Judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals questioned the FCC on how the commission structures its Universal Service Fund and oversees the role the Universal Service Administrative Co. plays in determining quarterly contribution factors during an en banc hearing Tuesday. Some pressed Consumers' Research on how the private nondelegation doctrine applied to its challenge of the Q1 2022 USF contribution factor (see 2309010060).

Meta intercepted individuals’ personal health data from their “covered entities” and via the Meta Pixel tracking tool profited from it without their consent, said a fraud class action Monday (docket 4:23-cv-04784) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland.

The facts of the case that sparked the preliminary injunction that bars officials from the White House, the Office of the Surgeon General, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from coercing social media platforms to moderate their content show that the federal officials wielded “their influence and power to censor the speech of individuals” whose viewpoints they disfavored, said Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (R).

DOJ sided with Dish Network, against T-Mobile, over whether Dish should get more time to buy 800 MHz spectrum, filing Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which is handling T-Mobile’s buy of Sprint (see 2308170065). The government supports giving Dish until April 1 to buy the spectrum, or pay a $72 million fee for walking away from the deal (see 1907260071). Dish asked for an extension through June 30.

The plaintiffs’ claims in a June privacy complaint against Google and its Admob subsidiary are time-barred, fail to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) and are preempted by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), said the defendants' motion to dismiss Thursday (docket 5:23-cv-03101) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose.

Communications Litigation Today is tracking the below lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions. Cases marked with an * were terminated since the last update. Cases in bold are new since the last update.

Peacock TV engages in an illegal automatic renewal scheme for its subscription streaming service with consumers who enroll in its membership programs through its website, mobile app or set-top devices, alleged plaintiff Holly Winston's fraud class action Friday (docket 1:23-cv-08191) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

The U.S. Supreme Court shouldn’t “overrule” Chevron because it’s “a bedrock principle of administrative law that provides an appropriately tailored framework for judicial review of an agency’s interpretation of a statute it administers,” said U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in the government’s brief Friday in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (docket 22-451). It's not a view shared among the dozens that filed amicus briefs in the case through July 24 in unequivocal support of eliminating Chevron (see 2307240050).

Numerous media disclosures between July 9 and July 14 that Lumen Technologies had culpability for failing to remove the toxic lead cables it inherited decades ago from the Bell system sent the stock tumbling more than 22%, alleged plaintiff John McLemore’s securities fraud class action Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01290) in U.S. District Court for Western Louisiana in Monroe. McLemore alleges on behalf of himself and his proposed class that he bought Lumen shares at “artificially inflated prices,” and was “damaged upon the revelation of the alleged corrective disclosures.”

A U.S. District judge for Northern Texas granted in part and denied in part AT&T’s motion to dismiss the Civil Rights Act Section 1981 complaint in which Legacy Equity Advisors alleged AT&T deprived it of bidding on Cricket Wireless, DirecTV, AT&T’s Puerto Rican wireless division and other divested assets because it’s Black-owned (see 2305040065). Judge Sidney Fitzwater in Dallas granted Legacy leave to file a first amended complaint, said his signed memorandum opinion and order Friday (docket 3:23-cv-00979).