Ryan Binkley, who suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination Feb. 27, placed prerecorded calls and sent text-message solicitations to consumers’ cellphones to promote his telephonic town hall events without first obtaining their prior express consent, alleged Thomas Grant’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act class action Monday (docket 3:24-cv-01286) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas. Grant alleges that Binkley “expressly authorized” the making of these prerecorded calls “or knew that they were going to be made for his personal benefit, to promote his presidential candidacy, and did nothing to stop them,” said the complaint. “Binkley controlled the timing of calls, right before his telephonic town hall events,” it said. Binkley also actively promoted his town hall events through his personal social media channels, including on Facebook and Instagram, it said. Binkley also controlled the recipients of the calls “by dictating that the messages be sent to voters registered as independents,” including Grant, it said. The plaintiff seeks injunctive relief to stop Binkley from violating the TCPA, plus an award of statutory damages to the members of the class and court costs and attorneys’ fees, said the complaint. The Hudson, New Hampshire, resident alleges that Binkley or his campaign sent five calls or text messages to his cellphone in late January without his consent. The unauthorized solicitation phone calls and text messages that Grant received from or on behalf of the defendant have harmed the plaintiff “in the form of annoyance, nuisance, and invasion of privacy,” plus they have occupied his phone line, and disturbed the use and enjoyment of his phone, said the complaint. Grant sued another former Republican presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, Jan. 23 on similar allegations (see 2401240002). Ramaswamy has blasted that complaint as a “shakedown,” contending that Grant should have targeted Ramaswamy’s campaign, Vivek 2024, as the proper TCPA defendant (see 2403250026).
A network of China-based individuals and businesses is selling products bearing counterfeit versions of the Roblox trademark on numerous online marketplaces in Illinois and throughout the U.S., alleged a Lanham Act complaint Thursday (docket 1:24-cv-04246) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.
Hip-hop group Run-DMC and its brand infringed the rights of photographer Ferrin Green, also known as Shoebio, and his creative agency, Know Your Dope (KYD), when it exploited eight photographs Shoebio created during an Aug. 11, 2023, performance at Yankee Stadium in New York, alleged a copyright infringement lawsuit (docket 1:24-cv-03900) Monday in U.S. District Court for Southern New York.
Marriott is using “hundreds” of videos containing unlicensed music from Sony-owned labels, according to Sony's copyright infringement suit. It was filed Friday (docket 1:24-cv-00598) in U.S. District Court for Delaware in Wilmington.
Snap’s “reckless disregard for the safety of minor users” allows sexual predators to use its social media platform to target and exploit minors, alleged a negligence complaint Friday (docket 3:24-cv-03068) in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Columbia.
The U.S. Supreme Court distributed for the justices’ May 30 conference the cert petition of three former Twitter users who are seeking review of the 6th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court’s judgment affirming that they lacked Article III standing to bring First Amendment social media censorship claims against the Department of Health and Human Services (see 2403270011), said a text-only docket entry Tuesday (docket 23-1062). The Twitter accounts of petitioners Mark Changizi, Michael Senger and Daniel Kotzin were terminated or suspended by the platform for publishing COVID-19 tweets that were deemed to have run counter to HHS’ pandemic public information policy. They allege the same First Amendment government censorship claims as the five individual plaintiffs in Murthy v. Missouri (docket 23-411) who seek to affirm the 5th Circuit's social media censorship injunction against officials from the White House and four federal agencies.
Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.
Sprout Social, a developer of social media management platforms, made materially false and misleading statements and failed to disclose “material adverse facts” from Nov. 2 to May 2, leading to “artificially inflated” stock prices, alleged a securities fraud class action (docket 1:24-cv-03867) Monday in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois.
Google is “self-preferencing” its YouTube videos in Google search results over links to searched-for videos on other online video platforms, alleged Rumble Canada's antitrust complaint Monday (docket 5:24-cv-02880) against Google and parent Alphabet in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose. The plaintiff claims damages of over $1 billion, “before trebling.”
U.S. District Judge Jeremy Kernodle for Eastern Texas in Tyler denied the State Department’s motion to dismiss the complaint of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the right-leaning Daily Wire and Federalist media outlets and allegations that the department is marketing and promoting censorship tools and technologies to social media platforms to stifle the content of disfavored press organizations (see 2312060043), said the judge’s signed memorandum opinion and order Tuesday (docket 6:23-cv-00609). The judge also denied the department’s motion to transfer the case to the District of Columbia on grounds that venue is improper in the Eastern District of Texas, said his order. The judge did grant the department’s motion to dismiss Count 4 of the complaint because the plaintiffs haven’t identified a final agency action for the court to review under the Administrative Procedure Act, it said. On the other counts, the judge found that the complaint sufficiently alleges that the plaintiffs have standing to challenge the defendants’ actions, it said.