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.

Having compromised the highly personal sensitive information of millions of individuals, T-Mobile now wrongfully seeks to delay “the prosecution of claims related to their misconduct” by “piggybacking” on a transfer motion filed with the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Ligation to completely and indefinitely stay all proceedings against them, pending the JPML’s decision. So said the plaintiffs’ opposition brief Monday (docket 3:23-cv-00427) in Shoemaker v. T-Mobile in U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego.

The California Public Utilities Commission, in opposing the emergency motion from T-Mobile and its subsidiaries to freeze the CPUC order requiring a $1.11 monthly flat USF fee per line as of April 1, contradicts the district court’s “unequivocal finding” that T-Mobile “established irreparable harm,” said the carrier’s reply brief Monday (docket 23-15490) at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a stay.

Two dozen iPhone users petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit its long-standing FCC preemption doctrine on cellphone RF safety “without offering any reason that would justify such a request,” said Apple’s opposition brief Friday (22-698). SCOTUS “previously declined to take up this exact issue involving the preemptive effect of the FCC’s RF emissions regulations, and nothing has changed in the interim to suggest review is warranted now,” it said.

T-Mobile shows no dire situation warranting injunction of California’s shift to connections-based contribution for state USF, the California Public Utilities Commission said Friday at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The agency urged the court to deny the carrier and its subsidiaries’ emergency request to freeze the CPUC order requiring a $1.11 monthly flat fee as of April 1. “No lives hang in the balance,” wrote the CPUC. “No one is threatened with deportation.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s Axon decision calls into question the constitutionality of the FTC’s quasi-judicial authority and will have ramifications for Chair Lina Khan’s “aggressive” rulemaking agenda, legal experts said Monday.

The risk factors section in Arqit’s 2021 registration statement with the SEC failed to discuss the risks of adoption of the company’s quantum encryption-as-a-service technology, alleges a Friday fraud class action (docket 1:23-cv-02806) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Brooklyn.

A freshly inked state law exempting streaming TV services from paying franchise fees to local governments in Kansas could upend a city's lawsuit against Hulu and Netflix at a state appeals court. Gov. Laura Kelly (D) signed a bill (SB-144) to carve out satellite and over-the-top video services from the Kansas Video Competition Act (KVCA). The streamers filed briefs last week in the case at the Kansas Court of Appeals (docket 22-125784-A).

The FCC misrepresented the Standard/Tegna deal as complex and refused to engage with the broadcasters, and Friday’s Supreme Court opinion on agency adjudications underscores that the hearing process is unconstitutional, said Standard General, Cox Media Group and Tegna in their final response filing supporting their petition for mandamus at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2304110072).

The 29 Texas cities suing Disney, Hulu and Netflix for franchise fees “cannot and do not explain away” similar franchise fee lawsuits that were rejected in other jurisdictions, said Netflix’s reply in support of its motion to dismiss Wednesday in the 14th District Court of Dallas County (docket DC-22-09128).