knowing, intentional, willful, wanton, and in reckless disregard” for Rubinstein’s rights, it said. The defendants are liable to her “for the full amount of statutory, actual and treble damages,” plus attorneys’ fees and court costs and any “such further relief, as may be permitted by law,” it said. AT&T and Afni didn’t comment.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Gilbert for Northern Illinois in Chicago granted in part defendant T-Mobile's motion for leave to file a limited sur-reply in opposition to the plaintiffs’ call for the appointment of a pretrial master for discovery in their fake ringtones complaint against the carrier (see 2303210045), said a clerk's docket entry Wednesday (docket 1:19-cv-07190). The sur-reply, due March 29, should be limited to five pages, said the entry. Plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone opposed T-Mobile's sur-reply in their filing Tuesday. T-Mobile moved to strike “improper arguments made for the first time” in the plaintiffs' March 13 reply in support of the special master. The judge for now reserved ruling on whether Craigville and Consolidated "waived certain arguments" on call data records discovery raised in their March 13 reply, said the docket entry.

U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel for Western Texas in Austin signed an order Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-00455) staying the Communications Workers of America complaint against AT&T as the case enters mediation. The stay will remain in effect pending further order of the court, except that within three days of mediation being completed, the parties will notify the court of the outcome of the mediation by filing a joint status report. CWA filed suit against AT&T in May seeking to compel its grievances to arbitration involving alleged AT&T violations of the collective bargaining agreement involving DirecTV employees who were AT&T employees before the DirecTV spinoff in 2021.