Customs duty

Plaintiff Robert Marrone and nearly 169,000 class members who were victims of a September data breach at Warren General Hospital in Warren, Pennsylvania, are at “significantly increased risk of fraud,” alleged a Nov. 22 class action (docket 1:23-cv-00330) in U.S. District Court for Western Pennsylvania in Erie.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals docketed, as case number 23-3022, Core Communications’ appeal of an Oct. 13 order granting AT&T summary judgment in its access service charges dispute with Core (see 2311140049), said a docket notice Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia had held that Core can’t collect millions in unpaid switched access service charges it seeks from AT&T, because Core’s tariffs didn’t authorize it to bill for those services in the first place (see 2212280001), making AT&T entitled to summary judgment on all of Core’s claims.

Malicious actors accessed personal records of 3.9 million current and former Northwell Health patients between March 27 and May 2, but Northwell and its record-keeping vendor, Perry Johnson & Associates, kept the data breach hidden from the public until Nov. 3, alleged plaintiff Crystal Brewster’s class action Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08627) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn. Northwell runs 20 hospitals and more than 800 outpatient facilities in the New York area.

The Constitution vests all judicial power in the Article III courts, yet the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1984 Chevron decision holds that courts “must abdicate their independent judgment” and defer to federal agencies’ “interpretation of ambiguous statutes.” So said Relentless, Huntress and Seafreeze Fleet, the second set of petitioners urging SCOTUS to undo Chevron, in their opening brief Monday (docket 22-1219).

EMS Management & Consultants moved to dismiss plaintiff Samantha O’Neal’s privacy complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted, in a Thursday motion (docket 1:23-cv-00738) in U.S. District Court for Middle North Carolina. O’Neal’s fraud case involving the May MOVEit file transfer software data breach alleges EMS had a duty to protect her personally identifiable information and should have known “through readily available and accessible information about potential threats for the unauthorized exfiltration and misuse of such information.” O’Neal’s case was part of conditional transfer order 10 for transfer to In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, but O’Neal opposed the transfer in a Nov. 3 notice before the U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (see 2311060016).

Plaintiffs Saul and Shirley Lassoff asked the court for permission to file an emergency motion to preclude all other venues and duplicate litigation vs. defendant MGM Resorts International only and to issue a proposed first-to-file preclusion order in their negligence class action stemming from a September data breach, said their Wednesday letter (docket 1:23-cv-20419) to U.S. District Judge Joseph Rodriguez for New Jersey in Camden. The preclusion order requests that 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 this month (see 2310100027). The Lassoffs assert claims of breach of fiduciary duty and negligence.

Plaintiff Shannan Davis is reminded of her "duty” under Local Rule 3.09(a) to immediately file a notice of settlement with the court of her Telephone Consumer Protection Act claims against telehealth company LifeMD after agreeing to resolve all or part of a civil action, even if the resolution is "contingent or unwritten," said U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington for Middle Florida in Tampa in a text-only endorsed order Tuesday (docket 8:23-cv-02138). Davis’ notice of mediation Monday said the parties and mediator Gregory Holder have agreed to mediation on Jan. 8. However, as the parties “are actively working to finalize a settlement agreement to dispose of this matter in its entirety, the parties anticipate the mediation will likely become unnecessary,” according to the notice. Davis’ Sept. 21 class action alleges that LifeMD contributed to the national “barrage” of phone spam by initiating more than 100 illegal text messages to her residential cellphone (see 2309220001).

Spectrum removed to U.S. District Court for Hawaii Tuesday a second amended negligence class action filed Oct. 13 in Hawaii’s 1st Circuit Court in which 38 plaintiffs seek to hold Spectrum and Hawaiian Telcom, among dozens of named landowner, municipality and utility defendants, at least partially liable for causing the Aug. 8 Lahaina wildfire that killed more than 100 and destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses.

West Caldwell, New Jersey, resident Dennis DePalma became a victim of cryptocurrency fraud March 21 when a John Doe “scammer” stole nearly $34,000 from his Coinbase account through a SIM swap at a Verizon store in Woodbury, Minnesota, that Verizon should have prevented, alleged his complaint against Verizon Monday (docket 2:23-cv-22318) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. A SIM swap “allows scammers to circumvent multi-factor authentication for websites or accounts that use text messages to seek approval,” said the complaint. Scammers “switch the assigned phone number from the victim’s SIM card to a new one they purchase from the cellphone provider,” it said. DePalma alleges that a manager at the Woodbury location, known only by his first name, Joshua, “allowed himself to sign off” on the scammer who identified himself as DePalma “with no sort of verification,” said the complaint. SIM swaps shouldn’t be completed “without customer verification,” it said. The employee must get a PIN, a photo ID or email confirmation to complete a SIM swap, but Joshua didn’t do “his due diligence in this circumstance,” it said. Verizon is liable for a violation of Sections 217 and 222 of the Federal Communications Act because its employee, Joshua, “was acting within the scope of his employment” when he transferred DePalma’s cellphone number to a new SIM card for the scammer, it said. Verizon also “owed a duty” to DePalma “to exercise reasonable care” to protect his personal information “and prevent it from being compromised,” it said. That duty “required Verizon to design, maintain, and test its security measures to ensure the safety and protection” of customers’ personal information, it said. Verizon also had a duty to use “verification protocol” and ensure that its employees “adhere to it,” it said. The complaint seeks compensatory and punitive damages, plus attorneys’ fees and court costs.

Core Communications is appealing to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals the Oct. 13 order of U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia granting AT&T summary judgment in its access service charges dispute with the company (see 2310160018), said Core’s Nov. 10 notice of appeal, posted Monday (docket 2:21-cv-02771). Wolson’s order held that Core can’t collect the millions in unpaid switched access service charges it seeks from AT&T, because Core’s tariffs didn’t authorize it to bill for those services in the first place (see 2212280001), making AT&T entitled to summary judgment on all of Core’s claims.