AT&T tried unsuccessfully multiple times to serve Voxon with a copy of the Dec. 12 order of U.S. District Judge Joshua Wolson for Eastern Pennsylvania, demanding that Voxon respond by Dec. 23 to AT&T’s motion to compel production of documents under a Sept. 19 nonparty subpoena, said a notice Friday (docket 2:22-mc-00067). “It appears Voxon’s registered agent, Oldenn Sylvert, may be attempting to evade service,” said the AT&T notice. AT&T says the Voxon documents are “directly relevant” to its defense of a Core Communications lawsuit that alleges AT&T owes Core at least $11.4 million in unpaid access services charges (see 2211230053).

The FCC's 2-2 deadlock, Commissioner Brendan Carr's dance moves and the agency's expiring spectrum auction authorization caught darts from FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel in her address Thursday night at the FCBA annual dinner. A crowd of close to 1,500 attended the event at the Marriott Marquis in Washington -- the first such in-person "telecom prom" since 2019. Being the first woman to deliver the chair's traditional monologue, Rosenworcel quipped she "will receive only 83% as much laughter." She made multiple jokes about the 2-2 commission, likening it to a World Cup score and, pointing to next congressional session's Senate, said "getting a one-vote majority sounds pretty good to me." With the FCC's spectrum auction authorization expiring, she said she would have some 4.9 GHz band spectrum available directly after her speech. Showing a video clip of Carr doing "the floss" dance move, Rosenworcel joked there are "ulterior reasons Brendan doesn't want people looking at TikTok." She also took jabs at such targets as Amazon, the AT&T/Time Warner combination, local news broadcasts and Communications Daily's new sister publication, Communication Litigation Today.

T-Mobile needs a 14-day extension to Jan. 3 to answer the sex discrimination complaint of former sales executive Heidi Cramer, said its unopposed motion Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-03800) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Ohio in Columbus. T-Mobile requires additional time to investigate Cramer’s claims amid the upcoming holidays and scheduling conflicts, it said. The extension request is T-Mobile’s second. Cramer alleges she took the fall for the wrongdoing of two male colleagues who participated in a “zero dollars plan” scheme to inflate T-Mobile sales numbers to small- and medium-sized businesses (see 2210260038). The scheme enabled T-Mobile to “cast itself in a favorable light” with investors, she alleges, until the plan went awry in the second and third quarters of 2021.

The Supreme Court agreed to review a case, Coinbase v. Bielski (docket 22-105), that could provide a "major boost" to defendants seeking to enforce arbitration agreements in the circuit courts, including in the 2nd and 9th, “where they currently operate under a disadvantageous rule,” said a Morrison & Foerster analysis Tuesday. The circuits have "long disagreed" on the question of what happens to an underlying district court case when defendants exercise their right to appeal denials of motions to compel arbitration, it said. A SCOTUS decision in Coinbase could bring uniformity to the issue of whether a district court case can proceed normally or if it gets automatically stayed until the appellate court decides whether the dispute belongs in court at all, it said. One 9th Circuit case that bears watching is Verizon’s appeal of a district court’s denial of its motion to compel arbitration (see 2212050035). The plaintiff-appellees don’t deny that arbitration terms existed in their customer agreements when they signed up for Verizon service, but the district court agreed with them that the arbitration provisions were unconscionable and unenforceable.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Deavers said initial disclosures should be made by Friday, in a preliminary pretrial order (docket 2:22-cv-03800) filed Wednesday in a sex discrimination lawsuit brought in the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio in Columbus in October by former T-Mobile Director-Sales Heidi Cramer against two former colleagues. Cramer claims she was terminated when a plan to artificially inflate sales to small- and medium-size businesses went awry, said the Oct. 25 complaint (see 2211160034). Motions to amend the pleadings or join additional parties to the suit must be filed by Dec. 30, said the order, with all discovery to be completed by Sept. 29. Proposed protective orders or clawback agreements must be filed by Jan. 20, it said.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for South Florida in Miami issued a paperless order Wednesday (docket 9:22-cv-81838) striking Tuesday’s joint notice of settlement between plaintiff Nelson Fernandez and Zale Delaware of Fernandez’s Nov. 23 complaint alleging the jewelry store chain’s website is inaccessible to the blind and visually impaired, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Zale’s defense counsel, George Stevens of Vorys Sater in Ohio, isn't authorized to practice in Florida, thereby nullifying the joint notice. Cannon ordered the parties to file a renewed notice of settlement by Tuesday bearing the signatures of both counsel authorized to appear before the court. Alternatively, plaintiff Fernandez can file a voluntary notice of dismissal, said the judge.

With the lead plaintiffs and counsel now chosen in the class action alleging violations of the Securities Act stemming from Discovery’s acquisition of WarnerMedia (see 2212140024), the parties agreed in a joint stipulation Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-08171) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York to propose Feb. 10 as the deadline for plaintiffs to file their consolidated amended complaint. Defendants Warner Bros. Discovery and its CEO and chief financial officer would have until March 24 to answer the complaint, said the stipulation. The class action alleges senior Discovery executives withheld negative information about WarnerMedia in the run-up to the April 8 closing of the transaction that caused Warner Bros. Discovery shares to plummet 52.4% on the first day of trading “as the market became aware of the foregoing misrepresented and omitted facts.”

Senior U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly for Delaware gave Nimitz Technologies a week to Dec. 21 to show cause why it shouldn't be sanctioned for ignoring his Nov. 10 order to produce bank statements and other documents and communications that would enable the judge to determine the source of any third-party funding of Nimitz’s patent infringement lawsuits against Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Cnet and Imagine Learning, said his memorandum order Wednesday (docket 1:21-cv-01247). The U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit denied Nimitz’s mandamus petition to block a lower court’s demand for its financial records, saying in a Dec. 8 order it hasn't shown a clear and indisputable right to such relief (see 2212090027). In so doing, the Federal Circuit also lifted the stay on Connolly’s order to produce the documents. In the days that have passed since the Federal Circuit’s denial of the mandamus petition, Nimitz has yet to produce any of the materials the judge demanded, nor has it asked for more time, he said. Had Nimitz made a deadline extension request, Connolly would have granted it, he said. If Nimitz shows cause for its failure to comply with the order, he would “still be inclined to grant such a request,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff for Southern New York set a May 16 trial date in Verizon’s legal fight with its debt collection agency, CBE Customer Solutions, over the culpability for $6.1 million in damages and court costs associated with a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action settlement (see 2212120041), said a case management plan filed Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-08703). Rakoff wants discovery completed by May 15, said the plan. Verizon says an April 2014 master services agreement stipulates that CBE should indemnify Verizon for fees and costs the carrier incurs "in defending any claims arising out of CBE's services." CBE countersued for unjust enrichment and breach of the implied covenant of good faith, alleging any negligence that mushroomed into a TCPA class action and settlement was of Verizon’s doing, not CBE’s.

Lawyers for plaintiff Ramon Fontanez filed notice Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-05712) in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York that his inaccessible website class action against Conde Nast Entertainment was voluntarily dismissed with prejudice. Fontanez, who is legally blind, sued Conde Nast July 5 under the Americans With Disabilities Act, alleging the publisher’s ArchitecturalDigest.com website contained multiple barriers that prevented his screen-reading software from working properly.