The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act action brought by lawyers Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman, who allege defendants fraudulently said Frequency Advantage was a “very small business” qualifying for “designated entity” status and a bidding discount in a 2015 spectrum auction. The case had been brought against UScellular and Frequency Advantage, along with other defendants, including Advantage Spectrum, King Street Wireless and Telephone and Data Systems. The court earlier dismissed the case but granted plaintiffs “leave to amend their allegations to allow them to attempt to proffer different allegations or transactions from those already in the public domain,” the court said: “The Amended Complaint fails to do so. The ‘core allegation’ Plaintiffs-Relators identify in their Amended Complaint is the same as in their original Complaint, which the court already held did not overcome the public disclosure bar. They proffer the same FCC filings and other public information from their original Complaint.”
Travis County, Texas, consumer Daniel Graham filed a Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-00254) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin in which he alleges 25 “John Does” inflicted “concrete injury” by inundating him with more than a dozen unwanted and unsolicited telemarketing calls to a number he listed on the national do not call registry since November 2021. The identities of the telemarketers “are unknown but may be disclosed in discovery and should be made parties to this action,” said his complaint, which misidentifies the statute as the Telephone Communication Practices Act. Graham has “information and belief” that the calls’ originating number, 254-268-7594, is registered to Onvoy, a telecommunications services provider, it said. He’s represented by Austin attorney Brent Devere.
Google wants U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel for Southern New York to deny plaintiff Inform’s Feb. 28 motion for leave to amend its digital advertising antitrust complaint against for a second time, Google wrote the judge in a letter Wednesday (docket 1:21-md-03010). The Inform action was recently transferred to Castel with the related multidistrict litigation cases because Inform “opportunistically delayed seeking MDL treatment," it said. Despite referencing ad servers in its original 2019 complaint, Inform never sought transfer to Castel for consolidation with the other MDL cases “during the more than three years that its case was pending” in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta, said Google. Inform instead opposed Google’s motion to dismiss and amended its complaint once in that court, it said. “Google’s most recently filed motion to dismiss Inform’s amended complaint remains pending, and Inform’s request to amend seeks to moot that motion.” It appears that Inform views transfer to the MDL “as an opportunity to start over with a third complaint,” it said. Inform’s two complaints “had little to do with ad tech other than a few stray paragraphs containing allegations wholly unconnected to Inform and its supposed harm,” said Google. Inform’s motion for leave is a request “for a second do-over to give Inform a chance to copy-and-paste more irrelevant allegations into its already rambling complaint,” it said. Castel “should reject it and allow Google’s pending motion to dismiss to proceed,” it said.
The city of Yuma, Arizona, has spent nearly $204,000 to date in outside attorney’s fees defending against Charter’s Spectrum Pacific West lawsuit, said the city in a “renewed” joint status report Wednesday (docket 2:20-cv-01204) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. The court ordered the parties to file the renewed report after they said they couldn’t agree on the “substance and content” of their original joint status report (see 2303060038). Spectrum sued Yuma in June 2020 over the city's alleged refusal to comply with Arizona's universal video franchising law. Yuma’s counterclaims assert Spectrum’s lawsuit breached the indefeasible right of use agreement that Time Warner Cable, Spectrum’s predecessor company, signed with the city over use of Spectrum’s fiber capacity. The taxpayer dollars that Yuma spent on lawyers “more properly should have been spent on a new ambulance or police equipment” or maintaining the city’s fiber network for the next eight years, said the city in its portion of the renewed status report. The city has incurred more than $300,000 in actual damages “resulting directly from Spectrum’s improper actions,” it said. Yuma can’t and shouldn’t “place the burden of paying for such damages” on its taxpayers, it said. Spectrum was left “no choice but to initiate this litigation” after the city “refused to adopt any process for it to apply to obtain a uniform license,” countered the company in the joint status report. Yuma insisted the Arizona law “requiring it to adopt such processes and grant such licenses was unlawful,” it said. “Its contrary position now is flatly contradicted by the record evidence.” The city’s assertion that it was somehow forced into this litigation is “mistaken,” said Spectrum. The lawsuit “resulted directly from its own refusal to abide Arizona law,” it said. Yuma’s current litigation position “rings particularly hollow” now that the city seeks to keep the litigation going through a motion for summary judgment “after the core issue in dispute has been resolved,” it said. “That effort is misguided, and its strategy to do so through dispositive motions practice is procedurally improper, based on unfair and improper discovery practice,” it said.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for Southern New York granted summary judgment against defendants Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their roles in initiating a threatening and intimidating robocall designed to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the run-up to the 2020 election, said the 111-page order he signed Wednesday (docket 1:20-cv-08668).
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act action brought by lawyers Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman, who allege that defendants fraudulently represented that Frequency Advantage was a “very small business” qualifying for “designated entity” status and a bidding discount in a 2015 spectrum auction. The case had been brought against UScellular and Frequency Advantage, along with other defendants, including Advantage Spectrum, King Street Wireless and Telephone and Data Systems. The court earlier dismissed the case but granted plaintiffs “leave to amend their allegations to allow them to attempt to proffer different allegations or transactions from those already in the public domain,” the court said: “The Amended Complaint fails to do so. The ‘core allegation’ Plaintiffs-Relators identify in their Amended Complaint is the same as in their original Complaint, which the court already held did not overcome the public disclosure bar. They proffer the same FCC filings and other public information from their original Complaint.”
Plaintiff Cynthia Redd seeks to hold Amazon Web Services liable under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act “merely because she interacted with Wonolo, a non-party who happens to use AWS’s cloud-based services to provide its own services,” said AWS’s reply Friday (docket 1:22-cv-06779) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois to Redd’s opposition to AWS’s motion to dismiss her claims. Redd also seeks an order remanding her BIPA class action to Cook County Circuit Court, where it originated before AWS removed it Dec. 2 (see 2302130041). “No court has ever endorsed such a sweeping interpretation of BIPA, and it has no basis in BIPA’s text or purpose,” said the AWS reply. “Redd’s novel attempt to hold AWS liable for providing back-end cloud services to a third party suffers from three fatal legal flaws, none of which her opposition brief can explain away,” it said. AWS says Redd didn’t allege facts or cite evidence showing AWS is subject to this court’s “personal jurisdiction,” it said. She also doesn’t “adequately allege the basic elements of her claims,” it said. Even if AWS is subject to BIPA in the context of Redd’s claims -- it’s not -- AWS “fulfilled any duties it may have under the law by contractually requiring its customers, including Wonolo, to comply with BIPA’s requirements,” it said.
Wireless ISP NMSurf, in its appeal of the district court’s upholding of Santa Fe’s 2% revenue-based franchise fee, didn’t identify any legal error by the district court that would warrant the appellate court to reverse it, argued the city in its response brief Friday (docket 22-2131) in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously rejected Schwab Multimedia’s appeal of FCC decisions that led to the broadcaster losing its permit to build an AM station in Culver City, California, according to Judge Justin Walker's opinion Friday (docket 22-1016). “You can’t build a radio station without a place to put it,” wrote Walker. Schwab appealed the agency’s denial of its fourth tolling request to extend construction deadlines for the unbuilt KWIF(AM) Culver City. After losing its original construction site, Schwab argued industry delays from the COVID-19 pandemic and California wildfires caused its failure to construct, and said it secured a new site, though the FCC hadn’t approved that site by. The agency said site loss was the reason for the delays, and site loss isn't a valid reason for extending construction deadlines under FCC rules. “Because the agency’s decision was reasonable and reasonably explained, we affirm,” the opinion said. Schwab didn't comment.
Ericsson agreed to plead guilty and pay a criminal penalty of more than $206 million after breaching cooperation and disclosure provisions of a 2019 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), said DOJ Thursday. Ericsson also will plead guilty to engaging in a “long-running scheme to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by paying bribes, falsifying books and records, and failing to implement reasonable internal accounting controls in multiple countries around the world,” DOJ said.