An array of educational policy experts and parents lambasted what they see as an overly heavy reliance on technology in classrooms on Wednesday during an NTIA listening session. Administrator Arielle Roth said earlier this month that a focus of the agency is looking at issues related to excessive screen use in educational settings (see 512020015). The FCC's E-rate program was also criticized by multiple speakers.
A broadening of Texas' version of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act earlier this year didn't "explicitly carve out a defense on the basis of consent," Mintz class-action lawyer Esteban Morales wrote last week. Even businesses that send text messages with otherwise compliant consent might still need to comply "with the statute’s onerous registration requirements," he said. But litigation brought by Ecommerce Marketers Alliance against Texas and its secretary of state about the lack of a clear consent defense has ended with "an industry-friendly order" that gives companies "powerful ammunition" against telephone solicitation claims. The plaintiffs had filed for a preliminary injunction, and in response, the state took the position that the law in fact should be interpreted to include a defense based on consent, Morales said. The parties then filed a joint motion for dismissal, he noted, and an order last week from the U.S. District Court for Western Texas said businesses operating consent-based text message marketing campaigns are specifically exempted from having to go through the registration step.
Plaintiffs' attempt to bring yet another amended complaint related to AT&T's ownership of old cables with lead contamination is a "brazen attempt to skirt the Rules," the carrier told the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas last week (docket 3:24-cv-01196). In an emergency motion to strike, AT&T said the amended class-action securities fraud complaint is an attempt to avoid responding to its pending motion to dismiss (see 2509170009). The amended complaint was filed earlier last week. Typically, plaintiffs get to amend their complaint once, and the third filing "flouts that rule," AT&T said. The company is being sued for allegedly having made “materially false and misleading statements” about its ownership of legacy telecom cables with toxic lead.
A second amended class-action complaint about AT&T ownership of legacy telecom cables laden with toxic lead (see 2311270004) still hasn't alleged enough facts to show that the company knowingly acted wrongly or with an intent to deceive, according to the company. In a motion to dismiss filed with the U.S. District Court for Northern Texas (docket 3:24-cv-01196), AT&T said the plaintiffs ignore the fact that more than two years after Wall Street Journal articles about the old telecom infrastructure and its environmental risks, which prompted the litigation, "none of those purported risks has come to fruition." The plaintiffs also haven't adequately pleaded actionable falsity for any alleged misstatement or omission, AT&T added.
Representatives of the Ecommerce Innovation Alliance met with an aide to Chairman Brendan Carr on the group’s pursuit of a declaratory ruling finding that people who provide prior express written consent to receive text messages can't claim damages under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act for those received outside the hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. (see 2503030036).
Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) and its top executives were engaged in "straightforward ... securities fraud" when they concealed from investors how important NBA rights were to its revenues, class-action plaintiffs said Monday as they opposed the company's motion to dismiss their suit. While WBD argues that the market already knew the value of the NBA rights, the matching clause terms in its contract with the NBA was less "potent" than the company had made it out to be in public statements, the plaintiffs said. WBD CEO David Zaslav and CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels are also defendants in the suit, filed in November at the U.S. District Court for Southern New York (docket 1:24-cv-09027). The plaintiffs are suing over the financial hit WBD took in 2024 when it lost NBA rights to Amazon.
Telephone Consumer Protection Act and marketing lawyers see Friday's U.S. Supreme Court decision on the deference that lower courts are to give the FCC over telemarketing issues (see 2506200053) as potentially resetting decades of TCPA precedence by the agency.
The Nebraska attorney general filed a lawsuit against online marketplace Temu on Thursday, alleging privacy and consumer protection violations. The state seeks to stop Temu from collecting, maintaining and using consumers' personally identifiable information (PII).
The company challenging Hobbs Act limits on lower court review of an FCC decision in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case told the U.S. Supreme Court the government and its supporters are seeking “a strikingly broad reading” of the act. SCOTUS is scheduled to hear McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Jan. 21, a case from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Four major trade associations urged that the U.S. Supreme Court reject arguments that a lower court can review an FCC decision in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act case and isn’t barred from doing so under the Hobbs Act. That view largely supports U.S. government arguments on the important role the act plays (see 2412240022). SCOTUS is scheduled to hear McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates v. McKesson Jan. 21, a case from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.