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.

As plaintiffs, social networking app Minds Inc., podcaster Tim Pool, satirical news website the Babylon Bee and National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) lack standing to challenge AB-587, California's hate speech law, and their claims fail as a matter of law, said U.S. District Judge Hernan Vera for Central California in Los Angeles Friday. Vera's order (docket 2:23-cv-02705) granted the motion of California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) to dismiss their complaint.

Charter Communications seeks a temporary and preliminary injunction to prevent Bridger Mahlum, its former director-state government affairs, from continuing to breach his noncompete agreement and from misappropriating Charter’s trade secrets involving state broadband funding, said its complaint Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01106) in U.S. District Court for Connecticut in New Haven.

Verizon, CEO Hans Vestberg and former Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis failed to disclose the company was responsible for “an extensive network of lead cables that had been previously laid in many areas around the country, causing harm and posing the risk of further harm to the environment,” alleged a Verizon shareholder.

The plaintiff California Sportfishing Protection Alliance and defendant AT&T agree on a September 2024 bench trial date in their dispute over the fate of lead-clad telecom cables at the bottom of Lake Tahoe, and they estimate a trial would take four to five days, said the alliance’s statement Thursday (docket 2:21-cv-00073) in U.S. District Court for Eastern California in Sacramento in preparation for an Aug. 24 status conference.

Disney and its 21st Century Fox subsidiary used "nearly every trick in the Hollywood Accounting playbook” to deprive plaintiff TSG Entertainment Finance of “hundreds of millions of dollars,” alleged an Aug. 15 complaint (docket 23ST-cv-19433) in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Two class actions filed a short time apart Thursday by different law firms, both in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose, accuse SanDisk and parent company Western Digital of marketing defective solid-state drives, and doing little or nothing to fix the problem.

Defendants WCO Spectrum, its founder Gary Winnick and CEO Carl Katerndahl seek an order staying discovery in the fraud case brought by T-Mobile pending resolution of their forthcoming motion to dismiss, said their memorandum Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-04347) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles. The case involves educational broadband service wireless spectrum in the 2.5-GHz band that the FCC historically has licensed to schools (see 2306030002).

Two T-Mobile customers allege the carrier’s “gross negligence in hiring, training, and supervising its employees” enabled a SIM card swap that led to a loss of $130,000, said a Wednesday complaint (docket 1:23-cv-06159) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn.

“Partial input foreclosure,” such as if Microsoft were to curtail the flow of Activision Blizzard video game titles to competing console platforms if its Activision buy closes, but without cutting off supply completely, “is harmful to competition,” said 18 antitrust law professors in an amicus brief Wednesday (docket 23-15992) supporting the FTC’s appeal to block the transaction (see 2307110031).