A complaint in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana against CTIA and numerous cellphone manufacturers -- including Motorola, AT&T Mobility and Cricket Wireless -- over a pastor’s death from brain cancer should be dismissed because it is preempted by federal law, the trade group and companies said in a joint motion Monday in docket 2:21-cv-0092. The plaintiffs have argued the FCC safety certification process is based on inaccurate information provided by cellphone makers, and so shouldn’t preempt the case. Other defendants, such as TIA and Chinese company ZTE, argued Monday in separate filings that the court had no jurisdiction over them.

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika in Wilmington, Delaware, signed an order Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-01341) granting Averon’s motion for leave to file under seal its complaint alleging AT&T and mobile sign-in app ZenKey “misappropriated” its trade secrets.

At a federal court’s prompting, AT&T invoked the deemed-granted provision of the Illinois small-cells law in a wireless infrastructure dispute with Monroe County. The U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, Illinois, last month declined to give AT&T summary judgment on other state law and Telecom Act violations alleged against Monroe County (case 3:20-CV-1327-NJR). But the court asked AT&T to amend its complaint to raise a shot-clock issue the carrier had raised too late in the process.

T-Mobile told Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward that it plans to produce her phone records Wednesday under subpoena for the House Jan. 6 select committee investigating her efforts to thwart certification of the 2020 presidential election, the carrier told the 9th Circuit U.S. Appeals Court Friday (docket 22-16473) in a response Friday to Ward’s emergency motion, pending appeal, to block the records’ disclosure. T-Mobile again asserted it takes no position in the legal fight between Ward and the committee to procure the phone records.

Comcast faces a Wednesday deadline to answer a Minnesota complaint that it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act under a deadline extension order signed Oct. 3 by U.S. Magistrate Judge Leo Brisbois in Duluth. Comcast filed notice Sept. 28 to move to U.S. District Court in St. Paul (docket 0:22-cv-02377) the TCPA complaint filed Sept. 7 in Ramsey, Minnesota, state court.

Multiple infrastructure lawsuits by wireless companies against local governments rose to federal appeals courts in recent months. Meanwhile, across the U.S., industry continues to litigate against some localities in district courts while settling with others. Local governments had warned that the FCC’s 2018 small-cells order, preempting aspects of local reviews, would cause more litigation, “and I think it did,” said former NATOA General Counsel Nancy Werner.

Plaintiffs in the nine class actions filed so far accusing Samsung of negligence in the summer’s data breaches asked the Judicial Panel on Multi-District Litigation to transfer and consolidate the cases in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco and assign them to District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, said their Oct. 7 motion (case no. 3005).

CBE Customer Solutions removed to U.S. District Court in Manhattan a complaint in which Verizon Wireless alleges its debt-collection agency is guilty of breach of contract, said CBE's notice of removal Thursday (docket 1:22-cv-08703). The carrier alleges that CBE “refused to comply” with an indemnification agreement between the parties, costing the carrier nearly $6.1 million in damages and court costs spent in negotiating, finalizing and executing a Telephone Consumer Protection Act class settlement. CBE does not concede that the allegations “state a valid claim under applicable law,” it said in the notice.

The FTC said Thursday it’s unfazed by Meta’s motion to dismiss the agency’s amended complaint (docket 5:22-cv-04325) in U.S. District Court in San Jose, in which the FTC seeks an injunction to block Meta’s acquisition of Within Unlimited and its Supernatural virtual-reality fitness app on anticompetitive grounds (see 2210130082).

Portions of a California complaint alleging Amazon skirted antitrust and unfair competition laws need to be kept sealed to protect “highly confidential and competitive information, the disclosure of which could cause significant harm to Amazon,” said Cristina Fernandez, Amazon corporate counsel-competition, in a declaration in support of the motion to seal posted Tuesday (docket CGC-22-601826) in California Superior Court in San Francisco.