Joint Status Report Ordered in Seattle Data Breach Case vs. T-Mobile

California plaintiffs Tamara Ferguson and Brian Heinz are to meet and confer with T-Mobile and file a joint status report by April 13 on the plaintiffs’ class action arising from T-Mobile’s data breach, said a minute order (docket 2:23-cv-00142) from U.S. District Judge John Coughenour for Western Washington in Seattle. T-Mobile’s “intentionally misleading public statements” about its “nearly annual” data breaches ignore the “serious harm” its security flaws cause customers, said the Jan. 31 class action, one of a dozen or more similar lawsuits filed since T-Mobile disclosed the latest breach Jan. 19 (see 2302010060). If the parties are unable to agree on any part of the joint status report, “they may answer in separate paragraphs,” but “no separate reports are to be filed,” said Coughenour’s order. It bears watching to see if Coughenour’s call for the April 13 joint status report survives motions before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer the dozen or more T-Mobile class actions for consolidation under a single district court judge (see 2302160025).