Two class actions were transferred to In Re: FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange Collapse Litigation in conditional transfer order 5 (CTO-5) (3076), said a clerk’s order Tuesday at the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Edwin Garrison et al v. Riot Games (docket 2:24-cv-01841) and Garrison et al v. Lincoln Holdings (docket 1:24-cv-00655) involve questions of fact that are common to the actions previously transferred to the MDL and assigned to U.S. District Judge Michael Moore for Southern Florida in Miami, it said. The fraud actions allege sports and entertainment defendants used the now-bankrupt FTX global cryptocurrency exchange to participate in FTX Group’s “massive, multi-billion-dollar global fraud” (see 2403080048). The transmittal of the order is stayed seven days for any party to file a notice of opposition, it said. On June 5, the JPML transferred five actions to the Florida court for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings; since then, 17 additional actions have been transferred to the MDL, the order said.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin for Northern California in San Francisco granted pro se plaintiff Venton Smith and defendants Amazon and Amazon Web Services’ proposed stipulation that all of Smith’s claims against Amazon be dismissed, said the judge's signed order Monday (docket 3:23-cv-02804). In his June fraud lawsuit against Amazon and more than 20 merchants, banks and credit reporting agencies, Smith claimed his personally identifiable information was exposed in a 2019 Capital One data breach where an Amazon Web Services employee stole data affecting about 106 million customers (see 2306120045). The parties will bear their own legal costs, the order said.

U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp for New Jersey in Trenton denied without prejudice SiriusXM’s motion to compel plaintiff Robyn Posternock’s fraud claims to arbitration, said his signed order Thursday (docket 3:23-cv-02680). In reviewing the Rule 56(d) declaration submitted by Posternock's counsel, the court finds that Posternock “has adequately demonstrated that limited discovery is warranted” before a decision is made on SiriusXM’s motion to compel, said the order. The parties are to engage in limited discovery on the issue of arbitrability, to be completed by May 31, it said. The parties are to submit a joint proposed scheduling order by March 29 on the limited issue of arbitrability, it said. After that limited discovery is complete, SiriusXM will be permitted to file a “renewed” motion to compel arbitration, which the court will assess “under a Rule 56 summary judgment standard,” said the order. Posternock's class action is one of several to allege that SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges (see 2308210017).

Tensions appear close to boiling over in plaintiff Dennis Gromov’s false advertising case against defendant Belkin International if Thursday’s joint status report (docket 1:22-cv-06918) is any indication. Gromov’s class action alleges that Belkin advertised power banks for mobile devices in a deceptive manner, and that the chargers don’t deliver nearly the amount of power promised in those ads (see 2301300008). U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama granted Gromov’s motion Feb. 28 to compel Belkin’s discovery responses, but Belkin now says it needs 45 days more, until April 30, to respond to the order, said Gromov’s position statement in the status report. Belkin insists it needs the extra time “to locate and produce information that Belkin should have been maintaining on a litigation hold for years,” said Gromov's position statement. Belkin says it has discussed with Gromov the information that will be presented in rolling tranches, but that’s “not the case,” it said. Belkin’s rolling productions in the past “have come in one single dump in the nighttime hours of the last possible day,” it said. Absent any actual detail, Belkin’s time frame for compliance “should be shortened considerably because these discovery requests are coming up on their first anniversary,” it said. The court should ensure that Gromov “has at least a few weeks to review all of the discovery and take the depositions of at least the three Belkin witnesses Gromov has been seeking,” plus those of any new persons who may appear in the documents or interrogatories, it said. Belkin’s position statement said the company is “dismayed” that Gromov’s counsel “has used this status report as an opportunity to make unsupported incendiary accusations that neither reflect the true status of discovery, nor help to advance that process.” Belkin initially presented Gromov’s counsel with a “simple and straightforward” report that would inform the court of the current status of discovery and proposed a schedule for necessary modifications to the scheduling order, as the parties were ordered to do, it said. Belkin “would have much rather filed that type of document,” noting any objections as to the proposed schedule for the court to resolve, it said. But amid “the many misrepresentations made” by Gromov’s counsel in its portions of the joint report, Belkin “is compelled to briefly respond,” it said. Contrary to those misrepresentations, Belkin “has been diligently working to collect and produce the responsive information required” by the court’s Feb. 28 order, it said. That order significantly expanded the scope of the “representative sample” at issue from a proposed 36 devices to 113, it said. In light of that tripling of the scope of the representative sampling discovery, Belkin “intends to make a rolling production of documents and expects to be able to complete its production, and to supplement any interrogatory responses as appropriate, within 45 days,” it said. To the extent that sufficient physical copies of power bank devices within the representative sample can be located in response to Gromov’s first request for production, Belkin “will make such physical devices available for inspection and non-destructive testing, subject to the parties’ agreement on an appropriate protocol,” it said. “Unsatisfied with that proposal” for reasons that aren’t clear, Gromov’s counsel demands that Belkin “complete its production of documents to multiple requests for production as to 113 products and communications about those products and supplement multiple interrogatory responses about those products within the next two weeks,” it said: “This demand is not reasonable.”

U.S. District Judge Robert Kirsch for New Jersey ordered the consolidation of four shareholder derivative class actions against current and former Verizon officers and board members for their alleged roles in concealing Verizon's ownership of toxic lead cables from investors, said the judge’s signed order Tuesday. The parties in all four class actions had stipulated to the consolidation (see 2403060003). The derivative class actions “challenge substantially the same alleged conduct by similar Verizon directors and officers, involve substantially the same questions of law and fact, and are based on substantially the same factual allegations,” said the order. The plaintiffs agree that the Rosen Law Firm should be designated as lead counsel in the consolidated class actions, it said. The first-filed complaint by Andrew Jankowski is designated as the lead case (docket 3:23-cv-21123), said the order.

T-Mobile and Wireless Vision’s Feb. 20 motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim should be denied in its entirety, said plaintiff Jane Doe in an opposition (docket 4:23-cv-05166) filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington in Richland. Doe’s November complaint alleges a T-Mobile employee downloaded, without her consent, private images and videos from a cellphone she traded in at a T-Mobile store in a Washington mall. Doe properly establishes claims against the defendants based on the actions of their employee, De'aundre Gomez, whose access and dissemination of Jane’s “explicit media occurred within the scope of his employment,” and Washington’s Unauthorized Disclosure of Intimate Images Act permits claims against corporate defendants, it said. The federal civil action related to disclosure of intimate images also permits claims based on vicarious liability, it said. The defendants negligently breached duties they owed to Doe, a customer, and they owed a duty of care to her, it said. Doe’s negligence claim is “distinct and not duplicative” and her damages are cognizable, it said. The plaintiff pleads her negligent misrepresentation claim with particularity, it said. When she traded in her phone for a credit toward a new one and agreed to have the defendants transfer her data, she “reasonably relied” on their “false representation,” made through their in-store procedures and online privacy notice, that “they securely handle sensitive customer data and devices,” it said. Doe's “detailed allegations in the amended complaint give notice of the exact misconduct alleged, that in affixing a sticker to the front of Doe’s old phone, “placing it in bubble wrap, and storing it out of reach,” defendants “failed to protect Jane’s sensitive information from exploitation,” it said. Defendants failed to implement “effective common-sense security hardware or software to protect consumers from their data and privacy being exploited during ordinary transactions at their retail stores,” it said. Defendants’ representations that T-Mobile’s policies protect customers’ data is “false,” said the opposition. “Defendants know that its retail employees routinely steal customers’ data and exploit their privacy during device upgrades and trade-ins,” yet they have neglected to improve their procedures to hire and supervise responsible employees or to impose “checks and balances via technology” to deter unlawful incidents, the opposition said.

Amazon is seeking to relate another case involving Amazon Prime Video fees to In Re: Amazon Service Fee Litigation, a consolidated action involving Whole Foods delivery fees under the Prime membership program, said its notice of related case Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-00743) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. The consolidated case, in which plaintiff Dena Griffith is suing Amazon for removing free Whole Foods grocery delivery from her Prime membership benefit, and Natalie Gianne et al v. Amazon.com, Inc. (docket 2:24-cv-00309) -- in which plaintiffs allege they were harmed by a monthly fee introduced to receive Amazon Prime Video without ads -- both arise from Amazon’s changes to benefits under Prime, said the notice. The cases bring claims under consumer protection statutes, “based on Amazon’s allegedly false or misleading promises regarding the Prime service and alleged breach of contractual obligations," and the proposed classes “overlap with the proposed class in the Gianne case,” it said. Both cases are filed against the same defendant, arise from substantially similar allegations, require determinations of substantially similar questions of fact and law, and are likely to entail substantial duplication of effort for the judges assigned to each case, it said.

Amazon’s motion to consolidate service fee cases involves different Amazon services, different service changes “made over years apart,” different putative class members and different key contractual terms, said plaintiff Wilbert Napoleon’s opposition Monday (docket 2:22-cv-00743) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle. Amazon already tried to relate Napoleon v. Amazon (docket 2:24-cv-00186) to In Re: Amazon Service Fee Litigation and U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein for Western Washington “was not persuaded,” said the opposition. Napoleon filed his case Feb. 9, and the next week, Amazon filed a notice of relation, attempting to persuade Rothstein to relate the case to Amazon Service Fee, it said. Napoleon filed a response explaining why the cases weren’t related, and Rothstein didn’t relate them, instead entering a scheduling order and setting case deadlines, it said. Amazon then filed its motion to consolidate, “but consolidation should not be an end-run around relation,” said the opposition. Amazon doesn’t meet the consolidation standard, it said, saying that in deciding whether to consolidate, courts look to “the existence of common questions of law or fact and weigh the interests of judicial economy against any delay or prejudice that might result.” Amazon "is huge; it may get accused of violating similar laws many times a year, in many different ways, and not all of these actions can or should be consolidated,” said the opposition, citing Daly v. Amazon.com. “This is because judges do not decide cases based on superficial similarities, like the fact that both cases assert consumer protection claims against Amazon subscriptions,” said the filing. Instead, judges decide cases “based on the granular operative facts and specific legal issues,” which in this case, don’t justify consolidation, it said. Napoleon’s complaint alleged Amazon “changed the deal” on its Prime Video offering by charging consumers an additional $2.99 a month for ad-free streaming (see 2402120001). Amazon Service Fee is about Amazon’s grocery delivery service, through Whole Foods.

T-Mobile “collects and retains vast troves” of personal information from its customers, and profits from that data “through its own marketing efforts, as well as by selling sensitive consumer information to third parties,” said the consolidated consumer class action complaint Friday (docket 4:23-md-03073) in U.S. District Court for Western Missouri in Kansas City filed by 38 plaintiffs who allege they were victimized in T-Mobile’s 2022 data breach (see 2306050001). T-Mobile understands “it has an enormous responsibility to protect the data it has collected,” said the complaint. But T-Mobile “completely failed to meet its obligations, yet again, to protect the sensitive consumer data of its customers,” it said. Instead, even after experiencing one of the largest and "most consequential" data breaches in U.S. history in August 2021, T-Mobile has once again suffered a massive data breach -- at least its eighth since 2017 -- which compromised the highly sensitive personal information of about 37 million consumers, it said. The 38 plaintiffs are current and former T-Mobile customers who had their personally identifiable information (PII) “exfiltrated and compromised” in the data breach that T-Mobile announced Jan. 19. 2023, said the complaint. The plaintiffs “place significant value in the security of their PII,” it said. They entrusted their sensitive PII to T-Mobile “with the understanding that T-Mobile would keep their information secure and employ reasonable and adequate security measures to ensure their information would not be compromised,” it said. Had the plaintiffs known of T-Mobile’s “lax security practices,” they wouldn’t have done business with T-Mobile, nor would they have applied for T-Mobile’s services or purchased its products, it said.

The lead plaintiff shareholders in the securities fraud suit against Warner Bros. Discovery are appealing the judge’s Feb. 5 dismissal of their case to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Appeals Court (see 2402060059), said their notice of appeal Monday (docket 1:22-cv-08171) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan. The Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio alleged that false and misleading statements about streaming subscriptions were in the offering materials that preceded Discovery’s transaction with WarnerMedia from which WBD emerged. But U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni ruled that the plaintiffs haven’t “adequately alleged any actionable statements or omissions” under sections 11 or 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act. The merger offering documents “accurately explained the methodology WarnerMedia and Discovery used for calculating the number of subscribers to their streaming platforms,” said her order.