American Freedom Defense Initiative is a nonprofit corporation that wanted to place an advertisement on the side of city buses in Michigan. The advertisement read: “Fatwa on your head? Is your family or community threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got Questions? Get Answers! RefugefromIslam.com”. Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation (SMART), refused to display the advertisement. AFDI sued, claiming a First Amendment violation. The district court granted a preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs likely could show that SMART’s decision was arbitrary. The Sixth Circuit reversed. SMART’s policy prohibits: political or political campaign advertising; advertising promoting the sale of alcohol or tobacco; advertising that is false, misleading, or deceptive; advertising that is clearly defamatory or likely to hold up to scorn or ridicule any person or group of persons; and advertising that is obscene or pornographic; or in advocacy of imminent lawlessness or unlawful violent action. The restrictions, which concern a nonpublic forum are reasonable, viewpoint-neutral limits that do not deny AFDI’s First Amendment rights. The injunction would cause substantial harm to others, compelling SMART to post on its buses messages that have strong potential to alienate people and decrease ridership; the public interest would not be served by this preliminary injunction. View "Am. Freedom Def. Initiative v. Suburban Mobility Auth. for Reg'l Transp." on Justia Law

Comcast appealed the district court's grant of preliminary injunctive relief, compelling the telecommunications company to provide its directory assistance listing data directly to LSSi. LSSi alleged that Comcast's refusal to provide LSSi, and similar companies, with direct access to its directory assistance listing data while providing this access to Targus constituted a violation of Sections 202, 222(e), and 251(b)(3) of the Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 202, 222(e), and 251(b)(3). Having concluded that LSSi failed to establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of its discrimination claims against Comcast, the court did not address the additional elements required for a preliminary injunction. Instead, the court vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded for further proceedings. View "LSSi Data Corp. v. Comcast Phone, LLC" on Justia Law

Chicago police officers arrested plaintiffs for disorderly conduct at a 2005 antiwar demonstration. The plaintiffs brought claims for First Amendment retaliation, Fourth Amendment false arrest, Fourteenth Amendment class-of-one equal protection violations, and state law malicious prosecution. They also brought facial challenges against Chicago’s disorderly conduct ordinance, as overbroad and unconstitutionally vague. The district court granted summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed on the basis of qualified immunity. The facial attack on the ordinance was rendered moot by an earlier decision, which partially invalidated the subsection on overbreadth and vagueness grounds. The court acknowledged that the plaintiffs’ arrests under a now-invalid ordinance may have affected their free speech rights, but that they did not bring an as-applied challenge to redress such an injury. View "Thayer v. Chiczewski" on Justia Law

The Center broadcasts advertisements, maintains a website, publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter, produces a bi-weekly radio show, and engages in other forms of mass media communications. Its tax exempt status under section 501(c)(4) is incompatible with partisan political activity, so the Center cannot endorse candidates. During election seasons, the Center runs advertisements that refer to the positions of candidates or to ballot issues and call for actions such as contacting candidates. The Center claims that it feared that Illinois’s new campaign finance laws (10 ILCS 5/9) would require it to register as a “political committee” and to disclose election-related expenditures and significant contributors and that its donors require assurances that their identities will not be disclosed. The Center argued that the law was vague and overbroad. The district court dismissed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, noting that the Illinois law is modeled on federal law. The Center did not establish that the statute “prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech,” or that its “deterrent effect on legitimate expression is ... real and substantial.”View "Ctr, for Individual Freedom v. Madigan" on Justia Law

Leyse received a prerecorded telemarketing call from a radio station. He sued, alleging violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, 105 Stat. 2394, which prohibits certain prerecorded telemarketing calls. The district court dismissed, finding that the Federal Communications Commission had issued regulations exempting the type of call at issue from the TCPA’s prohibitions; that the FCC was authorized by Congress to do so; that the court should defer to the resulting regulation; and that the regulation passed muster under Chevron. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, holding that “Chevron deference” applies to the regulation and that the regulation is valid under Chevron. The court rejected an argument that it lacked jurisdiction under the Hobbs Act. View "Leyse v. Clear Channel Broad. Inc." on Justia Law

Federal officers applied for a warrant to search the offices of Fair Finance in Akron, as part of an investigation into its owner, Durham, who was suspected of employing the company to engage in a Ponzi scheme. A Magistrate granted a warrant and, at the government’s request, sealed the file. Officers executed the search. The warrant and inventory of seized items were placed in the sealed file. Newspapers requested an order unsealing the files, arguing that they had a right of access under common law and the First Amendment. The district court denied the motion. After an indictment issued, the court granted the government’s motion to unseal the face sheet of the warrant, the form application (excluding the affidavit in support of the application), the inventory, two attachments to the warrant and application, the motion to seal the documents, and the order granting that motion. The affidavit filed in support of the warrant application and the docket sheet remained sealed. The newspapers are no longer contesting the sealing of the affidavit. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The First Amendment right of access does not permit the newspapers to obtain the documents filed in connection with these warrant proceedings.View "In re: Search of Fair Finance " on Justia Law

Park sells art from its gallery, online, by catalog, and by phone, and conducts auctions in different cities and on cruise ships. Franks, CEO of Global Fine Art Registry, published online articles alleging that Park engaged in suspect business practices and sold inauthentic art. Park sued, claiming defamation, tortious interference, interference with prospective business advantage, and civil conspiracy to destroy goodwill and reputation. During trial, the district court gave several warnings and sanctioned Franks’s counsel for failure to honor rulings regarding improper lines of questioning. Despite repeated instances of misconduct, Park did not request a mistrial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of defendants on defamation, tortious interference with business expectancies, and civil conspiracy, but did not find in favor of defendants on counterclaims. The jury found in favor of GFAR on its Lanham Act counterclaim and awarded $500,000.00. The district court decided that the misconduct was serious enough that there was a reasonable probability that the verdict was influenced and granted a new trial. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial of a motion to reinstate the verdict. Failure to seek a mistrial based on misconduct occurring during the trial did not waive Park’s right to seek a new trial under FRCP 59. View "Park West Galleries, Inc. v. Hochman" on Justia Law

Sprint contested the IUB order compelling it to pay intrastate access charges to Windstream, an Iowa communications company, for Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls. Sprint filed a complaint in federal district court seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. The same day, Sprint also filed a petition for review in Iowa state court, asserting, among other claims, that the IUB's order was preempted under federal law. The federal district court abstained pursuant to Younger v. Harris and dismissed the action. The court affirmed the district court's decision to abstain, but the court vacated the judgment of dismissal and remanded the case with instruction to stay the proceedings. View "Sprint Communications Co. v. Jacobs, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a Commercial Mobile Radio Service (CMRS) provider, wished to provide wireless service in and around Pahrump, Nevada. Plaintiff sought digital interconnection with the facilities and equipment of defendant, the incumbent local exchange carrier (LEC) in the area. After the parties' efforts to negotiate an interconnection agreement failed, plaintiff brought suit alleging that defendant violated the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, by refusing to negotiate in good faith and by failing to provide digital interconnection with symmetrical pricing on an interim basis during negotiations, as required by the FCC regulations. The court held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's good faith claim because it did not exhaust its administrative remedies under the court's prudential exhaustion requirement. The court also held that the interim arrangement and symmetrical pricing requirements applied only when the competing carrier did not have an existing interconnection arrangement with the incumbent LEC that provided for the transport and termination of telecommunications traffic. Because plaintiff had such an arrangement with defendant at all relevant times, defendant had no obligation to provide plaintiff an interim arrangement with symmetrical rates. The court remanded, however, to permit the district court to consider what, if any, relief was available to plaintiff under 47 C.F.R. 51.717. View "Autotel v. Nevada Bell Telephone Co." on Justia Law

A class of persons required to register on the state’s online sex and violent offender database sued the Indiana Department of Correction, alleging that failure to provide any procedure to correct errors in the registry violates due process. In response, the DOC created a new policy to give notice to current prisoners about their pending registry listings and an opportunity to challenge the information. The district court granted summary judgment on the ground that the new policy was sufficient to comply with due process. The new procedures still fail to provide any process at all for an entire class of registrants: those who are not incarcerated. The Seventh Circuit reversed. State judicial post-deprivation remedies cited by the DOC are insufficient to meet the requirements of due process. Although registrants can challenge registry errors in the course of criminal prosecutions for failure to comply with registration requirements, due process does not require a person to risk additional criminal conviction as the price of correcting an erroneous listing, especially where a simple procedural fix is available much earlier. View "Schepers v. Comm'r of IN Dep't of Corr." on Justia Law