A required joint status report and discovery plan is due May 21 in the March 7 fraud class action brought against Amazon Prime Video, said an order signed Tuesday (docket 2:24-cv-00309) by U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein for Western Washington in Seattle. The plaintiffs allege they didn’t receive the benefit of their bargain when the company hiked prices for its Prime Video subscription service in January (see 2403080014). They allege that Amazon changed the terms of its annual contract with Prime subscribers Jan. 29, charging an additional $2.99 per month for the same level of Prime Video service subscribers had been receiving without commercial interruptions.
ESO Solutions’ motion to strike the class allegations in a consolidated class action complaint (CCAC) involving its September data breach is “premature and meritless,” said the plaintiffs’ memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-01557) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin in opposition to ESO’s March 28 motion.
City of Hope National Medical Center had a responsibility to protect the personally identifiable information (PII) of some 820,000 patients but failed to do so during an Oct. 13 data breach, alleged a class action Tuesday (docket 2:24-cv-02890) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Riverside.
Block Equity Group sent Leon Weingrad telemarketing text messages Feb. 28 and March 28 in an attempt to sell him Small Business Administration-approved loans, alleged the Pennsylvania resident’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 9:24-cv-02618) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York. The complaint alleges Block violated the TCPA by sending telemarketing text messages to Weingrad and other putative class members whose numbers are listed on the national do not call registry, and that it did so without their written consent. The defendant also called people who had previously asked to no longer receive calls, said the complaint. Weingrad and the class have been harmed by the acts of Block because their privacy has been violated and they were annoyed and harassed, it said. The calls also occupied their phone lines, storage space and bandwidth, “rendering them unavailable for legitimate communication, including while driving, working, and performing other critical tasks,” it said.
The parties in Carlos Delgadillo’s Jan. 7 class action against FCA US for the automaker’s alleged Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations (see 2401090001) anticipate 14 months will be required to complete discovery, after which plaintiff Delgadillo will move for class certification, said their joint case management report and discovery plan Monday (docket 2:24-cv-10039) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan in Detroit. Delgadillo anticipates the disposition of his motion for class certification “will significantly impact the scope and timing of trial,” said the report. FCA, which does business as Stellantis North America, anticipates moving for summary judgment before class certification, it said. Delgadillo alleges that FCA violates the TCPA by making prerecorded voice calls to persons without consent, including after people requested that the calls stop, said the report. FCA responds that while it’s still investigating Delgadillo’s allegations, “the calls forming the basis of the claims appear to have pertained to an ongoing motor vehicle safety recall of airbag inflators that could rupture and launch metal fragments inside a vehicle,” it said. Those communications to Delgadillo thus constituted calls made for an “emergency purpose” that can’t support any claim under the TCPA, it said.
Aflac seeks the dismissal in its entirety of Stewart Smith’s first amended Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted (see 2403210004), said its motion Monday (docket 2:24-cv-00679) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Smith’s complaint alleges that in Aflac’s “overzealous attempt” to market its motor vehicle warranties, it willfully or knowingly made, and continues to make, unsolicited telemarketing phone calls to numbers listed on the national do not call registry (see 2402160002). But the claim in Smith’s amended complaint “arises from vague allegations of an unspecified number of calls” to his phone “made by unidentified individuals,” said Aflac’s memorandum of law in support of its motion to dismiss. Smith doesn’t allege that he received more than one call within a 12-month period, “as he must,” it said. He also doesn’t put forth “any specific facts in support of his conclusory assertion that Aflac itself or someone acting on Aflac’s behalf made the call,” it said. For example, he doesn’t identify the number that called him, describe how the caller identified himself or herself, detail what was said during the call, or provide any other facts “that could identify Aflac as the caller,” said the memorandum. Because Smith doesn’t allege sufficient facts to establish a TCPA claim, the court should dismiss his amended complaint with prejudice under Rule 12(b)(6), it said.
U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp for New Jersey in Trenton granted plaintiff Robyn Posternock and defendant SiriusXM's joint motion to set a briefing schedule on SiriusXM’s “renewed” motion to compel Posternock’s claims to arbitration, said the judge’s signed order Friday (docket 3:23-cv-02680). The company’s renewed motion is due June 14 and Posternock's opposition is due July 8, said the order. The judge last month denied without prejudice SiriusXM’s motion to compel, finding that the plaintiff adequately demonstrated that limited discovery was warranted on the issue of arbitrability before a decision is made on the defendant's motion to compel (see 2403150027). Discovery is to be completed by May 31. Posternock's class action is one of several alleging that SiriusXM falsely advertises its music plans at lower prices than it actually charges (see 2308210017).
A combined joint status report and discovery plan under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) is due May 13 in the March 19 breach of contract class action 10 plaintiffs brought against Amazon over the $2.99 Prime Video add-on fee it implemented in January (see 2403200047), said an order signed Monday (docket 2:24-cv-00364) by U.S. District Judge John Chun for Western Washington in Seattle. The report will help determine if a Rule 16 conference would be useful. In addition, it will help set a schedule for the prompt completion of the case, said Chun’s order. The plaintiffs allege that Amazon has offered Prime Video with commercial-free viewing as a benefit of its Prime membership since 2011. It began running ads on Prime Video in January and, in connection with that change, required subscribers who wanted to avoid commercials to pay a $2.99 fee. The plaintiffs allege that Amazon’s actions violate the Washington Consumer Protection Act and the unfair and deceptive acts and practices statutes “of virtually every other state in the country.”
A lawsuit against Progress Software Corp. and Delta Dental is the lone class action transferred in conditional transfer order 37 (CTO-37) (docket 3083) to In Re: MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston Monday. Shannon Harker’s March 25 negligence complaint alleges PSC and Delta Dental failed to provide timely notice of PSC’s May data breach in its MOVEit cloud hosting and file transfer service, which insurer Delta Dental used to transfer or store the sensitive information of its 45 million customers, said the complaint (docket 3:24-cv-01830). Though PSC claimed to have notified its customers immediately upon learning of the vulnerability on May 31, and both defendants “knew as early as July 6" that Delta Dental’s customers’ information was involved in the breach, they didn’t notify Delta customers of the breach until Jan. 12, said the complaint. Since the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred five actions involving the MOVEit breach to the Massachusetts court, 218 additional actions have been transferred, said the order, which is stayed for seven days to allow any party to file a notice of opposition.
HP’s claim that it’s entitled to dismissal of an 80-count antitrust and consumer fraud class action depends on "applying pleading standards that have no basis in the law of this circuit," said the response Monday (docket 1:24-cv-00164) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago from the 11 plaintiffs in opposition to HP's motion to dismiss.