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.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit repeatedly pressed International Dark-Sky Association (ISDA) about its standing during oral argument Monday in the group's legal challenge to the FCC's approval of SpaceX's second-generation satellite constellation (see 2301030014).
The U.S. Supreme Court, with Justice Samuel Alito dissenting, denied Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s motion to intervene in Murthy et al v. Missouri et al (docket 23-511), the SCOTUS review of the injunction that bars officials from the White House and four federal agencies from coercing or significantly encouraging social media to moderate content. The injunction is stayed, pending the court’s resolution of its review.
Walmart, Cash App and “John Does” 1-10 “ignore the obvious holes in their inadequate and poorly enforced anti-fraud measures and readily facilitate fraudulent transfers that drain financial resources of the elderly and most vulnerable in our society,” alleged a class action Friday (docket 2:23-cv-10335) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles.
Discord’s real-time messaging services are very different from “legacy” social media platforms like Facebook and X that the Florida and Texas legislatures likely had in mind when enacting their content moderation laws, said Discord's amicus brief Friday (dockets 22-277 and 22-555) at the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the NetChoice and Computer & Communications Industry Association efforts to defeat the laws.
Epic Games brought its lawsuit challenging the practices and agreements under which Apple maintains a 30% commission on purchases of digital content within iPhone apps, said Epic’s opposition brief Friday (docket 23-344) at the U.S. Supreme Court to Apple’s Sept. 28 cert petition. Apple is trying to defeat an injunction barring it from enforcing its anti-steering rules on U.S. iOS developers (see 2310030002).
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.
The Democratic attorneys general of 21 states and the District of Columbia share the concerns of the Republican AGs of Texas and Florida about the manner in which social media platforms “have transformed the way people communicate with each other.” The AGs filed an amicus brief Thursday at the U.S. Supreme Court in the challenges of NetChoice and the Computer & Communication Industry Association to defeat the Texas and Florida social media laws on First Amendment grounds.
Altice has knowingly contributed to, and reaped “substantial profits” from, massive copyright infringement committed by thousands of its internet subscribers, alleged 54 record labels and music publishers in a complaint Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-00576) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Marshall. Altice has been fending off similar allegations from BMG and its affiliates in the same courthouse in a case that dates to December 2022.
Amazon sued 27 individuals and unknown "John Does" 1-20 in a fraud case involving REKK, a global organization allegedly responsible for stealing “millions of dollars of products from Amazon’s online stores through systematic refund abuse,” said the complaint Thursday (docket 2:23-cv-01879) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle.