Powerful social media companies that yield “unmatched, highly concentrated technology in pursuit of profit” are knowingly creating an “unprecedented mental health crisis,” alleged the San Mateo County Board of Education in a Monday complaint (docket 3:23-cv-1108) against Google, Snap and TikTok in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. A similar suit was filed last week in Oakland (see 2303100049).

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.

Plaintiffs Craigville Telephone and Consolidated Telephone in the fake ringstones case against defendant T-Mobile continue to support the court’s appointment of a special master to oversee discovery, despite T-Mobile’s opposition (see 2303090056), said their reply brief Monday (docket 1:19-cv-07190) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.

The court should deny DOJ’s motion to strike and reject its request for “an extraordinary 65-day extension” intended to delay “the inevitable reckoning for the federal government’s indefensible misconduct,” said the attorneys general for Louisiana and Missouri in a memorandum (docket 3:22-cv-01213) in U.S District Court for Louisiana in Monroe, opposing DOJ’s motion to strike their proposed findings of fact in a First Amendment social media case.

BMG Rights Management and its co-plaintiff record labels “distort long-standing copyright jurisprudence” in an attempt to distract the court from the contributory infringement and vicarious liability claims they don’t and can’t plead, said Altice’s reply brief Monday (docket 2:22-cv-00471) in U.S. District Court for Eastern Texas in Marshall in further support of its motion to dismiss. The music companies allege Altice ignored the rampant infringement of its internet subscribers (see 2303070045).

Plaintiff Robert Graham agreed to a “broad arbitration provision” when he renewed his contract with AT&T in October 2018 to upgrade his phone, said AT&T’s motion Friday (docket 1:22-cv-05155) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. The motion seeks to stay his class action pending conclusion of that arbitration under Section 3 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

Plaintiff Crown Castle is entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law on its claims that the town of Oyster Bay, New York, unlawfully blocked its applications to install 23 small wireless facilities (SWFs) in the town’s public rights-of-way (ROW). So said Crown Castle’s reply memorandum Friday (docket 2:21-cv-06305) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip in further support of its summary judgment motion.

Defendant X Wireless filed a motion to dismiss (docket 1:23-cv-20848) a two-count collections action filed against it in U.S. District Court for Southern Florida in Miami by Nu-Era Telecom. X Wireless asked the court to abstain from exercising jurisdiction, citing a an earlier-filed, parallel proceeding it filed against Nu-Era and Jordan Hantman, an X Wireless employee, in Maryland state court.

Muttontown, New York, and its various component boards seek dismissal of AT&T’s complaint alleging the village unlawfully denied its application to build a 165-foot-high cell tower to remedy a significant coverage gap, said a memorandum in support of its motion Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-05524) in U.S. District Court for Eastern New York in Central Islip. The village seeks a May 1 evidentiary hearing in the motion to dismiss for AT&T’s failure to properly make “a legally justiciable claim.”

Hair color products company Madison Reed lacks a publicly available written policy showing a retention schedule and guidelines for permanently destroying biometric identifiers and information used for its virtual try-on feature, alleged a Friday privacy class action (docket 4:23-cv-4039) in U.S. District Court for Central Illinois in Rock Island.