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The U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments today on the legality of Republican-backed laws in Florida and Texas that restrict the ability of social media platforms to curb content that these companies deem objectionable in a pair of cases that could reshape free-speech rights in the digital age, report John Kruzel and Andrew Chung.
At issue is whether the 2021 state laws regulating content-moderation practices by large social media platforms violate the free speech protections for the companies under the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Lower courts were split on the issue, blocking key provisions of Florida’s law while upholding the Texas measure.
The laws were challenged by tech industry trade groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Meta, Google, TikTok and Snap. Neither law has gone into effect due to the litigation. Appellate veteran Paul Clement (above) will argue for NetChoice. Florida Solicitor General Henry Whitaker will defend the state’s law, and Texas Solicitor General Aaron Nielson will argue for his state.
The justices must decide whether the First Amendment protects the editorial discretion of the social media platforms and prohibits governments from forcing companies to publish content against their will. Another issue is whether the state laws unlawfully burden the free speech rights of social media companies by requiring them to provide users with individualized explanations for certain content-moderation decisions, including the removal of posts from their platforms.
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- Quinn Emanuel was appointed to steer consolidated class-action litigation accusing Amazon.com of deceptive practices regarding its return policies. U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle selected the 1,000-lawyer firm, which is working with Zigler Law Group, to oversee the case. Fenwick represents Amazon, which has denied the claims.
- Locke Lord settled claims in Chicago federal court that it gave faulty legal advice to an insurer whose health benefit plans became insolvent and investigated by the U.S. Labor Department. A judge dismissed Receivership Management’s lawsuit against the firm after the two parties said they reached a settlement, the terms of which were not disclosed.
- Donald Trump ally Jeff Clark asked a D.C. appeals court to block a subpoena from a bar disciplinary office seeking records for an attorney misconduct probe against him. Clark’s lawyer, Charles Burnham, said compliance with the D.C. bar disciplinary office’s subpoena would violate Clark’s right against self-incrimination. Clark was among the lawyers charged in a Georgia state case last year for alleged roles in a scheme to overturn Trump’s 2020 election loss.
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“Mr. Giuliani cannot hide behind bankruptcy.”
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—Lawyers for two Georgia election workers in a complaint asserting that Donald Trump’s ex-lawyer Rudy Giuliani cannot use his personal bankruptcy to get out of paying a $148 million defamation verdict awarded to the workers. Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother Ruby Freeman made the argument to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in a complaint filed by lawyers from Willkie, DuBose Miller and United to Protect Democracy. U.S. bankruptcy courts have found that defamation verdicts cannot be erased in bankruptcy.
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- Today, lawyers for JetBlue at Cleary Gottlieb and Cooley will ask the 1st Circuit to overturn a federal trial judge’s order blocking the airline’s proposed acquisition of rival Spirit. The airlines have said the lower court’s decision “disregards the benefits of the transaction to the majority of the flying public.” The merger agreement includes an outside closing date of July 24. Attorneys from Paul Weiss represent Spirit.
- On Tuesday, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s lawyers face a deadline to tell a U.S. judge what they think his sentence should be for his conviction last year on fraud charges. A jury in Manhattan federal court convicted Bankman-Fried on all seven counts he faced after a monthlong trial in which prosecutors made the case that he looted $8 billion from the exchange’s users out of sheer greed. Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty.
- On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a dispute over the legality of a federal ban imposed under former President Donald Trump on “bump stock” devices that enable semiautomatic weapons to fire like machine guns. The justices agreed to hear an appeal from the Biden administration’s DOJ of a lower court’s ruling in favor of a gun shop owner and gun rights advocate from Austin, Texas, who challenged the ban.
- On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco will consider a request by the Center for Countering Digital Hate to dismiss a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X Corp. X accused the nonprofit, which monitors online hate speech, of trying to drive advertisers away through a “scare campaign” showing that hate speech and other harmful content appeared to be overwhelming the platform. Lawyers for the center have called Musk’s suit “ridiculous.”
- On Friday, U.S. District Aileen Cannon is set to consider former President Donald Trump’s request to delay his scheduled May 20 trial on charges that he illegally held onto sensitive national security documents at his Florida resort after leaving office. Trump, who has pleaded not guilty, last week asked the Florida judge to dismiss the DOJ’s charges.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Tennessee U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker agreed to suspend an NCAA rule barring third-party marketing deals to recruit student athletes, finding that an antitrust lawsuit challenging the rule is likely to succeed. Corker preliminarily barred the NCAA from enforcing the rule, which limits prospective student athletes’ ability to negotiate deals with third parties such as alumni and business collectives for the commercial use of their name, image and likeness.
- SpaceX doubled down on claims that a judge was wrong to send the rocket maker’s lawsuit challenging the structure of the NLRB from Texas to California, telling the 5th Circuit in a brief that “plaintiffs are allowed to prefer forums with favorable caselaw.” SpaceX said that while the case may have closer ties to California, it has implications for the entire company including a major launch facility and other operations based in Texas.
- Barclays must face part of a proposed class action by shareholders who accused the British bank of securities fraud related to its sale of $17.7 billion more debt than regulators allowed, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla in Manhattan ruled. Barclays declined to comment.
- The U.S. Department of Energy agreed to temporarily suspend its emergency survey of energy use by cryptocurrency miners following a lawsuit by bitcoin miner Riot Platforms and an industry group. The DOE’s statistical arm, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, will halt its mandatory survey for a month and sequester the data it had already received. A judge set a hearing in the case for Wednesday.
- Nine companies that sell unfinished guns without serial numbers, used to make untraceable “ghost guns,” must face a lawsuit by New York’s attorney general seeking to halt their business in the state. U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan rejected the companies’ argument that their products are not weapons.
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