U.S. District Judge John Kness for Northern Illinois granted State Farm’s unopposed motion for a 28-day deadline extension to Dec. 2 to answer an Oct. 10 complaint that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, said a minute entry Friday (docket 1:22-cv-05546). State Farm’s response was originally due Monday, but newly hired counsel requires additional time to conduct investigation the TCPA allegations and prepare a response, said its Friday motion.
The Supreme Court on Monday debated the constitutionality of the FTC subjecting corporate defendants to internal agency review prior to district courts considering constitutional claims, in docket 21-86 (see 2211040042).
FCC Administrative Law Judge Jane Halprin has temporarily suspended filing deadlines for the hearing proceeding on Snake River Radio’s broadcast license after the company submitted a large amount of discovery Tuesday, almost a month after the Oct. 8 deadline to do so, said an order posted Wednesday in docket 22-53 (see 2209140063). Snake River’s license was designated for hearing after its station KPCQ Chubbuck, Idaho, was found to have been silent for 80% of its license term. The Enforcement Bureau responded to the late filing with a motion to strike the submission, arguing that the late filing didn’t give the EB sufficient time to use or respond to the material -- Snake River’s affirmative case in the proceeding was due Wednesday. “As a result of this suspension of filing deadlines, Snake River Radio’s Affirmative Case in this proceeding is not due today as originally scheduled,” said the order. “The Presiding Judge will issue a revised written hearing schedule upon disposition of the Emergency Motion to Strike.” Snake River’s response to the motion is due Monday, the order said.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit hearing oral argument Tuesday appeared to sympathize in part with Schwab Multimedia’s difficulty in constructing an AM station during the pandemic but also seemed to agree with FCC arguments that COVID-19 didn’t change the agency’s rules around requesting extensions for construction deadlines (docket 22-1016).
Comcast and Nexstar are battling over discovery in a year-old retransmission consent case Nexstar v Comcast, which involves Nexstar’s relationship to sidecar broadcaster Mission and WPIX New York, according to filings Friday and Monday in docket 1:21-cv-06860 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York.
About 100 Video Privacy Protection Act complaints have been filed in the past year, and the legal theories in the current wave of lawsuits involve a “novel refocusing” of the statute, partly to encompass technologies that weren't even envisioned when the law was enacted more than three decades ago, Wiley associate Tyler Bridegan told a Wiley webinar Thursday.
Meta moved Wednesday for an order to compel the FTC to sit for a deposition in the agency’s lawsuit to block Meta’s Within Unlimited buy. “The FTC has taken the extreme position of refusing to produce any representative for a Rule 30(b)(6) deposition on the FTC’s product market and competitive effects allegations, as well as on issues of agency bias that infect this lawsuit,” said Meta in a joint statement with the FTC (docket 5:22-cv-04325) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose on the status of their deposition dispute. The mention of agency bias refers to Meta’s efforts to seek the recusal of FTC Chair Lina Khan. “The FTC’s objections are not supported by law,” and they “substantially prejudice” Meta “in this expedited proceeding where there is no legitimate basis for the FTC to continue withholding highly relevant information at the close of fact discovery,” said the company. The FTC countered that having previously issued a “facially overbroad and otherwise defective” deposition notice covering 31 topics, Meta issued an amended notice on Oct. 19, a week before the close of fact discovery. The amended notice “suffers from the same defects” as the original because it “impermissibly” seeks to depose FTC attorneys on “privileged matters,” and because it seeks testimony that is “unreasonably” duplicative of information that’s already in Meta’s possession.
Windstream’s bankruptcy reorganization shouldn’t be rolled back to provide relief to unsecured creditors such as appellant U.S. Bank National Association, ruled the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday in a summary order in docket 21-1754 affirming a previous ruling by the U.S. District Court for Southern New York. U.S. Bank appears “to invite us to carve out the facts of this case ad hoc. We must decline this invitation,” said the decision from Circuit Judges Pierre Leval, Denny Chin and Eunice Lee.
U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil for Southern New York granted Dish Network’s letter motion (docket 1:22-cv-08151) for a deadline extension to Nov. 15 to answer class-action allegations that it violated New York labor laws. The Dish response to the allegation was originally due Tuesday. “The purpose of the extension is to allow the parties to confer regarding Plaintiffs’ respective agreements to individually arbitrate any dispute with Defendants,” Dish lawyers wrote the judge Monday. Dish asked that the plaintiffs “consent to a stay of this action pending the outcome of individual arbitrations under the agreements, and to the dismissal of the putative class action allegations in the Complaint,” said the lawyers. Dish failed to “properly pay” its New York installers their biweekly wages within seven calendar days after the end of the week in which these wages were earned, and took “unlawful deductions” from their paychecks, alleged an Oct. 7 class action. Installers Chris Calderon, Nick Patsonikolis and Amresh Boodoo also allege Dish wrongfully terminated them in September in retaliation for their safety complaints. A “large percentage” of the vans Dish provided its installers for work were “unsafe,” said the complaint. Many of the vans had issues with torn windshield wipers and broken side mirrors, plus tires with low tread and low coolant, causing vans to overheat and break down in the field, it said. Dish didn’t comment Monday.
Issues central to the case involving defendant Peerless Network in its legal fight with plaintiffs Qwest, Level 3 and Global Crossing should be referred to the FCC “under the doctrine of primary jurisdiction,” said the plaintiffs in a legal brief Thursday (docket 1:21-cv-03004) in U.S. District Court for Colorado. The case was moved last week into a proceeding under a magistrate judge for alternative dispute resolution (see 2210130069).