Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

A local news publisher brought suit against a technology company that operates a news aggregation app and website. The publisher alleged that the aggregator, through its app, displayed the publisher’s articles either by framing them within the aggregator’s interface (so that users viewed the publisher’s website content within an app frame) or by reproducing the full text of articles under the aggregator’s own URL due to a technical glitch. The publisher claimed this conduct violated its exclusive right to publicly display its content under the Copyright Act, and further alleged that the removal or alteration of its website’s URLs—when articles were shown under the aggregator’s URLs—constituted improper removal of copyright management information (CMI) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi addressed the publisher’s claims through cross-motions for summary judgment. Relying on the “server test” from Perfect 10, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., the district court held that the aggregator’s framed linking did not infringe the publisher’s display right, because the content was not stored on the aggregator’s servers but only linked to the publisher’s own server. The court also held that URLs do not constitute CMI under the DMCA, as they function merely as locational addresses and do not inherently convey protected copyright information.On interlocutory appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed two questions: whether the server test is the proper standard for evaluating copyright display right infringement, and whether URLs can be CMI under the DMCA. The Fifth Circuit rejected the server test as inconsistent with the text of the Copyright Act, and instead adopted a “transmit requirement”—finding infringement only if the alleged infringer actually transmits (rather than merely links to) the copyrighted content. The court also held that the DMCA does not categorically foreclose URLs from being CMI, but for a URL to qualify as CMI, it must clearly convey the characteristics specified by statute. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with these holdings. View "Emmerich Nwspr v. Particle Media" on Justia Law

Several residential property owners and a short-term rental platform challenged two ordinances enacted by the city. The first ordinance, adopted in 2023, restricts short-term rental licenses to one per residential block and distributes them by lottery. The second ordinance, adopted in 2024, requires short-term rental platforms to verify the license status of properties before facilitating transactions, and to periodically reverify this status. Plaintiffs alleged that these ordinances infringed upon their constitutional and statutory rights, including claims under the Takings Clause and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana reviewed the plaintiffs’ claims. It dismissed all claims under Rule 12(b)(6), except for Airbnb’s Fourth Amendment challenge regarding a monthly reporting requirement in the 2024 Ordinance. The district court granted Airbnb summary judgment on that particular claim. Airbnb appealed the dismissal of its other claims.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit examined the case de novo. The court held that the 2023 Ordinance did not constitute a per se or regulatory taking under the Takings Clause, noting that the ordinance neither physically appropriated property nor severely impaired economic expectations. It also found the ordinance to be a reasonable zoning regulation that balanced public interests. Regarding Section 230, the Fifth Circuit ruled that neither the booking nor verification requirements of the 2024 Ordinance treated Airbnb as the publisher or speaker of third-party content, and thus were not preempted. The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the Takings Clause claim and the Section 230 claim, as well as the dismissal of other claims raised by the plaintiffs. View "Bodin v. New Orleans" on Justia Law

Texas enacted a law imposing new requirements on certain social media platforms, termed "digital service providers" (DSPs), to restrict minors’ access to specific categories of content. These requirements included monitoring and filtering content deemed harmful, prohibiting targeted ads to minors, preventing unlawful ads, verifying user age for access to certain material, and requiring age registration for account creation. Two groups challenged the law: one group, including technology industry organizations, contested the monitoring and filtering requirement; another group, comprised of a student coalition, individuals, and an ad agency, challenged several provisions, including the monitoring and filtering, targeted ads, unlawful ads, and age-verification requirements.In the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, both plaintiffs sought preliminary injunctions against enforcement of the law. The district court granted injunctions in part, enjoining the monitoring and filtering requirements for both groups, and enjoining the targeted ads, unlawful ads, and age-verification requirements for the student coalition group. The court found these provisions likely unconstitutional or vague, and held that the plaintiffs had standing based on the chilling effect on their speech and listening rights. The Attorney General of Texas appealed, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit consolidated the cases.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the student coalition plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the monitoring and filtering, targeted ads, and unlawful ads requirements, as they were not directly regulated and failed to show a substantial risk of imminent harm. Their challenge to the age-verification requirement was foreclosed by Supreme Court precedent. However, the court held that the monitoring and filtering requirement, as challenged by the industry groups, is preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s injunction as to the industry group, but vacated and remanded the injunction as to the student coalition plaintiffs. View "Computer & Communications Industry Association v. Paxton" on Justia Law

An 18-year-old high school senior from Texas was indicted by a federal grand jury for transmitting threats in interstate commerce, based on statements he made while using the online gaming platform Roblox. The statements, made in a virtual “Church” experience, referenced possessing firearms, preparing munitions, and intentions to commit violence at a Christian event. Other Roblox users, located in Pennsylvania and Nevada, reported these statements to the FBI, believing them to be serious threats rather than mere role-play or trolling. The government alleged the defendant's remarks corresponded to a real concert scheduled in Austin and supported its case with evidence from the defendant’s internet history and statements captured by a keylogger.The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas dismissed the indictment before trial, concluding no reasonable juror could find that the defendant’s statements constituted “true threats” outside the protection of the First Amendment. The court found the context—a role-playing video game environment filled with extreme and offensive avatars—undermined the seriousness of the statements, and excluded evidence of the defendant’s conduct outside Roblox as irrelevant. The district court released the defendant without conditions, later imposing some conditions after a government request.On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that the question of whether the statements were “true threats” is a factual issue that should ordinarily be decided by a jury at trial, not by the judge on a pretrial motion. The court found that disputed facts and contextual uncertainties required a trial on the merits, and that the district court erred by resolving these issues prematurely. The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the indictment and remanded for further proceedings. The appeal regarding the defendant’s release was dismissed as moot. View "United States v. Burger" on Justia Law

A recently enacted Mississippi statute, House Bill 1126, aims to protect minors from harmful online material by requiring digital service providers (DSPs) to verify users' ages, obtain parental consent for minors, limit data collection, and implement strategies to mitigate harmful content exposure. NetChoice, L.L.C., a trade association for internet-focused companies, challenged the statute's constitutionality under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and sought a preliminary injunction to prevent its enforcement.The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi granted the preliminary injunction, finding that NetChoice was likely to succeed on its claims that the statute was unconstitutional. The court determined that NetChoice had associational standing to bring the suit on behalf of its members and that the statute imposed significant regulatory burdens that could cause financial harm. The Attorney General of Mississippi appealed, arguing that the district court erred in its findings and failed to perform the necessary facial analysis as mandated by the Supreme Court in Moody v. NetChoice, LLC.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the case and found that the district court did not conduct the required two-step analysis outlined in Moody. This analysis involves defining the law's scope and determining which applications violate the First Amendment. The Fifth Circuit noted that the district court did not fully assess the range of activities and actors regulated by the statute or the specific regulatory burdens imposed on different DSPs. Consequently, the court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded the case to the district court for further factual analysis consistent with the Supreme Court's opinion in Moody and Fifth Circuit precedent. View "NetChoice v. Fitch" on Justia Law

The case involves six plaintiffs who are users of Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixing service that uses immutable smart contracts to anonymize transactions. Tornado Cash was sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) for allegedly facilitating money laundering for malicious actors, including North Korea. The plaintiffs argued that OFAC exceeded its statutory authority by designating Tornado Cash as a Specially Designated National (SDN) and blocking its smart contracts.The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas granted summary judgment in favor of the Department of the Treasury, finding that Tornado Cash is an entity that can be sanctioned, that its smart contracts constitute property, and that the Tornado Cash DAO has an interest in these smart contracts. The plaintiffs appealed this decision.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the case and focused on whether the immutable smart contracts could be considered "property" under IEEPA. The court concluded that these smart contracts are not property because they are not capable of being owned, controlled, or altered by anyone, including their creators. The court emphasized that property, by definition, must be ownable, and the immutable smart contracts do not meet this criterion. Consequently, the court held that OFAC exceeded its statutory authority by sanctioning Tornado Cash's immutable smart contracts.The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's decision and remanded the case with instructions to grant the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment based on the Administrative Procedure Act. The court did not address whether Tornado Cash qualifies as an entity or whether it has an interest in the smart contracts, as the determination that the smart contracts are not property was dispositive. View "Van Loon v. Department of the Treasury" on Justia Law

A group of major record labels sued Grande Communications Networks, LLC, an internet service provider, for contributory copyright infringement. The plaintiffs alleged that Grande knowingly provided internet services to subscribers who used them to infringe on the plaintiffs' copyrighted works. The plaintiffs presented evidence that Grande received over 1.3 million infringement notices from Rightscorp, a company that identifies infringing activity on peer-to-peer networks, but Grande did not terminate or take action against repeat infringers. Instead, Grande continued to provide internet services to these subscribers, despite knowing about their infringing activities.The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas held a three-week jury trial. The jury found Grande liable for willful contributory copyright infringement and awarded the plaintiffs $46,766,200 in statutory damages. Grande moved for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) on the issue of liability and for a new trial on damages, but the district court denied these motions. Grande then appealed, challenging the district court's rulings on its JMOL motion, the jury instructions, and the final judgment. The plaintiffs filed a conditional cross-appeal regarding a jury instruction.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed the case and upheld the jury's verdict, finding that the plaintiffs had provided sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding of contributory copyright infringement. The court concluded that Grande had knowledge of its subscribers' infringing activities and materially contributed to the infringement by continuing to provide internet services without taking basic measures to prevent further damage. However, the court found that the district court erred in awarding statutory damages for each individual song rather than for each album, as the Copyright Act treats all parts of a compilation as one work for statutory damages purposes. Consequently, the court vacated the damages award and remanded the case for a new trial on damages. The plaintiffs' conditional cross-appeal was dismissed as moot. View "UMG Recordings v. Grande Communications Networks, LLC" on Justia Law

In this case, Chad Michael Rider was convicted of three counts of producing or attempting to produce child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2251(a) and was sentenced to 720 months’ imprisonment. The evidence presented included numerous videos that Rider had taken of minors, in various stages of undress, in places where they expected privacy such as bathrooms. Rider appealed his conviction and sentence on several bases, including arguing that his conversation with police officers, where he admitted to setting up cameras, should have been suppressed, that expert testimony about his lack of pedophilic tendencies should have been admitted, that there was insufficient evidence to support his convictions, that the jury instructions constructively amended the indictment, and that his sentence was unreasonable.The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected all of Rider's arguments and affirmed his conviction and sentence. The court found that Rider was not in custody when he spoke to the officers, and so his statements were not involuntary. The court also found that there was no error in excluding the expert testimony, as it was not relevant to any element of the charges that the government had to prove. The court also found that there was sufficient evidence to support the convictions, as there was ample evidence that Rider had the intent and took the necessary steps to produce child pornography. The court also ruled that the jury instructions did not constructively amend the indictment. Finally, the court found that the sentence was not unreasonable, given the uniquely disturbing facts of the case and Rider's lack of remorse. View "United States v. Rider" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs—three doctors, a news website, a healthcare activist, and two states—had posts and stories removed or downgraded by the platforms. Their content touched on a host of divisive topics. Plaintiffs maintain that although the platforms stifled their speech, the government officials were the ones pulling the strings. They sued the officials for First Amendment violations and asked the district court to enjoin the officials’ conduct. In response, the officials argued that they only “sought to mitigate the hazards of online misinformation” by “calling attention to content” that violated the “platforms’ policies,” a form of permissible government speech. The district court agreed with Plaintiffs and granted preliminary injunctive relief. In reaching that decision, it reviewed the conduct of several federal offices but only enjoined the White House, the Surgeon General, the CDC, the FBI, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Department of State.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part, reversed in part, vacated the injunction in part, and modified the injunction in part. The court explained that the White House officials, in conjunction with the Surgeon General’s office, coerced and significantly encouraged the platforms to moderate content. As a result, the platforms’ actions “must in law be deemed to be that of the State.” Further, the court held that the CDC officials likely significantly encouraged the platforms’ moderation decisions. However, the court found that for the NIAID officials, it is not apparent that they ever communicated with the social media platforms. View "State of Missouri v. Biden" on Justia Law

A major data breach compromised sensitive consumer information on thousands of credit cards. In this appeal, we address who must pay for the cleanup. Beginning in 2014, hackers compromised credit card data at multiple businesses owned by Landry’s Inc. (“Landry’s”). Many of those cards belonged to Visa and Mastercard. In response, Visa and Mastercard imposed over twenty million dollars in assessments on JPMorgan Chase and its subsidiary Paymentech (collectively, “Chase”), who were responsible for securely processing card purchases at Landry’s properties. Chase then sued Landry’s for indemnification, and Landry’s impleaded Visa and Mastercard. The district court dismissed Landry’s third-party complaints against Visa and Mastercard and granted summary judgment for Chase, finding that Landry’s had a contractual obligation to indemnify Chase. Landry’s argued that it should not have to indemnify Chase because the assessments are not an enforceable form of liquidated damages.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that since Landry’s indemnification obligation stems from its own acts or omissions under the Merchant Agreement, the debt is its own. Further, the court wrote that Landry’s alleged for its deceptive business practices claims that the assessments were “invalid” under the Payment Brand Rules and “applicable law” and, therefore, the Payment Brands’ “imposition and collection of the [assessments] was an unlawful business practice.” Because these claims turn on the assessments’ enforceability under Chase’s contracts with the Payment Brands, they are functionally the same as the subrogated claims. Since Landry’s cannot challenge the Payment Brands over those contracts as Chase’s subrogee, it cannot do so through a change in labeling. View "Paymentech v. Landry's" on Justia Law