Most Lawyers in T-Mobile Data Breach MDL Favor Transfer to Seattle

Eight attorneys filed notices of presentation of oral argument for the May 25 hearing in Philadelphia of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on the petition to transfer the 16 T-Mobile data breach class actions for pretrial consolidation under a single district judge by Monday’s deadline (see 2304170007). T-Mobile’s outside counsel, Scott Elder of Alston & Bird in Atlanta, was the only attorney among the eight to oppose consolidation, but he prefers transfer to the districts of Western Missouri or Kansas, should the JPML go against his objections, said his notice (MDL No. 3073). Both those jurisdictions are within a half-hour drive from T-Mobile’s secondary headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas. Four of the attorneys favor transfer to the Western District of Washington in Seattle, near T-Mobile’s primary headquarters in Bellevue. One of the remaining attorneys favors the Western District of Missouri, another the District of Kansas, still another the Southern District of California in San Diego.