Paul Gluckman

Match Group has “stonewalled every effort” by plaintiff Marcus Baker (“Plaintiff”) for more than a year and a half to pursue his biometric privacy claims in arbitration before JAMS (formerly Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services) under terms imposed on him by the dating website, said Baker’s opposition Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-06924) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Baker opposes Match Group's Jan. 13 motion to dismiss his complaint on grounds that he breached his agreement to bring his claims exclusively in small claims court (see 2301170014).

Lawyers for the 27 named plaintiffs in the fraud class action alleging Verizon pads the monthly bills of its postpaid wireless customers with a secretive administrative charge (docket 3:21-cv-8592) have served two sets of discovery requests on Verizon since late September, lead plaintiff counsel Stephen DeNittis of DeNittis Osefchen told a virtual status conference Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen imposed a partial stay in the proceedings in the fall, pending the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court review of Chen’s July 1 order denying Verizon’s motion to compel the dispute to arbitration. Chen’s partial stay enables the plaintiffs to ask Verizon to produce documents it has on the 27 customers while the 9th Circuit appeal progresses. The parties have been able to work out an agreement on the first set of discovery requests, and “rolling production” of the documents involved is scheduled to begin Friday, said DeNittis. He’s “cautiously optimistic” the parties will come to terms on the second set of discovery requests, he said. Chen scheduled the next status conference May 23 at 2:30 p.m. PDT. Verizon filed its opening brief (docket 22-16020) in the 9th Circuit appeal on Nov. 21, arguing that Chen's denial of the motion to compel arbitration was "deeply flawed." The plaintiffs' answering brief is due March 17. With the 9th Circuit's briefing schedule "in place, I guess we'll wait to see how that rolls out," Chen told the conference.

TransUnion denies it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by failing to delete inaccurate information from plaintiff Israel Mertz’s credit file after receiving notice of the inaccuracies in his Verizon account (see 2212300022), said its answer Monday (docket 7:22-cv-10938) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in White Plains.

Publisher Macmillan “lost control” over the “litany” of highly sensitive personal identifiable information (PII) it stores for “thousands” of its current and former employees when cybercriminals “infiltrated its insufficiently protected computer systems in a data breach,” alleged plaintiff Victoria Batchelor of Tulsa in a fraud and negligence class action Monday (docket 1:23-cv-01217) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York.

The U.S. District Court for Southern New York should deny Jiakeshu Technology’s “misguided” motion to remand its petition to vacate an arbitration award to the same New York Superior Court from which Amazon removed it Nov. 29, said Amazon’s opposition Friday (docket 1:22-cv-10119).

Midwest Cabinet Suppliers’ response to Verizon’s motion to dismiss Midwest’s first amended antitrust complaint “tellingly fails to respond to the merits of the motion and makes no effort to demonstrate the viability of the claims asserted” in the amended complaint, said Verizon’s reply Friday (docket 3:22-cv-00493) in U.S. District Court for Western Kentucky in Louisville.

John Spiller, one of the defendants in the lawsuit brought by the attorneys general in eight states to thwart illegal robocalls, agreed to a $122.34 million monetary judgment, suspended for his inability to pay, to resolve the allegations against him "without admitting liability,” said a stipulated order Friday (docket 4:20-cv-02021) in U.S. District Court for Southern Texas in Houston.

The district court’s erroneous finding that Yout’s software platform was a circumvention tool under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (see 2302030005) “threatens the collaborative environment on which technological progress depends,” said Microsoft-affiliated GitHub in a 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals amicus brief Thursday (docket 22-2760).

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman for Eastern Illinois in Chicago granted defendant Inteliquent’s motion for judgment on the pleadings in the fake ring tones case against T-Mobile, said her signed memorandum opinion and order Thursday (docket 1:19-cv-07190). After two rounds of motions to dismiss, Coleman’s order absolves Inteliquent of the one remaining civil conspiracy count against it.

Plaintiffs Sheila and Dennis Thompson “lack standing” to pursue Count II of their Dec. 4 class action alleging Vintage Stock violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (see 2301120009), said the home entertainment retailer in a memorandum Wednesday (docket 4:23-cv-00042) in support of its motion to dismiss Count II in U.S. District Court for Eastern Missouri in St. Louis. The Thompsons lack Count II standing because they didn't allege any harm due to purported violations of the TCPA’s “technical requirements,” it said.