Though the AirTag’s intended purpose is to find lost items like keys or luggage, “its popularity has soared as the preeminent tool for stalking and abuse due to its efficacy, low price point, and ease of use,” said the opposition Monday (docket 3:22-cv-07668) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco of 38 AirTag user plaintiffs to Apple’s Oct. 27 motion to dismiss their Oct. 6 first amended complaint (see 2310300030).
There’s “no merit” to plaintiff Greg Bostard’s allegations that he spent decades as a Comcast utility pole worker and was regularly in close proximity to Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables, said Verizon’s memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08564) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden in support of its motion to dismiss Bostard’s Aug. 23 complaint (see 2308240005).
Skidmore College discovered a data breach on Feb. 17 and only began notifying affected individuals Sept. 15, alleged plaintiff Mary Cogan in a class action Thusrday (docket 1:23cv1409) in U.S. District for Northern New York in Syracuse.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mario Garcia for Southern Indiana in Indianapolis set a Nov. 21 status conference at 3:30 p.m. EST in the lawsuit brought by seven plaintiffs against Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R), said Garcia’s signed scheduling order Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-01805). The purpose of the conference is to discuss the plaintiffs' Nov. 3 motion for a preliminary injunction to block Rokita from enforcing HB-1186, the state law that took effect July 1 making it a misdemeanor for journalists to come within 25 feet of police officers on official duty (see 2311060046). The plaintiffs are the Indiana Broadcasters Association, the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the Indianapolis Star, Nexstar, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Scripps and Tegna. They allege that HB-1186 violates the First and 14th Amendments “on its face,” and as applied to the plaintiffs’ “peaceful, nonobstructive newsgathering in public places.”
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) transferred three cases in In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation to U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston under U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs, said conditional transfer order 13 (CTO-13) Friday (docket 3083). The three latest cases from federal courts in Indiana, Michigan and South Dakota are Everling v. First Merchants Bank, Heinz v. Jackson National Life Insurance and Ken v. Pathward. The three cases involve the late May data breach in Progress Software’s MOVEit file transfer software. Since Oct. 4, 120 actions have been transferred to the District of Massachusetts. Elsewhere, plaintiff Samantha O’Neal in O’Neal v. EMS Management & Consultants (docket 1:23-cv-00738) opposes transfer in CTO-10 to the MOVEit MDL, said her Friday notice of opposition before the JPML. O’Neal’s negligence class action alleges EMS Management 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.”
Construction contractor King Cable caused more than $18,000 in negligent damage to AT&T’s underground telecommunications facilities when excavating at a location in Plantation, Florida, in August 2020, alleged AT&T in a complaint Friday (docket COSO-23-007159) in the state's 17th Judicial Circuit Court in Broward County. King Cable had a duty “to follow the requirements and obligations” of Section 556, Florida’s Underground Facility Damage Prevention and Safety Act, said the complaint. Yet it failed to contact the statute's One Call System or an AT&T representative “before excavating in the area of known or probable underground facilities,” it said. Section 556 requires excavators to contact 811 and have underground facilities marked at least two full business days before beginning any excavation or demolition. The contractor also failed to take “all reasonable precautions” to prevent contact or damage to AT&T’s cables, as Section 556 requires, it said. AT&T seeks recovery for damages, taxable costs and “such other and further relief” as the court deems “just and equitable,” it said.
The Indiana Broadcasters Association, plus Nexstar, Scripps, Tegna and three other co-plaintiffs, seek a preliminary injunction blocking Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) from enforcing HB-1186, the state law that took effect July 1, making it a misdemeanor for journalists to come within 25 feet of police officers on official duty, said their motion Friday (docket 1:23-cv-01805) in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana in Indianapolis. The plaintiffs, which also include the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Indiana Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Indianapolis Star, sued the state Oct. 6 to challenge HB-1186's constitutionality (see 2310100026). The plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of their claims that HB-1186 violates the First and 14th Amendments “on its face,” and as applied to the plaintiffs’ “peaceful, nonobstructive newsgathering in public places,” said their motion. They’re “now suffering and will continue to suffer irreparable harm absent a preliminary injunction” due to the loss of their First Amendment freedoms, “for even minimal periods of time,” it said. The balance of equities “favors granting preliminary relief because” injunctions protecting First Amendment freedoms are always in the public interest, it said. The court should issue a preliminary injunction without bond because Rokita and Indiana “will suffer no damages from an injunction against enforcement of an unconstitutional statute,” it said. But requiring the posting of a bond would negatively impact the plaintiffs’ ability “to exercise their First Amendment rights,” it said. The parties propose having Indiana and Rokita answer or otherwise respond to the Oct. 6 complaint by Dec. 1, the same date when the plaintiffs will submit their memorandum of law and accompanying evidence in support of the injunction motion, it said.
IBM, Johnson & Johnson and Janssen CarePath failed to secure plaintiff Kristal Mize’s personally identifiable information (PII) and protected health information (PHI) when they allowed an unauthorized third party to access their computer systems, alleged a privacy class action (docket 7:23-cv-09725) Friday in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in White Plains.
An August data breach at the University of Michigan led to unauthorized access of personal data of students, applicants, alumni, donors, employees, contractors, research study participants and patients, alleged a class action Wednesday (docket 5:23-cv-12783) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Ann Arbor.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will dismiss the appeal of British filmmaker Joshua Newton against NBCUniversal Media and its former Vice Chairman Ronald Meyer, effective Nov. 14, if Newton doesn’t file his appellant brief and any required appendix by then, said a signed clerk’s order Tuesday (docket 23-994). Newton missed his Monday deadline for filing those submissions, after being granted a one-month extension on Sept. 28, and so the case now “is deemed in default,” said the order. No additional extension of time to file will be granted, it said. Newton is seeking to reverse the district court’s March 17 dismissal of his complaint against Meyer and NBCUniversal for breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent inducement and negligent misrepresentation. The complaint alleges Meyer used his Hollywood connections to help Newton raise funding for the feature film he wrote, directed and co-produced, Nicole & O.J., about the O.J. Simpson murder case. All the while, said the complaint, Meyer was allegedly hiding inappropriate relationships that he and other Hollywood executives had with an actress who was the film's anticipated star. After details of those relationships became public, it said, all investor interest in Nicole & O.J. vanished, and the film remains unfinished and unreleased to this day.