Progress Software (PSC) and Pension Benefits Information (PBI) failed to properly secure and safeguard plaintiff Dana LoGiudici’s personally identifiable information (PII), said a Tuesday class action (docket 1:23-cv-11916) in U.S. District Court for Massachusetts in Boston. Defendants violated Section 5 of the FTC Act by failing to protect plaintiffs’ PII in a data breach, it said.

J.Crew enables wiretapping of electronic communications between the clothing company and its customers without the recipients' knowledge, said a Tuesday privacy class action (docket 1:23-cv-07429) in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan.

Despite Ford’s best efforts to “shoehorn” its demand for arbitration into one of several vehicle purchase or lease agreements signed by the four plaintiffs in the class action against the automaker, “the overwhelming weight of precedent and the plain language of the agreements do not permit it.” So said the plaintiffs’ opposition Monday (docket 3:22-cv-01716) in U.S. District Court for Southern California to Ford’s June 30 motion to compel their claims to arbitration and stay the case pending the outcome of that arbitration (see 2307030014).

Plaintiffs filed a notice of related action “out of an abundance of caution,” in MOVEit Customer Data Security Breach Litigation Tuesday before the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Plaintiffs Katelin Malo, individually, and as parent and next friend of K.J., a minor, Corrinna Reed and Joann Kindred sued (docket 6:23-cv-01149) Performance Health Technology (PH Tech) this month in a negligence class action stemming from the MOVEit data breach May 30.

VoIP services company XCast Labs denied in a Monday answer (docket 23-cv-03646) and affirmative defenses that it assisted in the delivery of “billions of illegal robocalls” or that it assisted anyone in making telemarketing calls to consumers, as alleged by DOJ in a May Telemarketing Sales Rule (see 2305150021) lawsuit in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. The defendant also filed 12 counterclaims.

The Aug. 7 opposition of Legacy Equity Advisors to AT&T’s July 17 motion to dismiss (see 2308080037) can’t save its complaint from dismissal, said AT&T’s reply Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00979) in U.S. District Court for Northern Texas in Dallas. The private equity firm alleges AT&T violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act when it blocked the firm from bidding on assets AT&T was divesting, including DirecTV, Cricket Wireless, AT&T’s Puerto Rican wireless operations and a tranche of 88 retail stores, due to the firm’s African American ownership and management.

The requisite money amount in controversy is satisfied, and complete diversity exists between the parties, to establish that the U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta has jurisdiction over plaintiff Mark Walters’ defamation complaint against OpenAI, said OpenAI’s response Monday (docket 1:23-cv-03122).

Apple used “boilerplate” messaging to terminate the App Store account of Digital Will, a Japanese app developer and game publisher, on the unfounded grounds that the account was used for “dishonest or fraudulent activity,” alleged Digital Will’s complaint Monday (docket 3:23-cv-04266) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Montana’s statewide TikTok ban, SB-419, “exercises Montana’s consumer-protection power to stop a host of data-privacy and related harms by prohibiting TikTok from operating in Montana,” said Attorney General Austin Knudsen’s (R) memorandum Friday (docket 9:23-cv-00061) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula in opposition to the plaintiffs’ consolidated motion for a preliminary injunction. The plaintiffs are a group of TikTok users and influencers (see 2305190035), plus TikTok itself (see 2305230053), all seeking to block Knudsen from enforcing SB-419 starting Jan. 1.