Defendant Snap reached agreement with parents of teenagers whose deaths in a fiery May 2017 car crash were blamed on the Snapchat Speed Filter app to stay discovery in their litigation as they work to settle the case. The parties participated in an in-person mediation Feb. 14, “and have since reached an agreement in principle to resolve this case,” said their joint stipulation Tuesday (docket 2:19-cv-04504) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. They agree all discovery, depositions, discovery motion practice and pending discovery disputes “shall be stayed as of the filing date of this stipulation” to allow them to finalize a settlement agreement, it said. They agree “any currently noticed depositions shall not occur as scheduled and that no further depositions shall be noticed during this stay,” it said. The Snapchat Speed Filter let users capture how fast they were traveling, and enabled them to share their speeds with friends. Snap discontinued the feature in 2021.

The opening brief is due March 29 in the appeal of Darrell Seybold, the former Charter Communications sales manager who claims he was wrongfully terminated after exposing Charter’s allegedly unlawful conduct (see 2302060001), said a 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals briefing notice Friday (docket 23-10104). U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr for Northern Texas in Dallas dismissed Seybold’s claims in a Jan. 3 order for lack of specificity in his allegations. Seybold “knew through his position that Charter was misreporting information in its quarterly and annual reports” by double-counting the number of new "primary service unit" accounts in its enterprise fiber business, alleged his April 1 amended complaint.

U.S. District Judge Ronnie Abrams for Southern New York granted the application of an attorney for defendant Food52.com to adjourn all deadlines because the parties reached an agreement in principle to settle plaintiff Ramon Fontanez’s inaccessible website claims against the online kitchenware store (see 2211100054). “The parties are working on the settlement papers now” and hope to be in a position to submit a proposed consent decree for court approval within the next 30 days, Peter Shapiro of Lewis Brisbois told Abrams by letter Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-09584). The consent decree would address the Americans with Disabilities Act website “access issues” raised in Fontanez’s complaint, said Shapiro.

With author Naomi Wolf's Twitter account reinstated by new management at Twitter, Wolf's First Amendment claim for an injunction restoring her account is moot, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco ordered Tuesday (docket 3:21-cv-08378). Twitter under owner Elon Musk renounced content moderation of Wolf's posts and she "is currently tweeting with vigor and frequency," Judge James Donato ruled. Though Wolf had argued mootness is barred because she's seeking damages, there's no legal basis for damages against Twitter because the Supreme Court foreclosed an implied cause of action for damages against a private corporation for First Amendment violations, the court said.

The continued finger-pointing between AT&T and Core Communications over Core’s legal fight to recover $11.4 million in unpaid access services charges from AT&T (see 2301230031) prompted AT&T’s motion Wednesday (docket 2:21-cv-02771) for help from the court in resolving the outstanding discovery issues between the sides. Defendant AT&T refused to pay plaintiff Core for its access services, claiming nearly all the calls that CoreTel affiliates in Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia and West Virginia connected were fraudulent. “AT&T has attempted to confer in good faith with Core about various discovery disputes, many of which relate to written discovery served over a year ago,” AT&T told U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. AT&T “still has not received the discovery that it is entitled to and that it needs to comply with the existing expert report deadlines,” it said. The parties reached agreement in early December to exchange 14 months of call detail records, and a list of data fields within those CDRs, said AT&T. Core provided the CDRs “but has failed to respond to basic and critically important questions -- which AT&T has raised with Core four separate times -- as to the meaning and type of data within the CDRs,” it said. Core failed in its obligation to supplement its interrogatory responses in a timely manner, it said. It seeks an order compelling Core to produce the required discovery materials by Friday.

Plaintiff Ramon Fontanez and defendant Food52.com propose an Aug. 4 deadline for completing discovery in Fontanez’s class action against the online kitchenware store, said a proposed case management plan and scheduling order Monday (docket 1:22-cv-09584) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York. Manhattan resident Fontanez alleges Food52.com’s website is rife with barriers that make it impossible for blind and visually impaired consumers like him to shop the store (see 2211100054). His complaint against Food52.com is one of the few among the dozens of inaccessible website complaints he has filed not to progress to a rapid settlement. The parties engaged in settlement talks, but to no avail, said their proposed case management plan. They support a referral to the Southern District’s mediation program as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism, but not referral to a magistrate judge for settlement discussions, said the plan. They also oppose hiring a private mediator. Both sides estimate a trial would last three to five days, but the plan doesn’t propose a trial date.

Plaintiff Jose Alarcon and defendant T-Mobile plan to begin exchanging written discovery requests and initial disclosures within the next 30 days on Alarcon’s allegations that T-Mobile violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (see 2211040006), said a joint discovery plan (docket 2:22-cv-07831) filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. The parties request a settlement conference before a magistrate judge “after some discovery is completed,” said the plan. The parties estimate a trial will last two to three days, it said. Alarcon alleges 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. T-Mobile asserts any violation of the statute, if it occurred at all, was the result of “bona fide error.”

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals docketed three associated cases Wednesday (dockets 23-1142, 23-1145 and 23-1146) in which Altice is appealing the lower court’s denial of its motions to compel arbitration and to stay the litigation pending the outcome of those arbitrations. Plaintiffs in all three actions in U.S. District Court for Southern West Virginia in Charleston alleged Altice USA’s Suddenlink broadband and pay-TV offering failed to provide “safe, adequate and reliable service to its West Virginia subscribers.” They also alleged Suddenlink intentionally reduced its maintenance work, downsized its full-time workforce and ignored the thousands of customer complaints that resulted. When Suddenlink -- rebranded Optimum in August -- tried to compel its customers’ disputes to arbitration, the lower court ruled the arbitration agreements the customers consented to were unconscionable and unenforceable, partly because Suddenlink revised its terms of service at least five times between September 2019 and October 2021, plus twice more during the litigation.

Defendant Experian, with the consent of co-defendants Equifax and the National Consumer Telecom & Utilities Exchange (NCTUE), removed to U.S. District Court for Colorado Monday a Jan. 31 complaint (docket 1:23-cv-00371) from state court alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act for allowing “mixed and merged” credit files to perpetuate. NCTUE is a credit reporting agency that maintains payment and account history for its member service providers in the telecom, pay TV and utility industries. A mixed file is when the credit information for one consumer is placed in the file of another, creating a false description of both consumers’ credit histories. A merged file is combining the credit histories of two or more consumers into the file of a single individual. Plaintiff Paula Jackson alleges the three defendants “entered into multiple consent orders” with various government agencies to improve their practices on mixed and merged files, “and yet the problem still has not gotten any better” due to the faulty algorithms they use. Jackson never got a response from Experian to any of her disputes, and the only response she got from NCTUE and Equifax was a letter saying they could not locate a file on her, said her complaint.

Federal bankruptcy court gave SES "unlimited opportunities to prove any of its various, shifting theories" about why Intelsat owes it money from the collapse of the C-Band Alliance, but "SES failed," appellee Intelsat told the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in a response brief Monday (docket 3:22-cv-668). SES is appealing the U.S. Bankruptcy Court rejection of its lawsuit against Intelsat for the demise of the CBA (see 2212270003). Intelsat said SES' appeal disregards the evidence the Bankruptcy Court found compelling and pretends it made no credibility findings. Instead of responding to the court's rejection of SES' unjust enrichment claim, SES "relies on its own highly tendentious reading of the facts to craft what can most charitably be described as a conspiracy theory," Intelsat said. SES emailed it was "disappointed by the bankruptcy court’s decision and believes it should be reversed. Therefore, we are exercising our right to appeal to have the case heard in a higher court. The bankruptcy court’s decision misconstrued the C-Band Alliance’s governing agreement and overlooked substantial and strong evidence confirming the parties’ intent to split all proceeds from their C-band project 50/50."