Plaintiff Robert Marrone and defendant Warren General Hospital seek an order dismissing Marrone’s Nov. 22 data breach class action against the hospital (see 2311270019) for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, said their joint motion Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-00330) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Erie. Counsel for the hospital has provided “sufficient and adequate detail” about the individuals that make up Marrone’s proposed class, convincing Marrone and his counsel that more than 80% of the proposed class members -- roughly 115,000 out of 142,000 -- live in Pennsylvania, said their motion. That percentage is “well above the threshold requirement” for establishing an exception to Class Action Fairness Act jurisdiction in federal court, it said. Jurisdiction was asserted in Marrone’s complaint because of diversity between class members and the defendant and due to the other jurisdictional thresholds that were met, it said. But an exception to CAFA jurisdiction exists if two-thirds or more of the members of the proposed plaintiff’s class and the primary defendant are citizens of the state in which the action was originally filed, it said. The parties therefore agree that the CAFA exception requires the court “not to exercise jurisdiction over this matter,” it said. Under Pennsylvania law, once a federal court dismisses a case for lack of jurisdiction, the plaintiff may transfer it to another state court or magisterial district, it said. Marrone intends to transfer his case to Warren County Court following its dismissal, it said. The parties “have agreed to forego briefing on the issue” and ask that the court enter a dismissal order, said the joint motion.
Controlled digital lending “maintains copyright’s balance of interests and does not reduce financial incentives for authors,” wrote the Authors Alliance in a 2nd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court amicus brief Thursday (docket 23-1260) in support of the Internet Archive in its copyright case.
The Institute for Law, Innovation & Technology at the Temple University Beasley School of Law takes no position in the appeal from California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) to reverse the district court’s injunction that blocks him from enforcing AB-2273, the state’s Age Appropriate Design Code (see 2312140003), said the institute's amicus brief Wednesday (docket 23-2969) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The district court took a “notably broad view” of commercial speech and determined that essentially all of AB-2273's components “were facially unconstitutional,” it said. For the sake of “doctrinal integrity alone,” the 9th Circuit “may choose to revise, remand, or reign in aspects” of the district court’s decision, it said. But under all circumstances, the institute urges the 9th Circuit to “carefully consider” the statute’s data protection impact assessment (DPIA) risk management requirement, it said. It should also consider “what DPIAs actually are,” and where and how they are used, it said: “Categorically invalidating a state law with potentially national and international implications should, at the very least, be premised on an accurate and nuanced understanding of this important and widely used technical tool.” DPIAs trace their origins to federal privacy law from the 1970s, said the brief. For the past 20 years, large federal agencies have regularly conducted privacy impact assessments, which are “functionally and substantively similar” to DPIAs. These requirements help ensure that federal agencies “consider appropriately tailored data collection and processing tied to the purposes for which such records are created and maintained,” it said. DPIAs aren’t “an entirely novel or foreign creation, contrary to how they are sometimes misperceived,” it said.
Thane Charman’s Dec. 4 amended class action alleging that Spectrum had committed Telephone Consumer Protection Act wrongdoing corrected his original complaint to read that Charman lives in San Diego County, which is within the jurisdiction of the Southern District of California, said his filing Monday (docket 3:23-cv-02184). U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson for Southern California had ordered Charman to show cause why his case shouldn’t be transferred to U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana because his original complaint said he lived in Orange County. Charman’s counsel attributed the error to an “editing mistake due to the template that was used to create this case.” Charman alleges Spectrum “engaged in a scheme” to sell cable and internet services via prerecorded and live cold calls to residential phone numbers on the federal do not call registry (see 2311300046).
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit seemed skeptical of oral arguments Thursday that Congress didn’t intend for video surveillance gear from Chinese companies Hikvision and Dahua to be placed on the FCC’s “covered list” and barred from the agency’s equipment authorization program (see 2309210032) when lawmakers added those companies to a list of security threats and separately ordered the FCC not to authorize gear from companies on the list. “We can’t write an opinion that says we think Congress was just kidding,” said Judge Florence Pan.
U.S. District Judge Joseph Rodriguez for New Jersey reset deadlines Monday in a lawsuit against MGM Resorts International over its September data breach, after the defendant invoked an automatic extension under Local Civil Rule 7.1(d)(5), said the judge’s text-only order (docket 1:23-cv-20419). MGM’s letter cited plaintiffs Saul and Shirley Lassoff’s Nov. 30 motion to preclude all other venues and duplicate litigation against MGM Resorts International only and to issue a proposed first to file preclusion order and transfer remaining cases to U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden. The motion was originally set for hearing Jan. 2, which has not previously been extended or adjourned, said MGM’s filing. The new and next available motion day is Jan. 16, it said. The Lassoffs’ preclusion order requests that the remaining cases involving the cyberattack on the hospitality company’s systems in September be transferred to Camden. The plaintiffs’ amended complaint added New Jersey, New York and Las Vegas MGM customers as potential class members in the action against MGM Resorts International and removed Caesars Entertainment, following the dismissal of Caesars without prejudice from the case in November. The Lassoffs assert claims of breach of fiduciary duty and negligence (see 2311160060).
Google’s “anticompetitive scheme” is “starving the free press” and siphoning “billions of readers and billions of dollars” from publishers, while extracting and publishing their content on Google and diverting “readers and ad revenue,” alleged a class action (docket 1:23-cv-03677) Monday by Helena World Chronicle (HWC) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.
DirecTV violated the Fair Debt Collection Act when it sent past due notices to a customer who had canceled service on one of his DirecTV accounts, alleged a complaint Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-00354) in U.S. District Court for Southern Mississippi in Gulfport.