AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) — After a December 2022 recommendation to remand a streaming service-related lawsuit from Dallas Federal Court back to state court, a United States District Judge in the Dallas area has officially ordered that recommendation be finalized.

According to previous reports by MyHighPlains.com, this lawsuit included a number of cities in the state of Texas as plaintiffs, including the city of Amarillo. The cities alleged that three entertainment streaming services, Disney DTC, LLC, Hulu, LLC and Netflix, INC, who are the defendants in this case, did not pay municipal franchise fees to 25 Texas cities under the state’s Public Utility Regulatory Act, or PURA.

The Texas cities involved in this lawsuit include:

City of Dallas;
City of Abilene;
City of Allen;
City of Amarillo;
City of Arlington;
City of Austin;
City of Beaumont;
City of Carrollton;
City of Denton;
City of Fort Worth;
City of Frisco;
City of Garland;
City of Grand Prairie;
City of Houston;
City of Irving;
City of Lewisville;
City of McKinney;
City of Mesquite;
City of Nacogdoches;
City of Pearland;
City of Plano;
City of Rowlett;
City of Sugar Land;
City of Tyler;
City of Waco.

The lawsuit was originally filed in Dallas County court in August 2022 and was eventually moved to federal court in late September 2022. According to previous reports, the streaming service defendants cited similar cases that have been filed by municipalities throughout the United States, stating that the similar cases resulted in the streaming services’ favor.

Since that move, both sides of the lawsuit argued regarding where this lawsuit should land. The defendants maintained that the case should remain in federal court, stating in late October 2022 that the requirements to move the case to federal court were easily met. The representatives from the cities argued that because this case surrounds collecting state revenue, it should remain in state court.

“Plaintiffs allege that state law requires Defendants to pay these fees, and Defendants will argue it does not. The dispute squarely implicates Texas’s state and local fiscal operations,” the plaintiffs argued in October 2022 . “The local nature of this dispute is an inescapable obstacle to removal, and the case should be remanded.”

In December 2022, United States Magistrate Judge David L. Horan recommended that the case be moved from federal court back to state court. In the recommendation, Horan stated that it is difficult for a federal court to interfere in a matter the lawsuit outlines because it deals with the fiscal operations of a state government.

According to documents filed on Jan. 19 in Dallas Federal Court, United States District Judge Sam A. Lindsay stated that there were no objections to the recommendation for the case to be remanded back to the state court from which it was removed.

“Having considered the Motion to Remand, briefs, pleadings, the file, Report and record in this case, the court determines that the magistrate judge’s findings and conclusions are correct, and accepts them as those of the court,” Lindsay said in the documents. “The magistrate judge wrote (an) excellent Report, and the court sees no reason for augmentation. Accordingly, the court grants Plaintiffs’ Motion to Remand… and remands this action to the 14th Judicial District Court, Dallas County, Texas, from which it was removed.”

As of Monday, no further documents have been filed in the 14th Judicial District Court of Dallas County regarding this case.