Experian denies it violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, said the credit reporting agency in an answer Wednesday to an Oct. 7 complaint (docket 4:22-cv-00637) in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Missouri. Helen Pollak, an O’Fallon, Missouri, consumer, sued Verizon and Experian for FCRA violations on grounds that Experian refuses to remove a “fraudulent” Verizon account from her credit profile and Verizon “has refused to communicate about the account” and has provided no “avenue” to correct the record. Most of Pollak's allegations "relate entirely to another defendant," said Experian in reference to Verizon, "and thus Experian is without knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of those allegations." Verizon has yet to answer the complaint. Pollak's claim for punitive damages "is barred to the extent such sanctions are imposed without requiring the burden of proof to be beyond a reasonable doubt," said Experian. The sanctions "do not accord with the protections" of the Eighth Amendment prohibiting excessive fines and the Fifth and 14th Amendments against procedural due process and equal protection violations, it said. Pollak's complaint said she “finds it profoundly unfair that Verizon can allegedly ‘verify’ false information, and Experian continues to let them do it.” Either Verizon “conducted no real investigation” of Pollak’s disputes, or the probes “were so lacking as to allow fraudulent information known to be false and highly damaging” to remain in Pollak’s credit file, it said. “Verizon’s failures in this regard are exacerbated by the sheer number of times it was contacted about this particular account.” The suit seeks statutory and punitive damages for violations of the FCRA.

T-Mobile’s opening documents are due Nov. 30 in its petition for review of the National Labor Relations Board’s Sept. 20 finding that the carrier violated Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act when it reprimanded a customer service representative in its Wichita call center for sending union-related emails to her co-workers while on the job, said a clerk’s order Monday (docket 22-1275) at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. T-Mobile’s dispositive motions, if any, are due Dec. 15, said the order. The NLRB faulted T-Mobile for “selectively and disparately enforcing” its work rules prohibiting reps from using T-Mobile’s facility-wide email distribution lists for nonwork business. The NLRB found T-Mobile routinely used the lists to send the reps emails on such nonwork subjects as “free food and hockey tickets, nacho day in the cafeteria, upcoming salsa and lip-syncing contests, deaths in employees’ families, condolence cards, baby showers, and invitations to bowling parties,” said the decision. The allegations arose during a multiyear campaign by the Communications Workers of America to unionize the nearly 600 reps in Wichita, it said.

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer for Southern New York signed an order Tuesday (docket 1:21-cv-01951) extending to Dec. 5 from Monday the deadline for the SEC and AT&T to file a joint status letter with a proposed schedule through the start of trial, including an estimate about how long a trial would last. Engelmayer received a joint request from SEC and AT&T attorneys to extend the deadline, said his order. It was the second such postponement since his Sept. 8 opinion denying the parties’ cross motions for summary judgment in the case, in which the SEC alleges AT&T violated the commission’s fair disclosure regulation (Reg FD) (see 2209200023). U.S. Magistrate Judge Jennifer Willis held a Sept. 26 settlement conference that apparently didn’t lead to a resolution. The March 2021 case stems from SEC allegations that AT&T and three members of its investor relations team conspired to selectively disclose “material nonpublic information” (MNPI) to analysts at 20 Wall Street firms with the aim of lowering their consensus forecast on Q1 2016 revenue. The goal, alleged the SEC, was to enable AT&T to beat the consensus estimate for that quarter after the company missed Wall Street’s consensus targets in two of the previous quarters. Reg FD prohibits public companies from selectively disclosing MNPI about itself or its stock to people outside the company, unless it also discloses that information to the public.

U.S. District Judge James Cain for Western Louisiana signed an order Friday (docket 2:21-cv-00923) granting ZTE’s Oct. 25 motion to “join in and adopt” the motion to dismiss filed by its cellphone industry co-defendants in the RF radiation case in Lake Charles (see 2210250030). The defendants are alleged to have worked to conceal and suppress information showing that many handsets don’t comply with the FCC’s specific absorption rate limitations for how much RF radiation is absorbed by phone users. The widow and two sons of pastor Frank Walker allege that this led to his death from brain cancer. ZTE had sought to adopt the co-defendants' motion as a fallback if its own motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was denied.

AT&T invoiced Goodman Networks $1.22 million for high-speed internet, long distance, local and intrastate calling and other services it provided the telecommunications company under four written contracts in 2009, 2017 and 2020, but hasn’t been paid, alleged AT&T in a breach of contract and unjust enrichment complaint Tuesday (docket 4:22-cv-00914) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Sherman. AT&T has demanded payment in full for the services provided to Goodman, but has received no part of the “principal amount due and owing,” it said. The services were provided by AT&T “with the reasonable expectation” it would be paid for them, it said. The complaint seeks recovery of the unpaid funds, plus 18% in annual interest. Goodman didn’t comment Wednesday.

Google as “a market-dominant communications firm” is unlawfully discriminating against the Republican National Committee by “throttling its email messages” because of the RNC’s political affiliation and views, alleged the committee in a pair of complaints Friday (dockets 2:22-at-01077 and 2:22-cv-01904) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento. “Google has relegated millions of RNC emails en masse to potential donors’ and supporters’ spam folders during pivotal points in election fundraising and community building,” said the RNC. “The timing of Google’s most egregious filtering is particularly damning,” it said. For most of each month, nearly all the RNC’s emails make it into users’ inboxes, but at about the same time at the end of each month, “Google sends to spam nearly all of the RNC’s emails,” it said. “Critically, and suspiciously, this end of the month period is historically when the RNC’s fundraising is most successful.” This discrimination has been ongoing for about 10 months, “despite the RNC’s best efforts to work with Google,” said the committee. The complaints allege violations of California’s common carrier law and other infractions, and seek preliminary and permanent injunctive relief to remedy Google’s violations of state and federal law. Google didn’t comment.

U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil for Southern New York granted Dish Network’s letter motion (docket 1:22-cv-08151) for a deadline extension to Nov. 15 to answer class-action allegations that it violated New York labor laws. The Dish response to the allegation was originally due Tuesday. “The purpose of the extension is to allow the parties to confer regarding Plaintiffs’ respective agreements to individually arbitrate any dispute with Defendants,” Dish lawyers wrote the judge Monday. Dish asked that the plaintiffs “consent to a stay of this action pending the outcome of individual arbitrations under the agreements, and to the dismissal of the putative class action allegations in the Complaint,” said the lawyers. Dish failed to “properly pay” its New York installers their biweekly wages within seven calendar days after the end of the week in which these wages were earned, and took “unlawful deductions” from their paychecks, alleged an Oct. 7 class action. Installers Chris Calderon, Nick Patsonikolis and Amresh Boodoo also allege Dish wrongfully terminated them in September in retaliation for their safety complaints. A “large percentage” of the vans Dish provided its installers for work were “unsafe,” said the complaint. Many of the vans had issues with torn windshield wipers and broken side mirrors, plus tires with low tread and low coolant, causing vans to overheat and break down in the field, it said. Dish didn’t comment Monday.

U.S. District Judge James Cain for Western Louisiana in Lake Charles set a telephonic status conference for Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. CDT on the April 2021 complaint alleging that the cellphone industry has worked to conceal and suppress information showing that many handsets don’t comply with the FCC’s specific absorption rate limitations for how much RF radiation is absorbed by phone users, according to a text order in docket 2:21-cv-00923. The widow and two sons of Pastor Frank Walker allege that this led to his death from brain cancer. The defendants, including a multitude of device manufacturers, plus CTIA and TIA, filed their briefs last week in which they argued that the case should be dismissed because it is preempted by federal law (see 2210180078).

YouTube-ripping software company Yout appealed the U.S. District Court of Connecticut's ruling last month granting defendant Recording Industry Association of America's motion to dismiss plaintiff Yout's complaint (see 2209300061), per an appeal notice last week (docket 3:20-cv-01602). Yout sought a declaratory judgment that its software, which allows users to make copies of streaming video and audio files, doesn't violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. RIAA counsel didn't comment Monday.

No judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit backed Dish Network's petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc of its decision upholding FCC approval of a license modification to SpaceX's Starlink system (see 2210120061), per twin orders (here and here) Monday denying the petition (docket 21-1123).