Paul Gluckman

A “reasonable consumer” understands that when buying something, “they own it unless or until they return it or otherwise dispose of it” but not so with content purchased from Amazon Prime Video. So asserted eight California and New York plaintiffs in their opposition Friday (docket 2:22-cv-00401) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle to Amazon’s motion to dismiss their class action for failure to state a claim.

T-Mobile’s assignment of sublease rights to Crown Castle and in turn to Dish Network without notifying Academy Medical prevented Academy “from exercising its contractual right to object to the sublease,” alleged the property owner in a counterclaim Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-00910) in U.S. District Court for New Mexico.

The plaintiffs in the consolidated healthcare litigation against the Meta Pixel tracking tool agree with Meta’s request to relate the two new Pixel tax filing website class actions to the healthcare cases, they told the U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco in a new filing Thursday (docket 3:22-cv-3580). Two days earlier, the tax-filing plaintiffs said they oppose Meta’s request to relate because the two bodies of litigation “are very different” (see 2301110038). The healthcare plaintiffs’ only objection is that they think it's “procedurally improper to address consolidation in a motion to relate and that consolidation should be addressed separately” after the court issues a related case order, they said. They worry “about the specifics of any consolidation and how it might impact the discovery and schedule” for the consolidated healthcare case, they said. As Meta’s motion to relate concedes, the consolidated healthcare case is “well ahead” of the tax-filing cases, and “there is no reason that discovery should be delayed here,” said the healthcare plaintiffs. “Those and other concerns with consolidation are more appropriate to address in a consolidation-specific motion.” The cases have differences, but the healthcare plaintiffs agree with Meta they should be related, they said. Both involve the same defendant, technology and agreements with Meta, including its cookies and data policies, they said. “They also allege many of the same claims,” including violations of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and California Invasion of Privacy Act, they said. Though the litigation doesn't “overlap completely,” it’s likely there will be “an unduly burdensome duplication of labor and expense or conflicting results if the cases are conducted before different judges, given that they center around the same technology,” said the healthcare plaintiffs. Relating the tax cases to the healthcare action “will promote efficiency and prevent inconsistent results,” they said. They reserve their right to address whether the tax cases should be consolidated after the court issues a related case order, they said.

Defendant Voyager Labs, beginning no later than July, developed, distributed and used surveillance software that relied on fake accounts and “unauthorized automated means” to scrape data from Facebook and Instagram, and other websites such as Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Telegram, alleged Meta in a complaint Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-00154) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

Academy Medical, the defendant property owner that a T-Mobile and Crown Castle complaint alleges blocked Crown Castle from upgrading the cell tower leased on its property for Dish Network’s 5G network buildout (see 2211300001), wants the complaint dismissed for failure to state a claim, said its motion Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-00910) in U.S. District Court for New Mexico.

The California Public Utilities Commission imposed a 7 cents-per-minute cap on incarcerated person calling service rates “without first obtaining evidence on which to set a reasonable ceiling,” Securus Technologies counsel Russell Blau of Morgan Lewis told the California 2nd District Court of Appeals in oral argument Thursday on Securus’ petition to set aside the CPUC’s order (see 2205120037). One judge confronted him about why the company didn’t insist on submitting evidence, or demand that the CPUC hold an evidentiary hearing.

What’s “unique” to the Biden administration and the FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division leadership “is this laser focus” on allegedly anticompetitive behavior in the tech industry, Fenwick associate Kaylynn Moss told a Fenwick webinar Wednesday on antitrust litigation trends in 2022 and expectations for 2023. DOJ Antitrust Division Chief Jonathan Kanter and FTC Chair Lina Khan made no secret of their intentions to “target” the tech industry, “and have actually carried this out through litigation,” she said.

The Communications Decency Act’s Section 230 is “no shield” for the design, marketing and operations of social media platforms “that are harmful to youth,” alleged Kent School District No. 415 in suburban Seattle in a complaint Monday (docket 2:23-cv-00045) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington. It names ByteDance, Google, Meta, Snap and their various subsidiaries, including Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, as defendants.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit denied Amazon’s mandamus petition to vacate the orders of U.S. District Judge Alan Albright for the Western District of Texas in Waco and transfer VoIP-Pal’s infringement lawsuit against Amazon to the Northern District of California (see 2211210049).

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley for Northern California in San Francisco scheduled a further case management conference Feb. 23 on the surviving portions of the June 10 second amended complaint brought against Qualcomm by four California consumers. The original litigation dates back six years to when the FTC and a group of consumers brought similar, parallel actions alleging Qualcomm uses its position at the confluence between chip manufacturing and patent licensing to stifle competition.