AT&T Mobility needs until Nov. 21 to answer the Sept. 19 Communications Workers of America complaint to compel arbitration for DirecTV employees who CWA alleges were “unjustly” terminated during the summer of 2021 and are entitled to a grievance process under an existing collective bargaining agreement. Additional time is needed “to continue investigating the factual and legal basis” of CWA’s claims, “in advance of filing an appropriate response,” said an unopposed motion Monday (docket 1:22-cv-00954) in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in Austin.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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).

A 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act blurs the lines between residential and business phone numbers in such cases and could make it more difficult for defendant companies to have TCPA suits dismissed early, attorneys told us Thursday. The decision in Chennette v. Porch (docket 20-35962) has “shifted the burden to the defendant” in TCPA cases involving business to business calling to show that the receiving number isn’t a residential use cellphone, said Kelley Drye attorney Becca Wahlquist in an interview.