U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco said Meta can file by Nov. 23 a supplemental response objecting to the declaration of an expert witness in support of an injunction to bar Meta from intercepting or disseminating patient information collected through its Pixel tracking tool, in Orrick’s order Monday (docket 3:22-cv-03580). The large privacy class action alleged in mid-June that when a patient communicates with a healthcare provider’s website where the Pixel tool is present, its source code causes the exact content of the patient’s communication with the healthcare provider to be redirected to Facebook in a fashion that identifies the user as a patient. The expert witness, Christo Wilson, a Northeastern University computer sciences associate professor, said in his Oct. 26 declaration that Meta could easily comply with an injunctive relief order by using its existing filtering tools and web-crawlers, with “slight modifications.” Meta also could “immediately disable any Pixel that it finds have sent patient data in the past, in addition to their existing practice of notifying the developer who created the Pixel,” it said. Meta objected to the Wilson declaration and asked Orrick to strike it because Meta lacked an opportunity to respond to it, said his order Monday. Though Orrick denied the request to strike the declaration, he will permit Meta to respond to it, it said. After that, “no further briefing with regards to the motion for a preliminary injunction shall be allowed,” said Orrick’s order. He will let the parties know later if he wants to hear argument on Meta’s supplemental declaration, it said.

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation closed briefing Thursday on the Oct. 7 motion to transfer to the Northern District of California the dozen or more fraud class actions seeking relief from Samsung’s summertime data breach and consolidating them under U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco, said the clerk’s minute order (case 3055). Attorneys must notify the clerk promptly of potential “tag-along actions,” plus any development “that moots the motion or fully disposes of any action on the motion,” said the order. Lawyers in any potential tag-along action may file an “interested party” response but must do so promptly and no later than the Thursday before any hearing on the motion for transfer, it said. No hearing has been scheduled on the original Oct. 7 motion and the many filings since that support or oppose it. Plaintiffs in the multiple Samsung class actions filed in six jurisdictions are evenly split into camps that want the cases moved to the Northern California district in San Francisco or the New Jersey district in Newark. Samsung said its preference is for the cases to be consolidated and tried in U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas (see 2211030006).

AT&T and T-Mobile want the U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Sherman to issue a protective order to prevent disclosure of their confidential information during discovery of AT&T’s Sept. 6 false advertising complaint over T-Mobile’s BannedSeniors.com campaign, said the carriers in a joint motion Friday (docket 4:22-cv-00760). There's good cause for a protective order, said their motion. AT&T and T-Mobile expect during discovery to exchange confidential information that, if disclosed outside the safeguards of a protective order, “would create a substantial risk of serious harm to the competitive position of the parties,” it said. Protection of confidential information is necessary “because discovery in this action will require disclosure of documents that are relevant to the claims and defenses asserted,” said the text of the proposed order. “It is likely that such documents will contain confidential personal information, financial information, and/or proprietary or trade secret information.” AT&T alleges in its complaint that each of the claims in the BannedSeniors.com campaign is "literally false" when T-Mobile asserts that 92% of U.S. seniors can't get an AT&T discount because they live outside Florida. T-Mobile moved Sept. 16 to dismiss the case for lack of personal jurisdiction on grounds that AT&T's claims do not belong in a Texas court.

The three plaintiffs in the Oct. 7 class action alleging Dish Network bilked New York installers of their proper biweekly pay and wrongfully terminated them in retaliation for their complaints about unsafe vans voluntarily dismissed their claims against Dish without prejudice, said their notice of dismissal Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-08151) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York. Dish’s letter motion for a deadline extension to Nov. 15 to answer the complaint foretold a looming settlement in the case (see 2210070037). Settlement terms weren't disclosed in Tuesday’s notice of dismissal, but Dish told U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil the plaintiffs agreed to individually arbitrate their disputes with Dish.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila for Northern California in San Jose scheduled a Feb. 16 initial case management conference in the Oct. 21 class action alleging Google violates the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, said a clerk’s text-only notice Friday (docket 5:22-cv-06398). Davila was reassigned the case Thursday after plaintiff Ryan Segal didn't consent to having it heard by U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia DeMarchi (see 2211040001). Segal’s complaint alleges Google, through Google Assistant, surreptitiously collects, uses and stores voiceprints of each individual who speaks to an enabled device.

Tammy Gutierrez, a plaintiff in one of the 13 data breach fraud class actions filed against Samsung, disagrees with those plaintiffs who argue that the Northern District of California would be the proper venue, she said in an “interested party response” Tuesday (case 3005). Agreeing the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should consolidate the cases under a single judge, she supports “transfer and consolidation” of the cases to the U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark, she said, though her own complaint (docket 3:22-cv-05719) is pending in San Francisco. The plaintiffs are evenly split into camps that want the cases moved to San Francisco or Newark. Samsung wants the cases transferred to and consolidated in the U.S. District Court for Nevada in Las Vegas, or the Southern District for New York in Manhattan (see 2211030006).

DirecTV seeks expedited discovery and court permission to serve foreign entities with subpoenas via courier in its complaint to thwart a a global imposter fraud scheme (see 2211010049), said its motion Tuesday (docket 6:22-cv-00423) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Tyler. Expedited discovery is “appropriate” in this case, because nonparties such as LinkedIn, eBay, PayPal, Zelle, Authorize.Net, Elavon, Tango and Facebook “are likely in possession of information” pertinent to the imposter scheme, but “are under no obligation to preserve or share such information” with DirecTV, said the motion. DirecTV’s complaint alleged the perpetrators of the scheme connect and do business in Facebook groups, LinkedIn chats and on employment sites such as Upwork. Amid DirecTV’s investigative findings that the fraudsters operate through overseas call centers and foreign co-conspirators, DirecTV needs to serve subpoenas on foreign entities, including entities in Pakistan and call centers, domain registrars, hosting companies and internet service providers located outside the U.S., it said. When pursuing service in countries that are signatories to Hague Convention protocols, including Pakistan, nothing precludes sending judicial documents by postal channels directly to persons abroad, as long as the destination country doesn't object, it said.

Plaintiffs Naeem Seirafi and Shelby Holtzclaw support the motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) to transfer all the Samsung data breach class actions to U.S. District Court for Northern California and consolidate them under a single judge, Jacqueline Scott Corley in San Francisco, said their response Tuesday (case 3005). The JPML docket shows 13 related class actions pending in six federal districts, it said. The lawsuits “are nearly identical, as all actions assert common factual allegations and involve overlapping claims and legal issues,” it said. Consolidating the cases in a single district “will promote judicial efficiency, and will avoid the risk of inconsistent and overlapping judgments,” it said. It rejects the arguments of several U.S. District of New Jersey plaintiffs to move all the cases to Newark instead of San Francisco (see 2210270003) because the Northern District of California has “significantly fewer pending civil cases” than Newark (11,248 vs. 63,299), it said. Transferring the cases to San Francisco “would not be a burden on the judicial system there,” it said.

Two more plaintiffs from among the dozen or so fraud class actions over Samsung’s summertime data breach support the motion before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation to transfer all the cases to U.S. District Court for Northern California and consolidate them under Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, said their response to the motion Thursday (case number 3005). John Bennett filed his class action against Samsung in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, and Jay Gelizon filed his in the 8th Judicial District Court, Clark County, Nevada. They’re likely the only cases filed so far in venues other than California and New Jersey. The complaints were subsequently removed to federal courts in Chicago and Las Vegas, respectively. Though a group of New Jersey plaintiffs have moved to consolidate the actions in U.S. District Court in Newark (see 2210260001), Bennett and Gelizon think the Northern District of California “would be the best, most efficient and most streamlined forum” for all the class actions, said their filing. One of their rationales for transferring the cases to San Francisco and consolidating them there under a single judge, they said, is that that’s where Samsung’s “operations are based.” Samsung corporately runs an R&D lab in Silicon Valley, but Samsung Electronics America is headquartered in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey.

The New Jersey plaintiffs in two more fraud class actions over Samsung’s summertime data breach support the motion to transfer all the cases to U.S. District Court in Newark and consolidating them under a single judge (see 2210260001), said their response Wednesday before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. New Jersey “is the transferee district best suited” to take on the MDL “because Samsung is headquartered there, relevant documents and witnesses will be found there, and it is where corporate decisions were ultimately made with regard to Samsung’s data security systems, procedures and practices, and response to the data breach,” said attorneys for Joseph Rollins, Alex Chandler and Seledia Serina. While Samsung’s data breach “may have affected consumers throughout the country, it was caused by the actions of Samsung’s employees who are located in the District of New Jersey,” they said.