The U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana in Indianapolis should deny the motion for leave of plaintiff Renee Gabet and her company Annie Oakley Enterprises to file a second amended trademark infringement complaint against Amazon, said Amazon’s opposition brief Monday (docket 1:22-cv-02246). Gabet and her company allege Amazon ignored the infringing conduct of its third-party sellers (see 2302160029). The plaintiffs “lack good cause for filing their motion” more than two weeks after the April 21 deadline for filing motions for leave to amend pleadings, said Amazon. Their late motion and proposed second amended complaint late motion are “a clear attempt to improperly add thousands of frivolous claims, including claims against many products plaintiffs knew about more than two years ago, before they even filed the original complaint,” it said. There’s “no good cause for waiting so long,” it said. The court should also deny the motion because the plaintiffs “are proceeding in bad faith,” it said. Their “obvious motive” isn’t to include thousands of new claims so the parties and the court can adjudicate them, “but instead to harass Amazon and demand an increased settlement,” it said. Each assertion that a different product family infringes a trademark “is a separate claim of trademark infringement,” said Amazon. Each new claim arises “from a different set of operative facts,” requiring “independent application of the seven-part likelihood-of-confusion test for trademark infringement,” it said. The plaintiffs would have the court try “literally thousands of infringement issues as to these distinct products before a single jury, perhaps in an attempt to avoid paying filing fees to redress the individual issues presented as to each allegedly infringing product,” it said. The court should also deny granting the plaintiffs leave because their proposed amendment is “futile,” it said. The proposed second amended complaint “includes scores of newly accused products that could not possibly infringe,” it said. Their late-filed motion also appears “calculated” to further delay resolution of Amazon’s motion to dismiss their first amended complaint, which Amazon filed more than a year ago, it said.
The U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan should deny the “misguided” and “baseless” motion of Amazon third-party seller Shenzhen Zongheng Domain Network to remand its petition to vacate a $508,000 arbitration award in Amazon’s favor to New York Supreme Court where the petition originated (see 2305080023), said Amazon’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:23-cv-03054) in support of its opposition.
The second fraud class action against SiriusXM to enter the federal court system in three days was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark by plaintiffs Robyn Posternock, Muriel Salters and Philip Munning. Their complaint (docket 2:23-cv-02680), brought under New Jersey law on behalf of a class comprised solely of New Jersey citizens, challenges “a deceptive pricing scheme whereby SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges.”
U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo for Northern Illinois in Chicago granted (docket 1:22-cv-06779) Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction Wednesday in a privacy case alleging Amazon violated the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act. Plaintiff Cynthia Redd failed to make a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction, making her not entitled to the limited jurisdictional discovery she requested, said Bucklo, denying Redd’s motion to remand “as moot.”
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should deny plaintiff-appellant Darrell Seybold’s challenge of the district court’s “proper dismissal” of his complaint that purports to state a whistleblower claim “without any blowing of the whistle” and his breach of contract claim “without any contract,” said Charter Communications’ answering brief Wednesday (docket 23-10104). Seybold alleged in his opening brief April 3 that he was terminated for exposing Charter’s unlawful cooking of the books, in violation of the whistleblower protections in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Act (see 2304040022).
T-Mobile’s May 4 brief on discovery documents it designated as confidential under the protective order in the fake ring tones class action brought by plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone “fails to show that its confidentiality designations are valid,” said the plaintiffs’ response Tuesday (docket 1:19-cv-07190) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.
Chief U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey for Western Arkansas in El Dorado granted the unopposed motion from TikTok and ByteDance to stay their Tuesday deadline to respond to Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin’s (R) fraud allegations, pending Griffin’s anticipated motion to remand the case to Union County Circuit Court where it originated, said Hickey’s signed order Monday (docket 1:23-cv-01038). Good cause exists for granting the motion, said the order, setting June 8 as the deadline for Griffin to file his motion to remand. If the court denies the motion to remand, Griffin will get 30 days to amend his complaint, and TikTok and ByteDance will have 30 days after the filing of the amended complaint “to file their responsive pleadings,” said the order. If the court denies the motion for remand and Griffin doesn’t want to amend his complaint, TikTok and ByteDance will then have 30 days after the denial to file their responsive pleadings to Griffin’s “original, unamended complaint,” it said. Griffin alleges TikTok’s U.S. privacy policy is misleading because it doesn’t alert the public to TikTok’s ability to share personal data with individuals or entities in China (see 2305100036). The complaint asserts seven claims under the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and seeks a permanent injunction to compel TikTok to cease its allegedly false and deceptive statements and omissions about the risk of access to and exploitation of consumers’ content and data by Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party.
Since 2018, VoIP provider XCast transmitted “billions” of illegal robocalls that sellers and telemarketers placed to American consumers in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR), alleged a complaint Friday (docket 2:23-cv-03646) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles.
Plaintiff Ruhi Reimer’s claims against Kohl’s for alleged Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations are unusual among TCPA class actions because Reimer originally gave the merchant consent to receive its promotional text messages, but then he couldn’t get the messages to stop.
Liberty Broadband subsidiary GCI Communications agreed to pay $40.24 million to settle allegations it breached the False Claims Act by knowingly inflating its prices and violating FCC competitive bidding rules in connection with its participation in the commission’s Rural Health Care (RHC) program, said DOJ and the FCC in a statement Thursday. Just over $26 million of the settlement amount will be USF restitution payments directly to the FCC under a contemporaneous consent decree with the commission, said the settlement agreement.