A U.S. District judge for Eastern Texas granted the State Department’s motion for a 45-day extension, to March 28, to respond to the Dec. 6 complaint in which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the Daily Wire and Federalist media companies allege the department is running an “egregious” government operation to censor disfavored media outlets (see 2402070016), said the judge’s signed order Friday (docket 6:23-cv-00609). Judge Jeremy Kernodle’s order also denied the government’s motion to stay its deadlines to respond to the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction and for expedited briefing deadlines on the injunction motion. The injunction would block the department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five of his department colleagues from promoting or using censorship technology that targets Americans’ speech or the American press (see 2402080044).

Unimax Communications, a supplier of mobile phones to T-Mobile, believes that discovery in its breach of contract complaint against T-Mobile can be completed by September, said the parties’ joint status report Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-01830) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. Unimax’s Nov. 28 complaint alleges that T-Mobile reneged on its contractual obligations to accept delivery of nearly half a million phones (see 2311290029). T-Mobile’s Jan. 22 motion to dismiss said its contract with Unimax had provisions for canceling its purchase orders (see 2401240026). T-Mobile’s position is that discovery in the case “should only proceed, if at all,” after the court has ruled on the motion to dismiss, said the joint status report. The case should be dismissed with prejudice “and there should be no discovery,” it said. T-Mobile therefore proposes that the court only set a case schedule and discovery deadlines, if at all, after resolving the company’s motion to dismiss, it said. If discovery does proceed, T-Mobile anticipates that the parties “will require at least nine months” from the court’s ruling on that motion “in light of the number of witnesses involved and likelihood of third-party discovery,” it said.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets seek a preliminary injunction to block the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five of his department colleagues from promoting or using censorship technology that targets Americans’ speech or the American press, said their motion Tuesday (docket 6:23-cv-00609) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler. The plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm absent the requested injunctive relief as a direct result of the defendants’ “ultra vires actions,” which have also “gravely violated,” and continue to violate, the media plaintiffs' First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and of the press, said the motion. They followed that up Wednesday with a separate motion to expedite discovery. Such expedited discovery is essential for the court to assess what "additional and tailored" preliminary injunctive relief is appropriate and necessary to fully address the details and scope of the defendants’ “ultra vires and unconstitutional conduct and to prevent further irreparable harm” to the plaintiffs, it said. The State Department, through its Global Engagement Center, “is actively intervening in the news-media market to limit the reach of, the circulation of, and render unprofitable, disfavored press outlets,” said the plaintiffs’ memorandum in support of the preliminary injunction. It’s doing so by funding the infrastructure, development, and marketing and promotion of censorship technology and private censorship enterprises “to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press,” it said. The government’s motion Monday for a 45-day deadline stay to answer the plaintiffs’ complaint gave the first indication that the plaintiffs intended to seek a preliminary injunction (see 2402070016).

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should affirm the district court’s judgment that appellant Mark Walters isn’t entitled to $11,120 in attorneys’ fees and court costs when it remanded his defamation case against OpenAI to state court (see 2312110008), said OpenAI’s appellee brief Wednesday (docket 23-13843). Walters, a nationally syndicated talk show host, alleges OpenAI’s ChatGPT service defamed him to a reporter (see 2307240031). He suggests that the 11th Circuit has a ministerial duty to vacate and remand the order with instructions to the district court to explain its reasons for denying the fee request. But Walters’ “novel theory” finds no support in 11th Circuit law, said OpenAI’s brief. The 11th Circuit should affirm the judgment “if the record supports an inference that the defendant had an objectively reasonable basis for seeking removal,” it said: “Such is the case here.” The record confirms that OpenAI “had an objectively reasonable basis for removal where neither it nor its LLC members are citizens of Georgia, and thus complete diversity exists,” it said. OpenAI’s decision to accept remand rather than compromise the privacy of its individual LLC members by identifying each by name doesn’t “undermine that conclusion,” it said. The same district court “had previously retained diversity jurisdiction in a recent case without requiring individual identification of each LLC member to demonstrate that diversity jurisdiction existed,” it said. On this record, the district court didn’t abuse its discretion in denying the fee request “because OpenAI had an objectively reasonable basis for removal,” it said. Nor was it an abuse of discretion to decline Walters’ invitation “to make a contrary (and unsupported) inference,” it said. The 11th Circuit can and should find that the district court didn’t abuse its discretion, and the judgment should be affirmed, it said.

The State Department asks that the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler stay its Feb. 12 deadline for responding to the Dec. 6 complaint in which Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets allege the State Department is running “one of the most egregious government operations to censor the American press” in the history of the U.S. (see 2312060043), said the government’s motion Monday (docket 6:23-cv-00609). Good cause exists to grant the requested 45-day stay, it said. The government understands the plaintiffs wouldn’t oppose a stay pending adjudication of their anticipated motions for a preliminary injunction and expedited discovery, said the motion. The government expects within seven days to file a motion to transfer that will raise “substantial threshold challenges to the propriety of venue” in the Eastern District of Texas. The primary bases of that motion are that Paxton, the sole plaintiff with any connection to the Eastern District of Texas, lacks Article III standing, and that the complaint alleges no events or omissions giving rise to the plaintiffs’ claims that occurred in Texas, it said. During the meet-and-confer that the parties held Monday afternoon, the plaintiffs indicated that they would oppose transfer and also informed the defendants, for the first time, that they intend to file motions for preliminary injunction and expedited discovery, said the motion. If granted, the motion to transfer would obviate the need for any further proceedings in this court, it said. A stay of the defendants’ deadlines will allow the court time to resolve the defendants’ soon-forthcoming motion to transfer before the parties proceed to briefing in this court, if necessary, on the merits of the plaintiffs’ claims and requests for a preliminary injunction and expedited discovery, said the motion. The complaint alleges that the State Department, through its Global Engagement Center, “is actively intervening” to render “disfavored” press outlets unprofitable by funding the marketing and promotion of “censorship technology and private censorship enterprises to covertly suppress speech of a segment of the American press.” Named as defendants are Secretary of State Antony Blinken and five of his State Department colleagues.

Because a former Amazon third-party seller and its counsel don’t and can’t articulate any “non-frivolous basis” for the seller’s unsuccessful motion to remand its vacatur petition to New York Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon for Southern New York in Manhattan should impose sanctions against Julie Guo and her JS Law Office for violating Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b), said Amazon’s reply brief Thursday (docket 1:23-cv-03334) in support of its Jan. 15 motion for sanctions (see 2401120032). Amazon contends it’s entitled to monetary sanctions equaling the attorneys’ fees and court costs it incurred in defending against Shenzhen Zongheng Domain Network Co.'s remand motion. Zongheng sought to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor and to recover the $508,000 in sales proceeds that Amazon seized, and the arbitrator let it keep, when it deactivated the seller’s account for manipulating customer product reviews. Rochon rejected the remand motion and ultimately denied the vacatur petition itself. Zongheng’s motion for reconsideration of that denial is pending.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals verbally granted appellee AT&T an extension of time to March 14 to file its answering brief in Core Communications’ appeal to reverse the district court’s finding of summary judgment in AT&T’s favor, said a text-only docket entry Thursday (docket 23-3022). Core’s opening brief Tuesday contended that the “plain, unambiguous” terms of its tariffs obligate AT&T to pay for all 8YY “rate elements” and for all 8YY services that Core has provided “for the ultimate benefit of AT&T’s toll-free customers” (see 2401310001).

Amazon opposes Jiakeshu Technology's Jan. 17 motion for reconsideration of U.S. District Judge Jessica Clarke for Southern New York's Jan. 3 opinion and order denying Jiakeshu’s petition to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor (see 2401180021), said Amazon’s memorandum of law Wednesday (docket 1:22-cv-10119) in support of that opposition. Jiakeshu, a former Amazon third-party seller, uses its motion “as an opportunity to raise a new argument, about which it should have known long before” Clarke rendered her decision, said the memorandum. The motion “is consistent with tactics deployed by Jiakeshu’s counsel in similar cases brought against Amazon, all of which have been rejected,” it said. The motion advances the new argument that arbitrator Billie Colombaro, a retired appellate court judge, was biased, Amazon said. Jiakeshu cites a publicly available arbitration award issued in 2017, which was confirmed by the Southern District of New York in 2019, long before it filed its arbitration demand in 2021 and long before it initiated this action to vacate the August 2022 arbitration award, the memorandum said. Jiakeshu can’t meet the standard for reconsideration under Rule 60(b)(2), it said.

U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins for Northern Illinois in Chicago ordered Day Pacer and EduTrek and their owners, Raymond Fitzgerald and Ian Fitzgerald, plus the estate of deceased defendant David Cumming, to pay $28.7 million in civil penalties for making millions of illegal, unsolicited calls to consumers whose numbers were listed on the national do not call registry, said the judge’s Jan. 23 signed order (docket 1:19-cv-01984). The judge also permanently banned the defendants from participating in telemarketing or helping others engaged in telemarketing to consumers, it said. Defendant Cumming died after the parties had fully briefed summary judgment and his estate has been substituted as a defendant, said the order. The FTC alleged that the defendants bought consumers’ contact information mainly from websites claiming to help people find jobs, and instead illegally called those consumers to market unsolicited vocational or post-secondary education services, said the commission Wednesday. The court found that the defendants assisted other telemarketing companies by paying them to make about 40 million calls to consumers on the DNC registry, it said. The court also found that the individual defendants knowingly violated the commission’s Telemarketing Sales Rule, citing evidence that they had ignored repeated complaints from consumers and warnings from business partners.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss for the District of Columbia rescheduled for March 1 at 1 p.m. the hearing vacated Monday on the FTC’s motion to dismiss Meta’s complaint for a declaration that the agency is unconstitutional, said the judge’s text-only minute order Saturday (docket 1:23-cv-03562). The judge reset the hearing in light of the FTC’s order extending to March 15 Meta’s deadline to respond in the commission’s administrative proceeding, said the order. Meta’s Nov. 29 complaint seeks to block the FTC from modifying its 2020 privacy consent order with new restrictions on Meta’s business activities (see 2311300039). The new March 15 deadline is for Meta to respond to the FTC’s order to show cause why the commission shouldn’t modify the 2020 consent order and enter the new restrictions. The show cause order said the FTC has reason to believe Meta failed to establish and implement an effective privacy program as the 2020 consent order had mandated.