U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes for Middle Tennessee in Nashville rescheduled an initial case management telephone conference to Feb. 2 from Dec. 12 in a breach of implied warranty class action against Nissan North America over obsolete vehicle telematics systems, said her order Monday (docket 3:22-cv-00933). Nissan has until Jan. 23 to answer the complaint, and it would be “premature” to hold an initial case management conference before that deadline, said Holmes. Plaintiff George Schwarz, owner of a 2016 Nissan Maxima Platinum, sued the automaker Nov. 16, alleging on behalf of the proposed class that NissanConnect, Infiniti InTouch and Infiniti Connection roadside services were rendered inoperable after AT&T’s 3G phaseout in 2022 due to Nissan’s installation of obsolete telematics equipment in multiple lines of vehicles dating to the 2013 model year.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff for Southern New York scheduled a telephone status conference for Dec. 16 at 11:15 a.m. EST in Verizon’s court battle with its debt collection agency, CBE Customer Solutions, said an order he signed Friday (docket 1:22-cv-08703). Verizon sued CBE to recover $6.1 million in damages and court costs associated with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act class-action settlement under an April 2014 master services agreement requiring that CBE indemnify Verizon for fees and costs that the carrier incurs “in defending any claims arising out of CBE’s services” (see 2210140026). Verizon said its TCPA problems began after a CBE employee “negligently failed” to remove consumer Robin Breda from one of Verizon’s call lists. Breda began getting inundated with debt-collection calls from Verizon’s automated “voice response” system even though she was not a Verizon customer. CBE is countersuing the carrier, alleging any negligence that mushroomed into a TCPA class-action settlement was of Verizon’s doing (see 2211210034). Rakoff’s order requires that Verizon and CBE confer on a joint status report for submission at least a week before the conference summarizing their agreements or disagreements “regarding planning of discovery.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Lawyers for Civil Justice oppose the mandamus petition of Nimitz Technologies to vacate an order from Chief U.S. District Judge Colm Connolly for Delaware demanding that Nimitz produce a volume of documents showing how it’s financing its four patent infringement lawsuits against defendants Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Cnet and Imagine Learning, said the Chamber and lawyers group in a Dec. 2 amicus brief (docket 23-103) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. Nimitz said Connolly’s order is an intrusive demand for documents containing information that shouldn’t be exposed to the public eye, including bank statements and materials protected by attorney-client privilege. The defendants say Nimitz has itself to blame for arousing Connolly’s suspicions by not fully complying with his standing order for such information (see 2212010035). The disclosure of third-party litigation funding (TPLF) “helps shed light on who is driving the litigation and whether litigation is potentially being employed for an improper purpose,” said the amici groups. “Identifying those with a contingent financial interest in a litigation helps the court reduce potential conflicts of interest given that some funders are publicly traded and those that are not may be comprised of elaborate networks of owners and personnel.” Lacking TPLF disclosures, a district judge “could unwittingly sit in judgment of a case in which he or she has a financial or personal interest, creating a conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety,” said the groups. Disclosing TPLF also is “relevant to settlement,” the cost and difficulty of which “necessarily increase with litigation funding in light of the need for a claimant to pay off both its lawyer and the funder,” they said. “Disclosure of the mere fact of TPLF enables the court and defendants to more accurately evaluate settlement prospects and to better calibrate resolution initiatives.”

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted the unopposed motion of 27 plaintiff-appellees for a 65-day extension to Feb. 24 to file their answering brief in Verizon’s appeal of a district court’s denial of its motion to compel arbitration (see 2212020005), said a clerk’s order Friday (docket 22-16020). The deadline extension is justified by the number of “cutting-edge issues raised in the appeal,” said the successful motion. The plaintiff-appellees don’t deny that arbitration terms existed in their customer agreements when they signed up for Verizon service, but U.S. District Judge Edward Chen for Northern California in San Francisco agreed with them in a July 1 order that the arbitration provisions were unconscionable and unenforceable.

U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley for Eastern California in Sacramento signed an order Friday (docket 2:22-cv-01904) extending Google’s deadline by 45 days to Jan. 23 to answer the Republican National Committee’s Oct. 21 complaint alleging Google is unlawfully discriminating against the RNC by “throttling its email messages” because of the GOP’s political affiliation and views (Ref:2210260080). The RNC and Google agreed to the extended deadline in a joint stipulation that accompanied Nunley’s order. Google’s counsel, Sunita Bali, with Perkins Coie, was retained only Nov. 29, and coupled with the upcoming holiday season, needs more time to prepare a defense, said the stipulation. The RNC’s opposition brief is now due Feb. 6, and the deadline for Google’s reply brief is Feb. 16, said the order.

An Oct. 31 decision of the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denying mandamas relief for petitioners who wanted their case transferred to the U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin is “relevant” to Jawbone Innovations’ arguments opposing Google’s petition for a writ of mandamus directing the U.S. District Court for Western Texas to transfer Jawbone’s patent infringement complaint to the Northern District of California, said Jawbone attorneys in a citation of supplemental authority Thursday (docket 23-101) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The 5th Circuit said petitioners “failed to show a clear and undisputable right to the writ,” said the Jawbone lawyers. Jawbone argued Google isn't entitled to a writ of mandamus because the Western Texas district court, evaluating all the facts in the record, “exercised sound discretion” in finding Google failed to show Northern California is a “clearly more convenient” venue (see 2211160043).

Two days after filing a second amended complaint alleging insider trading of Intelsat stock (see 2211290056), lead plaintiff Walleye Group conferred with Silver Lake Group, BC Partners and other defendants and agreed on a proposed briefing schedule “that takes into account the upcoming year-end holidays and other commitments of counsel,” said a joint stipulation Friday (docket 4:20-cv-02341) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. The court should vacate its Jan. 6 initial case management conference and all related deadlines, and adopt a “dispositive motion briefing and hearing schedule” that begins with a Jan. 19 deadline for the defendants to answer the second amended complaint or move to dismiss it, said the stipulation. Walleye’s opposition to any motion to dismiss would be due March 2, and the defendants’ reply would be due March 30, it said. It proposed that a hearing on any motion to dismiss should be scheduled for April 28.

Prominent groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the California Law Employment Council, filed amicus briefs in the past week at the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals (docket 22-16020) in support of Verizon’s position that bellwether procedures, which for decades have been used to help resolve complex court litigations, are equally beneficial in mass arbitration situations, said a Ballard Spahr analysis Thursday. Verizon is appealing to the 9th Circuit a district court ruling that the bellwether provision in its arbitration clause was unconscionable. Despite the mandates in the Federal Arbitration Act, “the district court allowed the plaintiffs to circumvent their agreements for individual arbitration of disputes with Verizon,” said the Chamber’s brief. “The Chamber agrees with Verizon that the court erred throughout its decision.” The plaintiff-appellees’ brief is due Dec. 21, unless extended, said Ballard Spahr. Verizon then will have 21 days to file a reply, it said.

Amazon removed to the U.S. District Court for Southern New York a petition by Hong Kong-based Jiakeshu Technology to vacate an Aug. 4 arbitrator’s ruling that allowed Amazon to keep $50,000 in Jiakeshu’s sales proceeds after Amazon deactivated Jiakeshu’s third-party store for paying or incentivizing customers to submit positive reviews. Jiakeshu filed the petition Nov. 2 in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan. Jiakeshu admitted in the petition to “engaging in soliciting sponsored reviews from customers” but said it was guilty of “no more than a minor offense of sending gift card inserts to customers to solicit reviews.” Jiakeshu has been unsuccessful in getting Amazon to reinstate its store, and said Amazon has “no justification” for holding on to its sales proceeds. Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act “authorizes removal of a petition to vacate an arbitration award governed by the New York Convention,” said Amazon’s notice of removal Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-10119). Efforts to reach Jiakeshu for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.

The 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dealt a significant blow to litigators who have increasingly used state right of publicity statutes to bring class actions against companies that sell personally identifiable information to third-party marketers, data aggregators and brokers, said Akin Gump in an analysis Wednesday. The statutes are based on the common law right to prevent the unauthorized use of one’s identity for commercial gain, it said. Class actions brought under these laws “have tended to target conduct well outside the realm traditionally thought to be prohibited by the common law right of publicity,” it said. Chief among these have been actions “seeking to aggregate the claims of consumers included on mailing lists sold in the direct mail marketplace, on the theory that those on the mailing list have suffered a common injury protected by the statutory right of publicity,” it said. The 7th Circuit in Huston v. Hearst Communications issued a decision last week in a putative Illinois Right of Publicity Act class action “laying these claims to rest,” said Akin Gump. “Applying straightforward principles of statutory construction and federal rules of pleading, the court soundly rejected a liability theory that has been repeatedly pursued to assert claims against companies that sell personally identifiable information to third parties.”