Judith Woodham sustained a personal injury through a BellSouth contractor’s negligence after the unknown contractor dug holes in the ground on Woodham’s property to bury telecommunications cables, but left some of the holes unfilled when it was finished with the project, alleged her April 2 complaint in 1st Judicial District Court in Caddo Parish, Louisiana, removed Thursday (docket 5:24-cv-00606) to U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Shreveport. Over time, grass grew over the unfilled holes, disguising them, and Woodham alleges she unknowingly stepped into one of the holes Oct. 23, fracturing her left lower leg, said the complaint. The injury required surgery and 10 days in a rehabilitation facility, said the complaint. The Caddo Parish resident also continues getting physical therapy for her injury, it said. She seeks to recover damages for past and future medical expenses, past and future mental and physical pain and suffering, permanent disability, loss of household services and loss of enjoyment of life, said her complaint. BellSouth “disputes liability” and the damages that Woodham alleges, said its notice of removal.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a limited remand to the district court “to determine whether diversity jurisdiction exists” in Prewitt Management’s appeal against Charter Communications, said the court’s opinion Wednesday (docket 23-50419). Prewitt’s appeal is asking the 5th Circuit to reverse the district court’s declaratory judgment absolving Charter of any further royalty obligations under a 1964 revenue-sharing cable-permit agreement signed by Charter and Prewitt predecessor companies (see 2309060033). If the U.S. District Court for Western Texas concludes that it has diversity jurisdiction over the appeal, its clerk “shall promptly supplement the appellate record with copies of the new filings below and the district court’s opinion on jurisdiction and forward the supplemental record to this court,” said the 5th Circuit’s order. Upon return to this court, “no further briefing will be necessary unless a party elects to appeal the district court’s finding of jurisdiction,” it said. In that case, supplemental letter briefs may be filed addressing this issue on a short briefing schedule to be established” by the 5th Circuit’s clerk, it said: “The case will be returned to this panel for disposition. If the district court concludes that it lacks jurisdiction, then it must vacate its judgment and dismiss the case.”

After the filing of four complaints, plus a fully briefed and then withdrawn preliminary injunction motion and hundreds of pages of briefing over the past 12 months, Comcast’s suit against MaxLinear “should end,” said MaxLinear’s reply memorandum of law Wednesday (docket 1:23-cv-04436) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in further support of its motion to dismiss Comcast’s third amended complaint. The dispute began about a year ago when Comcast alleged that chipmaker MaxLinear breached its “contractual obligations” to support millions of its broadband gateways (see 2305300045). MaxLinear contends that Comcast’s third amended complaint, like those before it, is a grievance “in search of a claim” (see 2404040031). The cable company has been given ample opportunity and process to identify and pursue a valid cause of action, said MaxLinear’s memorandum Wednesday. While the plaintiff maintains that MaxLinear terminated its contracts improperly in May 2023, it still hasn’t pled a “valid claim,” the memorandum said: “In fact, now four complaints in, Comcast does not even assert a claim for breach of those contracts.” The “attenuated” claims Comcast has asserted don’t clear “longstanding pleading standards and should be dismissed,” it said. Comcast’s April 24 opposition briefing (see 2404250002) “confirms that its pled claims fail,” it said. The plaintiff hasn’t suffered any harm from MaxLinear, “nor does Comcast identify any threatened or likely future harm,” it said. There’s thus “no jurisdiction” for the court to hear its declaratory judgment claims, and the court shouldn’t “indulge Comcast with an advisory opinion,” it said. Even worse, Comcast’s requested declarations “seek specific performance, for which it has not pled the necessary elements,” said the memorandum. Comcast’s ancillary claims for indemnification and breach of the implied covenant “are likewise insufficiently pled and equally meritless,” it said. After multiple hearings and pleadings, it’s now “abundantly clear” that Comcast “is decidedly outraged by MaxLinear’s lawful assignment of patents to Entropic, which has sued Comcast in another lawsuit,” it said. But as the court recognized when it ordered Comcast to replead its prior second amended complaint, intensity of feeling is not a replacement for a good statement of a cause of action, it said. The third amended complaint doesn’t include “a good statement of a cause of action, let alone one that survives dismissal,” said the memorandum: “Comcast’s year-long litigation campaign against MaxLinear should now conclude swiftly, and its claims dismissed.”

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle for Eastern Texas in Tyler denied the State Department’s motion to dismiss the complaint of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the right-leaning Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets and allegations that the department is marketing and promoting censorship tools and technologies to social media platforms to stifle the content of disfavored press organizations (see 2312060043), said the judge’s signed memorandum opinion and order Tuesday (docket 6:23-cv-00609). The judge also denied the department’s motion to transfer the case to the District of Columbia on grounds that venue is improper in the Eastern District of Texas, said his order. The judge did grant the department’s motion to dismiss Count 4 of the complaint because the plaintiffs haven’t identified a final agency action for the court to review under the Administrative Procedure Act, it said. On the other counts, the judge found that the complaint sufficiently alleges that the plaintiffs have standing to challenge the defendants’ actions, it said.

Procedural motions, if any, are due June 6 in the TikTok/ByteDance petition for review challenging the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act and its impending U.S. TikTok ban (see 2405070045), said a clerk’s order Tuesday (docket 24-1113) in U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. Circuit. Dispositive motions, if any, are due June 21, said the order. TikTok and ByteDance are challenging the ban on four constitutional grounds. The statute requires ByteDance to sell TikTok by mid-January for the platform to continue operating in the U.S., but the petition contends that such a divestiture is commercially, technologically and legally impossible.

Four school district tagalong class actions were transferred to In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation Tuesday in conditional transfer order 31 (CTO-31), said a clerk’s notice (docket 3047) for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Twenty actions were transferred to U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland in October 2022 for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings and assigned to U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Since then, 141 additional actions involving questions of fact that are common to the actions previously transferred have been transferred to the court, said the order. Two of the four cases in CTO-31 vs. Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snap and TikTok are from U.S. District Court for Middle Florida, one is from Maryland federal court and one from U.S. District Court for Eastern North Carolina. The lawsuits allege social media platforms are responsible for a rise in mental health disorders among U.S. youth.

TracFone and Verizon moved separately Friday to dismiss the complaint of Team Marketing and its allegations over false claims that the Lifeline distributor paid field agents on commission, a practice barred by the FCC Lifeline program (see 2402160016), said the TracFone and Verizon motions (docket 1:24-cv-20600) in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami. The complaint alleges that Team Marketing entered into an agreement with TracFone in May 2022 under which Team Marketing would establish retail locations in designated territories to sign up customers for TracFone telecommunications services, supported by Lifeline for eligible customers. It alleges that TracFone and Verizon breached the agreement by terminating it in such a way that didn’t comply with its termination provisions. “But even a cursory review” of the agreement reveals that Verizon isn’t a party to it, said Verizon’s motion to dismiss. Team Marketing’s sole claim against Verizon for breach of contract “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” it said. Verizon isn’t a party to the contract that the plaintiff “conclusorily alleges” Verizon breached, and that “lack of privity” dooms the complaint, it said. TracFone also is seeking dismissal for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, said its motion. The plaintiff asserts one claim against TracFone, that it breached its contract by terminating their agreement without providing the plaintiff with adequate notice and an opportunity to cure, it said. But even taking the plaintiff’s factual allegations as true, TracFone “fully complied with the contractual provision permitting TracFone to terminate immediately, without prior notice or an opportunity to cure,” for the plaintiff’s “failure to adhere to federal law in connection with its performance under the agreement,” it said. Even if notice and a cure opportunity had been required under a separate provision of the agreement, the complaint makes clear that TracFone also satisfied those requirements, it said. The complaint “therefore should be dismissed,” it said.

Marcia Haller’s claims against T-Mobile under Title III of the Americans With Disabilities Act don’t "apply" because the plaintiff has failed to identify a "place of public accommodation" owned or operated by T-Mobile, said T-Mobile’s answer Friday in U.S. District Court for Minnesota in Duluth. In her March 11 complaint (docket 0:24-cv-00877), Haller alleges that American Tower, AT&T and T-Mobile “could easily and with minimal cost” take action to modify their facilities to end her “debilitating symptoms” while allowing her to still use their telecommunications services (see 2403120046). The plaintiff contends she could suffer “life-threatening embolic strokes” due to exposure to certain levels of RF radiation or to RF energy that’s manipulated using certain types of pulsation or modulation. Her complaint asserts she has been diagnosed with autoimmune cerebral arteritis, for which she receives immunosuppressive agents, and that her condition meets the definition of a disability under the ADA. American Tower and AT&T have yet to answer Haller’s complaint.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation vacated conditional transfer order 30 (CTO-30), said a Tuesday filing (docket 3047) in In Re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation before the JPML. On Friday, in Nasca et al v. ByteDance, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis for Eastern New York in Brooklyn granted plaintiffs Dean and Michelle Nasca’s motion to remand their product liability and negligence lawsuit against TikTok, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, MTA Long Island Railroad and Islip, Long Island, to Suffolk County Supreme Court for lack of jurisdiction. The Nascas sued TikTok in U.S. District Court for Northern California in March 2023 following the death of their 16-year-old son, Chase, who died by suicide the previous year after the platform allegedly directed him to adult accounts with "thousands" of “highly depressive, violent, self-harm and suicide themed content." TikTok included the Nascas' case in a notice of potential tagalong actions to Social Media Adolescent Addiction, and the JPML conditionally transferred it to the MDL in CTO-30.

U.S. District Judge Cecilia Altonaga for Southern Florida in Miami scheduled a virtual mediation conference for Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. in former President Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit against ABC News and Sunday host George Stephanopoulos, said Altonaga’s signed order Tuesday (docket 1:24-cv-21050). The parties’ hand-picked mediator is Alan Fine, a retired judge from Florida’s 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County, said the order. Trump sued March 18 over comments Stephanopoulos made during a broadcast about a jury verdict on sexual assault allegations brought against Trump by journalist E. Jean Carroll (see 2403190059). During a March 10 interview with Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., on his Sunday ABC television show, Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that multiple juries found Trump liable for raping Carroll, said Trump’s complaint. In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll but not liable for raping her. Trump has appealed that verdict. Altonaga previously set an April 2025 jury trial on Trump’s defamation allegations (see 2404100004).