Google’s claims of charging speeds for the Pixel 6 smartphone are “misleading,” alleged Brooklyn plaintiff Esther Klang in a Feb. 17 fraud class action (docket 1:23-cv-01316) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn. The company failed to disclose that its claim of a phone charging speed of 50% in about 30 minutes requires buying its $25 30-watt USB-C charger based on the USB Power Delivery protocol, said the complaint. Even where the need for the 30-watt charger is disclosed, the maximum power obtained by the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro is just 22 watts, with an average of 13 watts over a full cycle, the complaint said, citing an independent test report this month in Android Authority. The promise of 50% charging in 30 minutes would lead a smartphone user to believe the product can fully charge in an hour, the complaint said, but the testing revealed the time to charge the phone’s battery from near empty to full “takes over two hours.” A consumer wouldn’t expect that a new type of charger, sold for $25, “will only save them 10 minutes,” especially with “fast charging” claims, the complaint said. False and misleading representations of the Pixel 6’s charging capability mean the $549 Pixel 6 “is sold at a premium,” it said. The plaintiff claims violation of the New York General Business Law, multiple states’ consumer fraud acts, breach of warranty and unjust enrichment. The complaint seeks monetary, statutory, and/or punitive damages and interest, plus reasonable attorneys’ fees and expert fees.

DirecTV seeks an order striking the six affirmative defenses of four defendants alleged to be part of an unlawful scheme to steal money from consumers by impersonating DirecTV telemarketers (see 2302160055), said its motion Monday (docket 6:22-cv-00423) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler. Most of the affirmative defenses “are improper because they are conclusory statements devoid of factual substance,” and fail to give DirecTV “fair notice of the defenses being asserted,” said the motion. The majority of the defenses also are improper “because they fail to identify the claim to which each applies,” it said. The defenses generally contain only “blanket denials” of the allegations in DirecTV’s complaint, it said.

California plaintiffs Tamara Ferguson and Brian Heinz are to meet and confer with T-Mobile and file a joint status report by April 13 on the plaintiffs’ class action arising from T-Mobile’s data breach, said a minute order (docket 2:23-cv-00142) from U.S. District Judge John Coughenour for Western Washington in Seattle. T-Mobile’s “intentionally misleading public statements” about its “nearly annual” data breaches ignore the “serious harm” its security flaws cause customers, said the Jan. 31 class action, one of a dozen or more similar lawsuits filed since T-Mobile disclosed the latest breach Jan. 19 (see 2302010060). If the parties are unable to agree on any part of the joint status report, “they may answer in separate paragraphs,” but “no separate reports are to be filed,” said Coughenour’s order. It bears watching to see if Coughenour’s call for the April 13 joint status report survives motions before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer the dozen or more T-Mobile class actions for consolidation under a single district court judge (see 2302160025).

The dozen or more negligence class actions filed against T-Mobile for its customer data breach (see 2302090008) appear headed, as expected, for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation for transfer and consolidation under a single district judge. The U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark entered a text-only notice Wednesday (docket 2:23-cv-00367) in Gonzalez v. T-Mobile of a motion having been filed with the JPML to transfer the case to U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. The notice didn’t say which party made the filing. Like all the recent class actions against T-Mobile, the Gonzalez case is in its infant stages. A summons was issued Jan. 25 and returned executed two days later, the docket report shows.

Lawyers for the 27 named plaintiffs in the fraud class action alleging Verizon pads the monthly bills of its postpaid wireless customers with a secretive administrative charge (docket 3:21-cv-8592) have served two sets of discovery requests on Verizon since late September, lead plaintiff counsel Stephen DeNittis of DeNittis Osefchen told a virtual status conference Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen imposed a partial stay in the proceedings in the fall, pending the 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court review of Chen’s July 1 order denying Verizon’s motion to compel the dispute to arbitration. Chen’s partial stay enables the plaintiffs to ask Verizon to produce documents it has on the 27 customers while the 9th Circuit appeal progresses. The parties have been able to work out an agreement on the first set of discovery requests, and “rolling production” of the documents involved is scheduled to begin Friday, said DeNittis. He’s “cautiously optimistic” the parties will come to terms on the second set of discovery requests, he said. Chen scheduled the next status conference May 23 at 2:30 p.m. PDT. Verizon filed its opening brief (docket 22-16020) in the 9th Circuit appeal on Nov. 21, arguing that Chen's denial of the motion to compel arbitration was "deeply flawed." The plaintiffs' answering brief is due March 17. With the 9th Circuit's briefing schedule "in place, I guess we'll wait to see how that rolls out," Chen told the conference.

The U.S. District Court for New Jersey docketed the 17 consolidated Samsung negligence class actions arising from last summer’s data breach as case number 1:23-md-3055. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on Feb. 1 ordered the cases transferred to U.S. District Judge Christine O'Hearn in Camden (see 2302020002). Thursday closed the one-week window for oppositions to the transfer order.

Meta is aware or should be aware that unscrupulous individuals have the easy ability to create and maintain fake Instagram accounts using “the likeness” of others for the purpose of engaging in criminal or mischievous conduct, but it has “refused to take any meaningful action to stop it,” alleged plaintiff Lezlie-Ann Davis in a negligence complaint Wednesday (docket CACE22002354) in the 17th Judicial Circuit Court for Broward County, Florida. Requiring an “additional verification system” for creating new accounts would disrupt the ability of wrongdoers to use Instagram as “an instrument for conducting fraudulent activity,” it said. Davis’ 13-year-old daughter, “N.W.,” was held in a juvenile detention center for 11 days on terrorism charges after Pembroke Pines authorities found a post on an Instagram account in her name threatening to blow up her school and kill one of her teachers, said the complaint. An IP address investigation ultimately linked the threatening post to a device belonging to N.W.’s schoolmate, “M.S.,” who sent the threatening post to make it appear it had come from N.W., it said. The IP address information “is literally available at the press of a button,” but Meta refused to cooperate with the investigating officers, “which led to the delay in determining that N.W. was innocent and was in custody without justification,” it said. “The ease of opening accounts on Instagram has made it an attractive platform for abuse by those with malicious and/or criminal intent, similar to what M.S. did,” said Davis’ negligence claim against Meta. Her complaint also seeks to hold Pembroke Pines police accountable for N.W.’s “false arrest and imprisonment.” The complaint doesn't say what became of MS for sending the threatening post. Meta didn’t comment Friday.

The lead plaintiffs in the securities fraud class action against Warner Bros. Discovery -- the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio -- face a Wednesday deadline for filing a consolidated amended complaint, said a joint stipulation and order (docket 1:22-cv-08171) signed Thursday by U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni for Southern New York in Manhattan. The class action names Discovery, Warner Bros. Discovery and CEO David Zaslav and Chief Financial Officer Gunnar Wiedenfels as defendants, alleging they withheld negative information about WarnerMedia in the run-up to the April 8 closing of the transaction that caused Warner Bros. Discovery shares to plummet 52.4% on the first day of trading (see 2212140024). March 31 is the deadline for the defendants to answer the consolidated amended complaint, said Caproni’s order. If the defendants move for dismissal, the lead plaintiffs have until April 28 to file an opposition, it said. Any reply to the opposition will be due May 26, it said.

Plaintiff Dennis Gromov’s response is due Feb. 24 to Belkin International’s motion to dismiss his false-advertising class action (see 2301300008), said a minute entry Friday (docket 1:22-cv-06918) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Gromov’s reply is due March 10, it said. Gromov alleges Belkin advertised power banks for mobile devices in a deceptive manner and the chargers don’t deliver the amount of power promised. His complaint should be dismissed in its entirety without leave to amend because he didn't identify a misleading or deceptive act, said Belkin’s motion.

The plaintiffs in the fraud class action against Amazon Prime Video don't dispute they formed a “valid contract” with a term saying purchased digital content “could potentially become unavailable due to content-provider restrictions,” said Amazon’s reply brief Friday (docket 2:22-cv-00401) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington to the plaintiffs’ Jan. 13 opposition to Amazon’s motion to dismiss (see 2301170042). The plaintiffs contend the contract term about potential content unavailability was hidden, but it wasn't, said Amazon. The terms were disclosed “via a blue, visually distinguishable hyperlink at the point of sale” each time the plaintiffs bought digital content, it said. Those terms were available for the plaintiffs “to review and decide whether they wanted to move forward with a purchase,” it said. “The terms themselves conspicuously addressed the possibility of future unavailability,” and did so in “bold font,” it said.