Apple formally objected to a Feb. 16 order from U.S. District Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym in Riverside, California, which tried to compel the company to help the FBI access an iPhone used by one of the alleged San Bernardino, California, mass shooters (see 1602170068). Apple filed the notice Tuesday. The next day, the company filed a notice of supplemental authority to call attention to Monday's decision by U.S. District Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in New York's Eastern District that rejected the government's use of the All Writs Act to force Apple to help the FBI unlock the passcode on an iPhone used in a drug case (see 1603010013). The FBI is invoking the All Writs Act in the California case and several others across the country. Apple is using Orenstein's decision to support its motion that the California case be dismissed (see 1602250056).

U.S. District Judge Robin Cauthron in Oklahoma City erred in overturning a $6.31 million jury verdict against Cox Communications for its set-top box rental policies (see 1511130005) when she said the plaintiff had to identify specific competitors wanting to sell set-tops in the Oklahoma City market but didn't because of Cox's tying policy, said class action plaintiffs Richard Healy et al. in an opening brief filed Monday with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That proof requirement was "fabricated out of whole cloth" and contrary to Supreme Court and 10th Circuit precedent, the plaintiff said. He asked the appellate court to reverse Cauthron's decision giving judgment in favor of Cox and restore the jury verdict. Regardless of the validity of the proof requirement, Healy said, the court record shows substantial evidence of specific competitors excluded from that set-top market because of Cox requiring rental of one of its set-tops to access all Premium Cable content and features. The plaintiff said Cauthron's ruling wrongly disregarded evidence that the plaintiff class had suffered injury in paying $6.31 million worth of "supracompetitive" set-top rental rates. The Healy brief also requested oral argument. Cox didn't comment Tuesday.

Plaintiffs in 17 of 20 class-action complaints against the Inscape viewer-tracking feature on Vizio smart TVs (see 1512060005) agree with Vizio that the complaints should be transferred to the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, and "centralized" there into one case, lawyers for the plaintiffs and Vizio told the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in a joint filing. The panel scheduled oral argument for March 31 in Santa Barbara, California, on the motion to consolidate, the panel order said. All the complaints allege Inscape violates the federal Video Protection Privacy Act and other federal and state statutes. Vizio hadn’t filed a legal defense to any of the complaints and agreed to submit one of the cases to a private mediator (see 1512060005). Plaintiffs in two of the remaining cases want the complaints transferred to and consolidated in federal courts in Arkansas or Indiana, court papers show. “Centralization” of the cases “is appropriate and prudent,” and Santa Ana is “the most logical forum choice,” because that court has a history of “expeditiously and efficiently” resolving civil complaints, the 17 plaintiffs and Vizio also told the panel Thursday in written arguments. Santa Ana also makes sense because Vizio and most of the plaintiffs are based in Southern California, they said. Consolidating the various complaints into one case in a single locale would “promote judicial economy and avoid inconsistent rulings,” the arguments said.

The FBI is making a "stunning overreach" in its court battle with Apple over demands that the company "create a new operating system with a 'swinging door' that the federal government can enter and exit without any rules whatsoever, whenever they wish," House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., said in a statement Friday. If Apple complies with the court order to unlock an iPhone of one of the San Bernardino, California, shooters (see 1602250056), "it would in essence be ordered to also unlock a world where our personal information is vulnerable to attacks by terrorist organizations, rogue nations and others seeking to cause the U.S. harm and instill fear," Eshoo added. Not only would back doors endanger the country and provide a way for hackers and others to exploit, she said, the American public's trust in the government already has been "severely diminished" through its past spying actions. Congress is considering forming a commission to study the encryption issue (see 1602240056).

Apple is asking a federal court to throw out the Department of Justice and FBI motion to compel the company to unlock an iPhone connected with the Dec. 2, 2015, San Bernardino, California, terrorist attack (see 1602220026). In Thursday's 36-page motion to U.S. District Court in Riverside, California, lawyers for Apple wrote that the case goes beyond "one isolated iPhone." They said it's about the government seeking a "dangerous power" from courts, one that hasn't been granted by Congress: "the ability to force companies like Apple to undermine the basic security and privacy interests of hundreds of millions of individuals around the globe." Apple also said that no court has ever authorized what the government now wants. While the government said it's only seeking unlocking for this one device, Apple said the government knows that's not true and "has filed multiple other applications for similar orders." It said that state and local officials have "publicly declared their intent to use the proposed operating system to open hundreds of other seized devices -- in cases having nothing to do with terrorism." The company added that "once the floodgates open, they cannot be closed, and the device security that Apple has worked so tirelessly to achieve will be unwound without so much as a congressional vote." U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, who ordered Apple to help the FBI get into the locked device, has set a March 22 hearing.

The 20th complaint seeking class-action status against Vizio and its Inscape smart TV viewer-tracking feature (see 1512060005) was brought on behalf of a Pittsburgh consumer who bought her Vizio TV at a Target store over Black Friday weekend, said court documents. Plaintiff Caroline Tongarm filed the action to “enjoin” Vizio from tracking and collecting users’ personal information without their consent, and to seek damages “on behalf of herself and other similarly-situated owners for violations of their privacy and consumer rights under federal and state law,” said the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Vizio representatives didn’t comment Friday, nor has the company filed defense answers to any previous complaints.

If President Barack Obama is determined to nominate a black woman to fill Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacant seat on the Supreme Court, one viable candidate would be Ketanji Brown Jackson, U.S. district judge in the District of Columbia, wrote Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSBlog.com, Tuesday in a blog post. Jackson is the presiding judge in the recording industry’s complaint that the major automakers have violated the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) by shipping CD-copying hard drives without paying royalties required under the statute (see 1407310086). Jackson held a hearing May 5 on the automakers’ motions to dismiss the case because their products are outside the AHRA’s scope (see 1505060062), but after nine months of taking the arguments under advisement, she hasn't ruled on the pleadings. In Jackson, Obama would have a nominee who previously was confirmed “without any Republican opposition in the Senate not once, but twice,” first for a seat on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, later to her current judgeship, said Goldstein. Jackson’s “credentials are impeccable,” including cum laude graduate honors at the Harvard Law School and being a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, said Goldstein, who has argued more than 30 cases before the Supreme Court. Jackson, 45, also is related by marriage to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., wrote Goldstein.

The 2nd U.S Circuit Court of Appeals rejected FilmOn's appeal of a contempt of court ruling and accompanying $90,000 fine against the streaming video company, said an opinion. The contempt finding stemmed from the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's ABC v. Aereo, when the court said the Aereo streaming service was illegally performing broadcaster content. After that decision, FilmOn -- already then under an injunction not to perform copyrighted material -- issued a news release announcing a VOD offering that used nearly identical technology to Aereo, and continued showing broadcast content. FilmOn's rationale was that the language used by the Supreme Court compared Aereo to a cable system, Tuesday's order said. FilmOn argued the law on the legality of its service was made murky by the high court decision, the opinion said. But FilmOn hadn't applied for the compulsory license that allows cable carriers to offer broadcast content, and language in an opinion isn't the same as a change in the law, the 2nd Circuit said. Considering FilmOn’s “history of misreading changes in federal copyright law and being held in contempt for violating multiple federal injunctions,” a prudent response by FilmOn to the Aereo decision “should have included proceeding with caution,” the 2nd Circuit said. FilmOn had argued the district court's fine was too high, that CEO Alkiviades David shouldn't have personally been found in contempt, and that it shouldn't have to pay attorney's fees for its broadcaster opponents, but the 2nd Circuit rejected all arguments. “FilmOn’s history of aggressively pushing the bounds of the Injunction and of repeatedly neglecting to petition the district court for clarifications further highlights the sanction’s coercive purpose and effect,” the 2nd Circuit said.

With 15 complaints filed against Vizio in seven different U.S. District Courts over privacy implications of the company’s “smart interactivity” viewer-tracking feature (see 1512060005), Vizio joined with plaintiffs to ask the courts to temporarily stay the complaints until a federal panel can rule whether to consolidate the cases into a single class action. An interim stay would promote the chances of multidistrict litigation (MDL) consolidation or coordination of the cases “by conserving judicial resources, preventing inconsistent pretrial rulings, and promoting the interest of justice,” Vizio and the plaintiffs said in a stipulation filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, one of the seven venues where the cases are being heard. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is expected to rule on the pending MDL applications “within a reasonable amount of time,” it said. While Vizio and most of the plaintiffs agree the cases should be transferred to the Santa Ana court, two plaintiffs have asked for the complaints to be transferred to federal courts in Indiana or Arkansas, the stipulation said. All lawyers on both sides agree the complaints “concern the same subject matter and should be transferred to a single district” but disagree on “the ultimate location and judge” to which they should be assigned, the stipulation said.

Travelers Property Casualty's attempt to add Ace American Insurance as a defendant in its lawsuit against Dish Network "is blatant forum shopping," Ace said in memorandum in opposition Thursday in U.S. District Court in Springfield, Illinois. Travelers sued Dish in 2012, Ace a year later, with both seeking determinations they aren't responsible for defense costs as Dish fights claims by the FTC and California, Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio alleging violations of the telemarketing sales rule because Dish helped dealers make robocalls (see 0903260144). Travelers in December filed a motion to amend its complaint to assert a claim against Ace, seeking defense cost contributions from Ace to the extent the two insurers are found to owe Dish defense costs. In its response motion, Ace said Travelers has had years to transfer or consolidate the Ace and Travelers suits, but it "permitted parallel proceedings to continue in different jurisdictions until long after it received an unfavorable ruling ... that it had a duty to defend Dish" and months after it became evident Travelers and Dish were at loggerheads regarding summary judgment. Travelers didn't comment Friday.