U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn for New Jersey in Camden signed an order Monday (docket 1:23-md-03055) officially appointing James Cecchi, director of Carella Byrne's class-action practice in Roseland, New Jersey, as interim lead class counsel for the plaintiffs in the 16 Samsung data breach class actions. O’Hearn, who was assigned the cases Feb. 1 for pretrial consolidation, named Cecchi to the post in February (see 2302280010). O’Hearn’s order also assigned the 11 members of Cecchi’s executive committee as chairs of nine subcommittees.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris for Massachusetts in Boston ordered all the parties in the nine consolidated class actions pending before the court arising from second-half 2022 data breaches at LastPass to confer and file a proposed list of executive committee members for case management purposes, including one counsel for each proposed class, said a text-only clerk’s order (docket 1:22-cv-12047), during a status conference Friday. The plaintiffs also will confer about proposed lead counsel, to include no more than four, it said. The proposals are due April 14, when a proposed scheduling order also will be due, it said.

Briefing before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is now closed on the motion to transfer the 16 data breach class actions against T-Mobile for pretrial consolidation under a single district judge (see 2303030003), said a minute order entered Friday by JPML Clerk John Nichols. Parties in the 16 class actions “remain under a duty” to notify Nichols promptly of potential tag-along actions, plus any development “that moots the motion or fully disposes of any action on the motion,” it said. Parties in any potential tag-along action may file an “interested party response,” but must do so promptly, it said.

Transfer of the now-17 data breach class actions against T-Mobile for coordination or consolidation in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington remains “the most appropriate choice” for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict litigation, lawyers for plaintiff Stephan Clark, the petitioner for the transfer, told the panel in a reply brief Thursday (MDL Case No. 3073). Of the nine responses filed to Clark’s petition (see 2303170021), all but defendant T-Mobile’s response “are in favor of coordination or consolidation,” it said. The majority of the responses support Clark’s request for transfer to the Western District of Washington, it said. The second most requested transferee district is the Western District of Missouri, with four filings supporting that district as a first or second choice, it said. T-Mobile identifies “no material difference” between the 2021 T-Mobile data breach class actions it previously supported consolidating and the current wave of T-Mobile data breach class actions it now opposes consolidating, said the reply. The one “purported difference” to which T-Mobile points is that it intends to move to compel arbitration in each of the current pending class actions, it said. But motions to compel were also at play in consolidating the 2021 class actions, it said. “Contrary to T-Mobile’s current arguments, the issue of arbitration actually supports consolidating the class actions,” it said. That the panel “has routinely centralized cases involving arbitration rebuts T-Mobile’s assertion that centralization conflicts with federal policy favoring arbitration,” it said.

The proposed leadership structure in the multidistrict litigation arising from last summer’s Samsung data breach “has been working efficiently to produce the elements” necessary to deliver the joint agenda and status report to the court by Thursday’s deadline, James Cecchi of Carella Byrne wrote U.S. District Judge Christine O’Hearn for New Jersey in Camden in a letter Wednesday (docket 1:23-md-03055). Cecchi, newly appointed as the plaintiffs’ lead interim counsel in the MDL, told O’Hearn earlier this month that the leadership structure includes an 11-member executive committee composed of lawyers with “extensive experience in complex class action matters” (see 2303060044). A “supplemental chart” attached to his letter tracks the cases each of the 11 members has tried. Cecchi’s own MDL and class-action leadership experience includes 52 cases at various stages of progress, the chart shows. In keeping with O’Hearn’s “directive,” and the executive committee’s “own goals to bring forward new leaders in MDL actions,” the proposed organization “includes multiple attorneys with a wealth of experience but who have not received prior court appointment and thus are not included in the supplemental charts,” said Cecchi.

Plaintiff Lonn Rider and defendant Arlo Technologies have conferred and agree Rider’s fraud class action against Arlo should be voluntarily dismissed without prejudice, said their joint stipulation Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-00055) in U.S. District Court for Western Michigan. Arlo hasn’t entered into a settlement with Rider in connection with that voluntary dismissal, and neither Rider nor his counsel has received, nor will receive, “any form of consideration” from Arlo in exchange for that dismissal, it said. Rider’s voluntary dismissal came just under a week after U.S. District Court Judge Jane Beckering warned the plaintiff's counsel he would need to file a petition by April 12 explaining why his complaint shouldn’t be dismissed for failure to serve Arlo after 60 days (see 2303160037).

The seven plaintiffs who allege they were duped into buying Amazon Prime content only to learn later that Amazon could revoke availability of the content any time filed as supplemental authority the decision in McTyere et al v. Apple in support of their efforts to defeat Amazon’s motion to dismiss their own claims, said their notice Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-00401) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington. In McTyere, in which Apple sought dismissal for failure to state a claim, two plaintiffs allege they bought content from the iTunes store, only to find it later disappeared from their purchase folders. Apple argued its statements about content procured from the iTunes store weren’t misleading and, regardless, the plaintiffs didn’t allege they were injured by those statements. “Drawing every inference” in the plaintiffs’ favor, “as it must at this stage of the case, this Court disagrees,” said an order signed Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo for Western New York in Buffalo. Since the McTyere plaintiffs received the “right to the use” of the digital content at issue in their complaint, Apple asserts its advertising wasn’t misleading “regardless of whether their ability to access that digital content later disappeared,” said Vilardo’s order. But Apple’s “right to the use” argument “cannot carry the water that Apple asks it to carry,” it said. “This Court therefore concludes that reasonable consumers might have been misled when they purchased digital content with the mistaken impression that the content could not later be removed from their libraries.”

Bangladesh-based websites TopSocial24 and SocialBD24, and their owner MD Raju Ahamed, are permanently barred from accessing or attempting to use LinkedIn’s website, computers, servers and data through accounts under others’ or fake names, said a final judgment on consent Tuesday (docket 5:23-cv-00110) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. LinkedIn and the defendants engaged in negotiations to resolve the fraud and breach of contract complaint, and the defendants consent to the court’s judgment in favor of LinkedIn, it said. The defendants are also permanently restrained from offering or selling LinkedIn followers likes, views, comments, connections or “other inauthentic engagement” that can be used by third parties to provide inauthentic engagement on the networking site; from marketing or advertising representations about the availability of LinkedIn followers; from circumventing technology that controls access to LinkedIn servers; and from engaging in any activity that violates LinkedIn’s user agreement, it said.

All parties agree it’s appropriate to consolidate the nine class actions pending before the court on second-half 2022 data breaches at LastPass, but disagree about how the cases should be organized, said a memorandum of law Monday (docket 1:22-cv-12047) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston. The discord persists despite "extensive outreach” from members of Berman Tabacco, Migliaccio & Rathod, and Zimmerman Law Offices (the BT Group), it said. The memorandum opposed the appointment of the Haber Group as interim co-lead counsel and the application of Michael Reese for appointment as interim co-lead class counsel. The dispute results from decisions by the Haber and Reese groups to “reject the inclusive structure advocated by counsel representing the plaintiffs in the five actions already pending” in the court when the Haber and Reese groups filed there. The “inclusive structure,” endorsed by proposed interim class counsel BT Group “sought to heed the Court’s admonition” in another recent data breach case, Shields Health Care Group Inc. Data Breach Litigation (docket 1:22-cv-10901), for counsel to privately resolve leadership disputes, it said. The BT Group proposed that members of the Haber Group join as co-lead counsel and as members of the executive committee and for Reese to be on the committee, but members of the Haber and Reese groups declined the offer, it said. The BT Group “remains ready and willing” to include members of both groups on the executive committee if it's appointed interim co-lead counsel, it said. Including all counsel who wish to join in the litigation of the related actions “is in the best interests of the putative class, ensuring that the largest pool of potential plaintiffs is vetted for inclusion in the Consolidated Complaint and as class representatives, as well as taking the broadest and most diverse range of attorney perspectives into consideration,” it said. Last month, LastPass sought a stay of all deadlines in its proceedings until U.S. Judge Patti Saris decides whether to consolidate what was then seven substantially similar class actions and appoint interim class counsel in the first-filed case (see 2302280001) on an August data breach.

Verizon’s response to a class action alleging the carrier engaged in a “bait-and-switch” scheme (see 2303010015) will take the form of a motion to compel arbitration, said a Monday consent order (docket 3:23-cv-01138) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Trenton. Verizon’s response to the March 6 complaint is due Monday, but the company requested additional time to consider the complaint. The parties agreed to an April 28 date for the motion to compel arbitration. Plaintiffs’ response is due by May 29, and Verizon’s reply in support of its motion will be filed by June 19, said the order. The complaint alleges Verizon dupes customers by prominently advertising flat monthly rates on postpaid plans and then charging higher rates after customers sign up for service.