Counsel for Shalace Williams disputes T-Mobile’s contention that her claims against T-Mobile for Sprint’s negligence while it was still an independent company are time-barred (see 2406250027), the attorney wrote U.S. District Judge Rachel Kovner for Eastern New York in Brooklyn in a letter response Wednesday (docket 1:24-cv-02732). Williams, administratrix of Darryl Williams' estate, seeks compensatory and punitive damages against T-Mobile for Sprint’s negligent failure to comply with a criminal investigation that led to Daryl Williams spending seven years in prison for a February 2013 robbery he didn’t commit (see 2404120049). The statute of limitations for negligence and negligent misrepresentation is three years, and T-Mobile contends that the plaintiff’s causes of action “accrued when the alleged negligent act resulted in injury,” which was June 12, 2014, "at the latest," the date when Daryl Williams was sentenced. As such, contends T-Mobile, the plaintiff’s claims were time-barred on June 12, 2017 -- nearly seven years before she filed her complaint against T-Mobile. But the defendant's setting of the June 2014 accrual date is “incorrect,” Williams’ attorney, Joshua Fitch of Cohen & Fitch, told the judge. The New York Court of Appeals “has made it clear” that a tort claim can’t accrue until the claim becomes enforceable, such as when all elements of the tort can be truthfully alleged in a complaint, said Fitch. Accordingly, the plaintiff’s negligence claim wasn’t enforceable, and thus couldn’t have accrued, until Nov. 17, 2022, when Daryl Williams' conviction was vacated, and he was released from prison, based on the production of the very same records that Sprint had misrepresented 10 years earlier, he said. As such, Williams’ filing less than two years later is timely, he said.

Shalace Williams’ claims against T-Mobile for Sprint’s negligence while it was still an independent company are time-barred, one of multiple bases for T-Mobile’s forthcoming motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b), T-Mobile’s counsel wrote U.S. District Judge Rachel Kovner for Eastern New York in Brooklyn Monday (docket 1:24-cv-02732). Williams, administratrix of the late Darryl Williams' estate, seeks compensatory and punitive damages against T-Mobile for Sprint’s negligent failure to comply with a criminal investigation that led to Daryl Williams spending seven years in prison for a February 2013 robbery he didn’t commit (see 2404120049). When the dates in a complaint show that an action is barred by a statute of limitations, it’s “appropriate for a defendant to move to dismiss,” said T-Mobile’s letter to Kovner. The statute of limitations for negligence and negligent misrepresentation is three years, it said. Williams’ causes of action “accrued when the alleged negligent act resulted in injury,” which was June 12, 2014, "at the latest," it said. That’s the date when Daryl Williams was sentenced, it said. As such, the plaintiff’s claims were time-barred on June 12, 2017 -- nearly seven years before she filed her complaint against T-Mobile, it said.

MGM Resorts International’s complaint against the FTC for pre-enforcement declaratory relief fails “for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and for failure to state a claim for relief,” said the commission’s memorandum Monday (docket 1:24-cv-01066) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in support of its motion to dismiss. The FTC’s April 1 order denying MGM's petition to quash a civil investigative demand (CID) “unlawfully deprives MGM of its rights under the Fifth Amendment,” alleges MGM’s April 15 complaint (see 2404160035).The CID requested information as part of a nonpublic investigation involving MGM's September data breach. The suit also seeks to disqualify FTC Chair Lina Khan's participation in the investigation. But the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over MGM’s claims because Congress set forth in the FTC Act “a comprehensive and exclusive scheme for judicial review of agency actions,” said the commission’s memorandum. Under that scheme, MGM may raise its claims in a court of appeals only following a final commission cease and desist order, or in the commission’s enforcement petition currently before the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, it said. MGM also fails “to invoke a cognizable cause of action or state a plausible claim for relief,” said the memorandum. The Declaratory Judgment Act doesn’t supply an independent cause of action, and the Administrative Procedure Act provides a cause to challenge only final agency actions, it said. “MGM challenges no such actions,” it said. “Nor does the Constitution provide a cause of action here,” it said. “Where Congress has provided adequate statutory means for a person’s claims and remedies concerning agency action, a duplicate constitutional cause of action that evades statutory limits and requirements may not be judicially implied,” it said. MGM’s complaint also fails to allege a plausible claim for relief, said the memorandum. Its claim that the FTC Chair Khan should be disqualified from this matter “ignores applicable legal standards and is grounded in an impermissibly tenuous allegation of potential bias,” it said. Khan happened to stay at an MGM hotel shortly after MGM’s most recent data breach “and needed to provide her credit card information on paper,” it said. But that “threadbare” allegation doesn’t support “a plausible claim for bias that would warrant disqualification,” it said. MGM similarly fails to state a claim with its attacks on the deadline and scope of the CID, said the memorandum. The claim of an unfairly short deadline ignores the CID’s original 30-day return date and the additional 47 days MGM gained while its petition to quash was pending before the commission, it said. It also fails to allege the FTC’s refusal to grant an extension, it said. In fact, when commission staff contacted MGM to discuss compliance issues such as timing, “MGM refused to engage in any such discussions,” it said. Likewise, MGM’s claim that the FTC has grounded the CID in “facially inapplicable” regulations “overlooks settled and binding authorities” holding that the commission “is entitled to investigate whether its regulations apply to particular entities or practices,” it said.

Karl Perman, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent, seeks a court order directing Apple to provide him access to the account of his deceased wife, Niko Honaibakhsh, said his petition Thursday (docket 3:24-mc-80154) in U.S. District Court for Northern California. Honaibakhsh, 44, was killed in February in Tulum, Mexico, when she was caught in the crossfire of a Mexican cartel shootout. Several Apple representatives have told Perman that he would be permitted to reset the password and security question to his wife’s two iPhones and her iPad only if he gets a court order specifying that he's the administrator or legal personal representative of his wife's estate, said the petition. “Since her passing, I have been working to pull together her materials into one place so that I can preserve them and remember her,” said the petition.

Allied Telecom Group seeks to block the “cozy relationship” between the District of Columbia Public Schools and the district’s chief technology officer under which the school system buys federally subsidized broadband services from the CTO and then takes federal E-rate subsidies from the Universal Service Administrative Co., said Allied’s memorandum Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-00653) in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in support of its motion for summary judgment. The district is “abusing” the E-rate subsidies, “and effectively preventing a commercial company like Allied from providing them,” said the memorandum. The defendant’s conduct relies on district law but violates federal law and therefore should be enjoined, it said. The school system and CTO entered into a March 2015 memorandum of understanding for the provision of broadband services after what the school system advertised as a "competitive procurement" in which Alllied participated, said the memorandum. The plaintiff’s proposal for the 2015 award was approximately 2% lower than CTO’s proposal, but the schools nevertheless awarded the E-rate contract to the CTO, "its sister agency," it said.

Verizon made a “profit-driven decision” to expose thousands of utility workers to a “lethal toxin” due to its refusal to clean up its “obsolete lead cable network,” said plaintiffs Greg Bostard and Tony Rockhill in their opposition Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08564) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey to Verizon’s April 18 motion to dismiss their second amended complaint (see 2404190011). Bostard’s original Aug. 23 class action alleged that his “direct and regular exposure” to Verizon’s toxic lead cables during his long career as a Comcast utility worker caused him “a present injury” that increases the risk he will develop more “catastrophic health effects” (see 2308240005). He amended his complaint Jan. 12 to assert that he’s not seeking personal injury damages, only relief for the “present economic injury” he suffers by having to pay for his own lead-poisoning tests (see 2401160001). Bostard’s second amended complaint was filed March 18, “solely for the purpose” of adding 16-year Altice veteran Rockhill as an additional plaintiff (see 2403190036). Unless their suit is successful, Verizon’s lead cables “will continue to put thousands of utility workers’ health at risk,” said the Bostard-Rockhill opposition. Utility workers “face a choice between paying out of pocket for medical testing to understand the extent to which they have been poisoned or taking a risk on their health,” it said: “Not only that, but unless this suit is successful, utility workers face a choice between continuing to be poisoned or quitting their jobs.” New Jersey law doesn’t force the “victims of corporate misconduct” into that choice, said the opposition. New Jersey instead holds polluters accountable when their pollution forces people to seek medical monitoring by allowing post-injury, pre-symptom recovery in toxic tort litigation for reasonable medical surveillance costs, it said. Both New Jersey and federal law require polluters “to abate dangerous environmental conditions they create,” it said. To avoid paying for the dangers it created, Verizon asks this court “to rewrite New Jersey and federal law to disallow medical monitoring and abatement suits,” it said. Verizon argues for an array of rules -- “some untested, some discredited, but none meritorious” -- that would preclude “virtually all medical monitoring class action cases,” it said. But neither the 3rd Circuit nor the New Jersey Supreme Court “has ever adopted Verizon’s extreme positions,” it said. This court “should not do so here,” it said.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit scheduled oral argument for Sept. 16 at 9:30 a.m. on the two consolidated petitions for review challenging the constitutionality of the federal TikTok ban, said a clerk’s order Monday (dockets 24-1113 and 24-1130). TikTok and ByteDance challenge the ban on four constitutional grounds (see 2405070045). Their petition seeks a declaratory judgment that the ban violates the Constitution. It also seeks an order enjoining U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from enforcing it.

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle for Eastern Texas in Tyler denied without prejudice the motion of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets for a preliminary injunction to block the State Department from promoting or using censorship technology that targets Americans’ speech or the right-leading U.S. press (see 2402080044), said Kernodle’s signed order Thursday (docket 6:23-cv-00609). Kernodle previously granted the plaintiffs’ motion for expedited preliminary-injunction discovery and granted the parties leave to supplement their existing briefing on the preliminary-injunction motion following that discovery, said the order. The judge will allow the plaintiffs to refile an amended motion for a preliminary injunction after the close of the expedited discovery, it said. Jan. 17 will be the deadline for the plaintiffs to file that amended motion, said the judge’s scheduling order Thursday.

Despite X’s “announced commitment” to defending and respecting the user’s voice as one of its core values, it has “repeatedly engaged in behavior contrary to this core value,” to plaintiff Jeremy Ryan's detriment, alleged Ryan's complaint Wednesday (docket 3:24-cv-03553) in U.S. District Court for Northern California. The California resident alleges X suspended his user accounts for no reason and for no apparent violation of the platform’s content moderation terms and rules. Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October 2022 and renamed it X, he and the company have “engaged in repeated behavior that illustrated conflicting approaches to content moderation and a general lack of a cohesive policy on content moderation,” said the complaint. In a further illustration of X’s “laissez-faire stance” on content moderation, the company announced June 3 that the platform “would officially allow pornographic content,” but block adult and violent posts from being viewable by users under 18 or those who don’t opt in to see them, said the complaint. But while X announced that policy update on June 3, as of June 10, its terms “continue to include pornography as a category for which a user account may be reported and subsequently suspended,” it said. X has repeatedly demonstrated that although its terms contain an official policy for the suspension and appeal of accounts, “corporate policy and practice often contradicts that and there is yet to be a cohesive and consistent content moderation policy,” said the complaint. X’s “haphazard and arbitrarily enforced policies and practices” have led to the harm against the plaintiff, it said. Ryan channeled his newfound interest and skill in art into a “passion” for creating non-fungible tokens, it said. Though Ryan became the largest NFT artist on the Binance Smart Chain in terms of minted NFTs, X inexplicably suspended his seven accounts without “proper explanation or justifiable reason given,” said the complaint. The plaintiff’s suspension from the X platform “has severely damaged his cryptocurrency and NFT business, including his upcoming NFT projects,” it said. As more time passes without access to his accounts and ability to promote his upcoming NFT projects or generate momentum, “he continues to lose any prospective financial advantage or profits he had earned and was projected to earn while active on the X platform,” it said. Ryan didn’t violate X’s terms, policies or rules, said his complaint. Due to X’s “inconsistent and arbitrary” content moderation policies, "haphazard" suspension of legitimate accounts that have engaged in no abusive or spam-like behavior, and refusal to provide any clarity, Ryan “has lost his predominant source of income and livelihood,” it said. His eight-count complaint seeks compensatory damages, plus a grant of injunctive relief to restore his access to his X user accounts and prevent X from suspending them again in the future.

The League of Women Voters amended its April 26 motion for a preliminary injunction (see 2404290016) to enjoin an additional defendant, Voice Broadcasting, from producing or distributing AI-generated robocalls impersonating any person, without that person’s express, prior written consent, said its amended motion Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00073) in U.S. District Court for New Hampshire in Concord. The league alleges that Voice Broadcasting conspired with three other defendants -- political consultant Steve Kramer, broadband provider Lingo Telecom and robocall broadcaster Life Corp. -- to send “thousands of robocalls” two days before the Jan. 23 New Hampshire primary to people they thought were likely Democratic voters, featuring deepfake simulations of President Joe Biden's voice (see 2403150034). The league alleges the robocalls “coercively” and incorrectly stated that by participating in the New Hampshire primary, Democratic voters would lose their vote in the November general election. Voice Broadcasting purchases communications services from its affiliate Life Corp. to enable calling capabilities on the Voice Broadcasting platform, said the league’s amended motion. The FCC previously cited Life Corp. for failing to comply with federal laws and regulations governing the dissemination of robocalls, “including delivering unsolicited calls to residential phone lines, and failing to disclose required information in its prerecorded messages and telephone solicitations,” it said.