U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg for Northern Georgia in Atlanta granted the motion of Roswell, Georgia, letting it substitute Ben Levitan as its expert witness in the city’s cell tower fight against T-Mobile, said the judge's signed order Monday (docket 1:10-cv-01464). Ronald Graiff resigned unexpectedly March 2 as the Roswell expert, citing stress from the assignment (see 2403110001). T-Mobile vigorously opposed the city’s substitution motion, arguing that it was in effect a last-minute strategy for replacing Graiff because it realized his work was inadequate. But Totenberg found there was no credible evidence indicating “bad faith or deviousness” on the city’s part to use Levitan as a substitute expert, the judge’s order said. The city’s counsel promptly notified the court of Graiff's issue and “expeditiously moved to identify a new expert,” it said. The need for technical issues in this matter to be “properly presented” to the court “is obvious,” it added. The court found Roswell's motion for expert substitution "reasonable and supported by good cause,” said the order. In addition, the court ruled that granting its substitution motion “is necessary to prevent the harsh prejudice” that would result if the city was deprived use of a substitute expert, it said. Over T-Mobile’s strong objections, the court won’t confine the city’s new expert to giving expert testimony as a “virtual ventriloquist” for Graiff, it said. The court will require that Levitan “produce an expert report and be subject to a deposition, to ensure that T-Mobile has an adequate opportunity to prepare for the evidentiary hearing” in June and to be sure it’s not prejudiced by the substitution of counsel, said the order. On T-Mobile’s request that the city reimburse its attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in connection with the work and depositions associated with the switch in experts, the court “reserves review of the merits of this request to after the conclusion of the evidentiary hearing,” it said.
The Center for Countering Digital Hate took to X Monday, pinning a tweet that trumpeted its court victory over Elon Musk's breach-of-contract lawsuit. “A huge win for everyone working to hold social media giants to account,” tweeted CCDH.
Apple uses anticompetitive practices “to illegally maintain monopoly power over the smartphone market,” plaintiffs Richard Dwyer and Aimen Halim alleged in their class action Monday (docket 5:24-cv-01844) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website March 25, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Roswell, Georgia, is pushing back against T-Mobile’s resistance to the city’s motion to substitute a new RF engineering expert witness after its previous expert resigned suddenly March 2, saying the job was too stressful (see 2403180002).
A listing of recent Commerce Department antidumping and countervailing duty messages posted on CBP's website March 22, along with the case number(s) and CBP message number, is provided below. The messages are available by searching for the listed CBP message number at CBP's ADCVD Search page.
Ten Amazon Prime members filed a breach of contract class action (docket 2:24-cv-00364) against Amazon Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle over the $2.99 Prime Video add-on fee it implemented in January.
Plaintiff Greg Bostard’s second amended complaint against Verizon’s lead cables, amended “solely for the purpose of adding an additional plaintiff” (see 2403130037), identifies that new plaintiff as Tony Rockhill, a New Jersey resident who has worked for Altice USA since 2008. Rockhill worked first as a field service technician and later as an outside service technician, the position he currently holds, said the complaint Monday (docket 1:23-cv-08564) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark. His work in both roles “brought him into regular contact with Verizon’s lead cables,” which are located some 15 inches from Altice’s cables, it said. As a result of this “close proximity,” his hands and arms “routinely have to touch Verizon’s cables in order to interact with Altice’s cables,” it said. As with Bostard, a former Comcast utility pole worker, when Rockhill perspires, “he sometimes rubs his face, including his eyes and mouth with his hands that had been in direct contact with Verizon’s lead-sheathed cables,” it said. The complaint seeks to compel Verizon to pay for their medical monitoring. April 18 is Verizon’s deadline to file a motion to dismiss the second amended complaint.
Sinclair, operator of TennisChannel.com, uses a “wide array of extremely sophisticated tracking technology” that collects its subscribers’ personally identifiable information (PII) and viewing history, and “knowingly discloses” that to third-party analytics and advertising providers, alleged plaintiff Tracy Hyman’s Video Privacy Protection Act class action Monday (docket 2:24-cv-02168) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles.
Sephora ran a telemarketing campaign that promote its products and services by repeatedly sending text messages or making phone calls to numbers whose recipients asked to be added to Sephora’s internal do not call registry, “a plain violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act,” alleged plaintiff Megan Kelly’s class action Friday (docket 4:24-cv-01648) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland. Kelly originally consented to receive Sephora’s marketing text messages, but on Jan. 24, she grew tired “of the sheer number" of them daily, so she replied “STOP” to opt out of receiving future texts, said the complaint. Sephora immediately responded that Kelly was “unsubscribed,” but she nevertheless received at least 22 more text messages after her opt-out request urging her to opt back in, it said. “Not only was the number of text messages unreasonable, the times at which she received them was also unreasonable,” said the complaint. On Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 alone, Sephora sent Kelly 21 text messages in total, between 11:25 p.m. and 2:42 a.m., “a clear violation of the TCPA’s calling hours restrictions,” it said. Kelly’s existing business relationship with Sephora “ceased to exist the minute she opted out of its text messaging campaign,” said the complaint. Kelly’s first request to stop texting should have “triggered” Sephora’s obligation under the TCPA to put her number on its internal DNC list, “both under the relevant regulations and under its own internal policies,” it said. But Sephora failed to do that and enforce its internal DNC list policies, it said. Sephora, therefore, “illegally and knowingly” continued to contact Kelly after she requested that Sephora stop texting her, it said.