Home security company Vivint failed to disclose to a customer that he would be required to buy additional products to receive its service and refused to allow him to cancel home monitoring, alleged a Jan. 12 fraud class action (docket 1:24-cv-01010) removed Wednesday from Burlington County, New Jersey, Superior Court to U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Camden.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita (R) seeks a stay in the case brought by seven media organizations to block enforcement of the state's "buffer law,” pending the outcome of a YouTuber’s appeal (docket 24-1099) in the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (see 2401230006), said Rokita’s motion Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-01805) in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana in Indianapolis. The media organizations, which include Nexstar, Scripps, Tegna and the Indianapolis Star, all oppose the stay, said Rokita’s motion.
Essential Network Technologies and MetComm.net filed a petition to review last week at the U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit challenging the authority of the FCC and the Universal Service Administrative Co. to stop processing the reimbursement of discounts for IT and broadband services that MetComm and Essential provided to schools under Section 254 of the Communications Act. Also at issue is whether the FCC’s failure to conclude numerous extended USAC investigations within a reasonable time violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution's due process clause by seriously impairing the ability of MetComm and Essential to adequately defend themselves against USAC’s “unspecified allegations,” said the petition (docket 24-1027). This isn’t “an ordinary agency delay case” but instead is a case in which the FCC “has a duty to act,” it said. The commission is failing its “statutory reimbursement duty while embroiling the schools and their service providers in endless proceedings before a private company, USAC, that lacks any authority to decide the legal issues involved,” it said. If the petition to review is denied, the petition seeks, in the alternative, mandamus relief compelling the FCC to comply with the duties Congress included in the Communications Act and the APA, it said.
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should affirm the district court’s judgment that appellant Mark Walters isn’t entitled to $11,120 in attorneys’ fees and court costs when it remanded his defamation case against OpenAI to state court (see 2312110008), said OpenAI’s appellee brief Wednesday (docket 23-13843). Walters, a nationally syndicated talk show host, alleges OpenAI’s ChatGPT service defamed him to a reporter (see 2307240031). He suggests that the 11th Circuit has a ministerial duty to vacate and remand the order with instructions to the district court to explain its reasons for denying the fee request. But Walters’ “novel theory” finds no support in 11th Circuit law, said OpenAI’s brief. The 11th Circuit should affirm the judgment “if the record supports an inference that the defendant had an objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal,” it said: “Such is the case here.” The record confirms that OpenAI “had an objectively reasonable basis for removal where neither it nor its LLC members are citizens of Georgia, and thus complete diversity exists,” it said. OpenAI’s decision to accept remand rather than compromise the privacy of its individual LLC members by identifying each by name doesn’t “undermine that conclusion,” it said. The same district court “had previously retained diversity jurisdiction in a recent case without requiring individual identification of each LLC member to demonstrate that diversity jurisdiction existed,” it said. On this record, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion in denying the fee request “because OpenAI had an objectively reasonable basis for removal,” it said. Nor was it an abuse of discretion to decline Walters’ invitation “to make a contrary (and unsupported) inference,” it said. The 11th Circuit can and should find that the district court didn’t abuse its discretion, and the judgment should be affirmed, it said.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act “protects Americans’ right to privacy,” and the district court’s Nov. 6 opinion dismissing plaintiff Jacob Howard’s complaint against the Republican National Committee (see 2311150003), “must be reversed, so that it continues” to protect that right, said Howard’s opening brief Wednesday (docket 23-3826) in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Fidelity National Financial (FNF) and its LoanCare subsidiary failed to comply with industry standards to protect its customers’ “highly valuable, protected, personally identifiable information” (PII) in a November data breach that the company referred to as a “catastrophe,” alleged a class action Thursday (docket 3:24-cv-00115) in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Jacksonville.
Meta’s claim that the removal protections of FTC commissioners are unconstitutional is “foreclosed” by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., according to the FTC’s response Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-03562) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to Meta’s Jan. 25 sur-reply in opposition to the commission’s motion to dismiss.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals verbally granted appellee AT&T an extension of time to March 14 to file its answering brief in Core Communications’ appeal to reverse the district court’s finding of summary judgment in AT&T’s favor, said a text-only docket entry Thursday (docket 23-3022). Core’s opening brief Tuesday contended that the “plain, unambiguous” terms of its tariffs obligate AT&T to pay for all 8YY “rate elements” and for all 8YY services that Core has provided “for the ultimate benefit of AT&T’s toll-free customers” (see 2401310001).
Google made no changes to Google Maps routing or notifications to users despite being told by South African authorities and the U.S. State Department about violent attacks in early 2023 along a stretch of highway dubbed “Hell Run,” alleged a negligence complaint Tuesday (docket 24-cv-430061) in Santa Clara County Superior Court. Plaintiffs Jason and Katharine Zoladz of Los Angeles County allege Google Maps gave them “no warning of the grave dangers they faced” on an Oct. 24 drive to Cape Town International Airport when the app directed them to take a left onto New Eisleben Road, which intersects with “Hell Run.” When Jason Zoladz stopped at a red light, a gang of armed assailants attacked, with one of the attackers throwing a paving brick through the driver’s side window, “smashing the glass, and Jason’s jaw, into pieces," the complaint said. The same brick then “careened into Katharine,” injuring her arm, it said. The assailants dragged the couple from the car, stole their credit cards, phones and cash “and left Jason bleeding by the side of the road,” it said. The couple continues to suffer emotional distress from the incident, it said. Three weeks after the attack on the Zoladzes, Google “finally agreed to stop Google Maps from directing users to travel these dangerous routes,” it said. Google had a duty to protect and warn the plaintiffs from “known hazards and must not expose customers to a known, serious risk of harm,” the complaint said. Gangs chose New Eisleben Road as a “prime site for these violent attacks” because it was difficult for victims to escape the area due to a high concentration of vehicles and pedestrians and because “the gangs knew that Google Maps sent unsuspecting tourists driving rental cars to the airport along these routes,” it said. It cited three similar incidents from 2023, including two that led to driver deaths. Google had “direct knowledge of dangers its users would face when directed by Google Maps via specific routes to the Cape Down airport,” the complaint said: A “simple matter of software programming” would have taken “no more than a few hours to implement, test, and roll out.” The Zoladzes assert claims of negligence and gross negligence, negligent failure to warn, negligent undertaking and negligent infliction of emotional distress on a bystander. They seek punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest and legal costs. Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda emailed Thursday: "We take driver safety very seriously and are currently reviewing the lawsuit. We consider a wide range of factors to deliver routes -- like road size, directness and estimated travel time -- and continually work to improve our routing."
The “plain, unambiguous” terms of Core Communications’ tariffs obligate AT&T to pay for all 8YY “rate elements” and for all 8YY services that Core has provided “for the ultimate benefit of AT&T’s toll-free customers,” said Core’s opening brief Tuesday (docket 23-3022) in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court to reverse the district court’s finding of summary judgment in AT&T’s favor.