Conspiracy Claims in False Ring Tones Case Should Be Dropped: T-Mobile

Plaintiffs’ Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone’s motion for judgment on their claims for conspiracy and punitive damages in the false ring tones case against T-Mobile should be granted, and the conspiracy and punitive damages claims dismissed, said the defendant in a Tuesday reply memorandum in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago (docket 1:19-cv-07190). The court’s February ruling (see 2302100007) dismissing the conspiracy claim against Inteliquent “should apply equally to the identical claim” against T-Mobile, said the carrier. Plaintiffs claim T-Mobile waved its choice of law argument by not raising it in its answer or original motion to dismiss, but 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals law "holds otherwise,” T-Mobile said. Plaintiffs suggest a ruling on the motion should be stayed while they engage in “months of further discovery” that they say “should reveal” information or “may bear on” choice of law, said the reply. But the motion is addressed to plaintiffs’ “current pleading, not a hypothetical future” that plaintiffs may seek leave to file, it said. Plaintiffs’ argument ignores “years of discovery that has already occurred,” mostly after plaintiffs “were put on notice” by Inteliquent’s Rule 12(c) motion that choice of law could influence whether they could state a cognizable conspiracy claim, the filing said. Future discovery -- call detail records and depositions concerning documents already produced -- “will not change that the alleged conduct occurred in multiple states, or that alleged injury was incurred where the plaintiffs are located,” it said, saying those are the facts that influenced the court’s dismissal of the conspiracy claim against Inteliquent. On plaintiffs’ contention they need months of discovery to reveal information sufficient to amend their second amended complaint, T-Mobile said an amendment “would change nothing.” Their “mounting record of evidence of ‘supposed conspiratorial conduct’ is “not materially different than what is already in” the second amended complaint, it said. Plaintiffs claim T-Mobile conspired to insert fake local ring back tones instead of connecting calls to rural areas with expensive routing fees.