U.S. District Judge Patti Saris for Massachusetts in Boston signed an amended pretrial order Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-1204) consolidating nine data breach class actions against LastPass or its parent company Go To Technologies (see 2301300038). The order also appoints three attorneys as interim co-lead counsel for the national class. They are Amy Keller of DiCello Levitt, Nathaniel Orenstein of Berman Tabacco and Nicholas Migliaccio of Migliaccio & Rathod. New York attorney Michael Reese was appointed interim co-lead counsel for the California subclass. An “operative” consolidated complaint is due from the plaintiffs within 45 days, and the defendants’ response will be due 45 days later, said the order.

None of the parties in the data breach class action against Macmillan filed by three former employees will consent to conduct further proceedings before a magistrate judge, said a case management plan and scheduling order signed Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-01217) by U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres for Southern New York. Oct. 13 is the deadline for completing all fact discovery in the case, said the order. Expert discovery will be done by Nov. 27, it said. The parties “present best estimate” of the length of a jury trial is one week, said the order, without setting a trial date. Plaintiffs Victoria Batchelor, Diana Griffin and Jaime Ariza allege Macmillan negligently let cybercriminals infiltrate the personally identifiable information of more than 19,000 current and former employees (see 2304040003). They suffer the risk of “imminent and impending injury” arising from the substantially increased risk of fraud and identity theft, said their complaint.

Samsung failed to disclose its replacement policy for defective TVs in the product warranty, alleged a customer in a Tuesday fraud complaint (docket CL-23-1584) in Texas District Court, Hidalgo County. Hidalgo County resident Rolando Quintana, an attorney, bought a 55-inch Samsung OLED TV in December that stopped working March 8. After Samsung’s local repair service was “unreliable” in Quintana’s pursuit of getting the TV repaired, the customer contacted Samsung for an alternate repair company, which didn’t return calls, said the plaintiff. Samsung offered to replace the TV with a “similar,” more expensive QLED model, attempting to “strong arm” Quintana into accepting it, he said. When he examined the similar model at a Best Buy store, “it became evident” Samsung was “attempting to pawn off an inferior television,” said the complaint. Quintana sent Samsung a demand letter under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, leading a manager to call him to “make things right.” When Quintana told the Samsung manager he wanted the exact TV he had purchased, or the 2023 version, the manager said those weren’t in stock. When he asked for clarification, the manager told Quintana the warranty division "has a stock of televisions of its own," different from the TVs sold on the company website. The manager offered Quintana a $1,799 coupon to use on the Samsung website, but the customer would have to pay for taxes “and presumably the shipping expenses,” he said, saying that information wasn’t spelled out in literature or on the website. Quintana seeks economic, exemplary and mental anguish damages, interest and attorney’s fees: a minimum $5,000 for the court of original jurisdiction; $15,000 to respond to an appeal in the state appeals court and $20,000 as “reasonable and necessary” attorney’s fees to respond to an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

Plaintiffs’ Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone’s motion for judgment on their claims for conspiracy and punitive damages in the false ring tones case against T-Mobile should be granted, and the conspiracy and punitive damages claims dismissed, said the defendant in a Tuesday reply memorandum in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago (docket 1:19-cv-07190). The court’s February ruling (see 2302100007) dismissing the conspiracy claim against Inteliquent “should apply equally to the identical claim” against T-Mobile, said the carrier. Plaintiffs claim T-Mobile waved its choice of law argument by not raising it in its answer or original motion to dismiss, but 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals law "holds otherwise,” T-Mobile said. Plaintiffs suggest a ruling on the motion should be stayed while they engage in “months of further discovery” that they say “should reveal” information or “may bear on” choice of law, said the reply. But the motion is addressed to plaintiffs’ “current pleading, not a hypothetical future” that plaintiffs may seek leave to file, it said. Plaintiffs’ argument ignores “years of discovery that has already occurred,” mostly after plaintiffs “were put on notice” by Inteliquent’s Rule 12(c) motion that choice of law could influence whether they could state a cognizable conspiracy claim, the filing said. Future discovery -- call detail records and depositions concerning documents already produced -- “will not change that the alleged conduct occurred in multiple states, or that alleged injury was incurred where the plaintiffs are located,” it said, saying those are the facts that influenced the court’s dismissal of the conspiracy claim against Inteliquent. On plaintiffs’ contention they need months of discovery to reveal information sufficient to amend their second amended complaint, T-Mobile said an amendment “would change nothing.” Their “mounting record of evidence of ‘supposed conspiratorial conduct’ is “not materially different than what is already in” the second amended complaint, it said. Plaintiffs claim T-Mobile conspired to insert fake local ring back tones instead of connecting calls to rural areas with expensive routing fees.

U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn for New Jersey in Camden signed a case management order Monday (docket 1:23-md-03055) directing the parties in the Samsung data breach multidistrict litigation over which she’s presiding to submit within 14 days a proposed scheduling order with dates through the summary judgment stage. The proposed schedule should include the timing within which the plaintiffs expect to make a settlement demand, said the order. The parties should also meet and confer on the timing and scope of discovery and be prepared to discuss that at the next case management conference set for May 4 at 9:30 am, it said. The parties before the conference will identify and propose two potential special masters for O’Hearn’s consideration, it said. If they can’t agree on the special masters, each side will submit two nominees for the judge to decide on, it said.

U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr for Northern Texas in Dallas denied, via electronic order Friday (docket 3:23-cv-355), AT&T’s Sept. 9 motion to dismiss EDN Communication’s fraud and tortious interference complaint for failure to state a claim. AT&T may file an amended motion to dismiss based on 5th Circuit case law within 28 days, said Starr’s order. EDN in January 2018 became AT&T’s “first and only” minority-owned FirstNet authorized dealer, said its July 27 complaint. But the relationship soured when AT&T “surreptitiously, systematically, and with racist animus,” appropriated money due to EDN and “usurped” EDN’s contacts and value and converted them “to the sole property of AT&T,” said the complaint. It also alleged AT&T stole EDN’s trade secrets, and “inserted an all-white AT&T sales team” to replace EDN and to “destroy the sales organization” that EDN had built, costing the plaintiff more than $100 million in actual damages.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation set May 25 in-person oral argument in Philadelphia on the petition to transfer and consolidate under a single district judge the multiple class actions arising from T-Mobile’s most recent data breach (see 2303270010), said a hearing notice Friday (MDL No. 3073). Counsel presenting oral argument must appear at 8 a.m. to enable the panel to allocate the amount of time for oral argument, said the notice. Oral argument itself will begin at 9:30 a.m, it said. May 1 is the deadline for submitting notices of presentation or waiver of oral argument, said the notice. James Cecchi of Carella Byrne became the first counsel to file notice of presentation of oral argument in favor of consolidating the cases and transferring them to the Western District of Missouri in Kansas City. Cecchi represents plaintiff Frankie Gonzalez in the action filed Jan. 23 in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark (docket 2:23-cv-367), one of the first-filed cases to follow T-Mobile’s Jan. 19 disclosure of its latest data breach (see 2301240031). Cecchi, founder and director of Carella Byrne's class-action practice in Roseland, New Jersey, was recently picked as the plaintiffs’ interim lead counsel in the data breach cases against Samsung that were transferred to and consolidated under U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn for New Jersey in Camden (see 2302280010).

The defendants alleged by DirecTV to have operated a fraud scheme using DirecTV telemarketing impersonators (see 2211010049) want U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle for Eastern Texas in Tyler to enter an order quashing DirecTV’s subpoena for their bank records from Bank of America, said their motion Wednesday (docket 6:22-cv-00423). Bank records from any of the defendants won’t “shed light on any of the claims, defenses, facts, or other issues raised in this case,” said the motion. But the request for “all documents,” regardless of whether they concern anything to do with this case “is clearly overbroad and runs afoul” of Rule 26’s “proportionality requirement” in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it said. Bank of America told the defendants to file an emergency motion to quash or modify the subpoena, and the bank “will await the outcome before producing records,” said the motion. The defendants ask that the subpoena be quashed or modified so the bank statements can be reviewed and redacted “to the extent they contain information that is irrelevant to the case,” it said.

U.S. District Judge Manish Shah for Northern Illinois in Chicago wants the parties in the FTC’s lawsuit against Walmart to include in their status report due Monday a proposed briefing schedule on Walmart’s motion to certify an interlocutory appeal in the 7th Circuit, said a clerk’s docket entry Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-03372). The judge’s March 27 order denied in part Walmart’s motion to dismiss the FTC’s enforcement action, and Walmart seeks to certify the order for interlocutory appeal because it "raises fundamental questions about the FTC's legal authority and the proper interpretation of key provisions of the FTC Act" (see 2304130002). The case involves telemarketing fraudsters who conned consumers into sending money using Walmart’s services. The FTC alleges Walmart knew it was processing fraudulent money transfers but failed to do enough to protect consumers.

U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero for Southern New York wants the plaintiffs in the case against Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for their roles in the threatening and intimidating robocall to suppress Black citizens' mail-in votes in the 2020 election to confer with the defendants about a summer jury trial, said his signed order Thursday (docket 1:20-cv-08668). Marrero previously granted summary judgment against Wohl and Burkman (see 2303090003), and the jury will decide on the scope of relief sought, including damages, attorneys’ fees and costs. Marrero ordered the parties to file a joint letter within seven days, “indicating the number of days required for the jury trial and proposing potential trial dates” between mid-July and the first week of August, or alternatively in early September.