The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit dismissed the Standard/Tegna broadcasters' appeal of the FCC’s hearing designation order (HDO), but expedited their petition for mandamus relief. It also ordered the FCC to respond to the petition by April 11, said an order Monday.

If the U.S. Supreme Court opens online platforms to liability for algorithms through a narrow interpretation of Section 230, it could mean a less consumer-friendly internet and entrench dominant platforms further, tech experts said Tuesday.

The March 27 opinion from U.S. District Judge Manish Shah for Northern Illinois in Chicago in FTC v. Walmart (docket 1:22-cv-3372) supports the FTC’s opposition to Kochava’s motion to dismiss the agency’s privacy complaint for failure to state a claim, said the agency’s notice of supplemental authority Monday (docket 2:22-cv-00377) in U.S. District Court for Idaho. Shah denied in part Walmart’s motion to dismiss an FTC enforcement action.

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.

The district court’s dismissal of choreographer Kyle Hanagami’s claims that Epic Games stole his copyrighted dance moves for its Fortnite franchise (see 2301310037) was “consistent” with the Copyright Act, 9th U.S. Circuit Appeals Court case law and Copyright Office regulations, said Epic’s answering brief Friday (docket 22-55890) in Hanagami's 9th Circuit appeal.

A trio of Bay Area school districts filed lawsuits against the major social media companies Friday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco amid a wave of similar suits nationwide alleging Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok are contributing to a growing youth mental health crisis.

New Jersey prorating rules are allowed under the federal Cable Act, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday. No justices opposed the opinion by Justice Douglas Fasciale to reinstate the state Board of Public Utilities’ 2019 cease-and-desist order against Altice for failing to prorate canceled bills.

T-Mobile appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a district court refused to stop California from switching to a connections-based method for state USF contribution. The carrier notified the U.S. District Court for Northern California about the appeal Monday.

The FCC ignored precedent, the Administrative Procedure Act and its own rules when it issued the 2020 wireless infrastructure declaratory ruling (see 2303100069), said the League of California Cities (LOCC), the cities of Boston, Los Angeles and Seattle, and numerous other entities in two reply briefs filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles lacks personal jurisdiction over T-Mobile, and so a Hyperlync Technologies breach of contract complaint against the carrier should be dismissed, said T-Mobile’s memorandum of points and authorities Friday (docket 2:23-cv-00734) in support of its dismissal motion. Israeli cloud server company Hyperlync alleged in a Jan. 31 class action that T-Mobile walked away from agreements it struck with Sprint to develop a cloud storage product called “Unlimited Cloud” when it completed the Sprint buy in April 2020 (see 2302020061).