Justia Communications Law Opinion Summaries

In 2016, a Madison student fired a gun and injured four students. Approximately two years later, the School Board enacted a resolution allowing staff to carry concealed weapons. Around the same time, Madison students walked out of class during the school day to protest gun violence; school administration disciplined those students. The plaintiffs began attending Board meetings. At one meeting, three were not allowed to speak for failure to complete a “public participation form,” in person, at least two business days before the meeting. Another plaintiff finished his (under three-minute) speech while a security officer escorted him from the room.The plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983, challenging the Board Policy’s “use of vague and undefined terms” and “the imposition of content-based restrictions on speech.” The district court granted the Board summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit reversed in part. The Policy’s restrictions on “abusive,” “personally directed,” and “antagonist” statements discriminate based on viewpoint and were unconstitutionally applied to silence the plaintiff. The antagonistic restriction, by definition, prohibits speech opposing the Board. The plaintiff spoke calmly and refrained from personal attacks or vitriol, focusing on his stringent opposition to the Board’s policy and his belief that the Board was not being honest about its motives. The preregistration requirement is a content-neutral time, place, manner restriction that narrowly serves a significant government interest and leaves ample alternative channels. View "Ison v. Madison Local School District Board of Education" on Justia Law

To connect a California caller to a California recipient, long-distance carriers must purchase access to local exchange services provided by local carriers (switched access services). Long-distance carriers have no control over which local carrier will provide switched access services and “have no choice but to use this service." In its complaint to the Public Utilities Commission, Qwest (a long-distance carrier) alleged that local carriers discriminated against it by providing other long-distance carriers, AT&T and Sprint, with discounted rates for switched access services. Qwest was not charged more than the rates set forth in the local carriers’ tariffs. The Commission concluded Qwest showed that it was similarly situated to AT&T and Sprint and that there was no rational basis for treating Qwest differently with respect to the rates. The court of appeal affirmed, rejecting challenges to the Commission failing to conduct an additional evidentiary hearing, finding Qwest was similarly situated to the Contracting Carriers without considering various factors the Commission identified in earlier Decisions; treating differences in the cost of providing service as the only “rational basis” for different rates; concluding Qwest is entitled to refunds; and in determining for the first time during the rehearing that switched access is a monopoly bottleneck service. View "Bullseye Telecom, Inc. v. California Public Utilities Commission" on Justia Law

FBI agents impersonated members of the press so that they could trick an unknown student who had threatened to bomb his school into revealing his identity. When news of the FBI’s tactics became public, media organizations were incensed that their names and reputations had been used to facilitate the ruse. The Reporters Committee filed Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. 552(a)(3), requests seeking more information about the FBI’s ploy. The district court ruled that the government could withhold from disclosure dozens of the requested documents under FOIA Exemption 5, which states that agencies need not disclose “inter-agency or intra-agency memorandums or letters that would not be available by law to a party other than an agency in litigation with the agency.” The court ruled that the documents are protected by the common law deliberative process privilege and that their disclosure would likely cause harm to the agency’s deliberative processes going forward.The D.C. Circuit affirmed in part. The government properly withheld the emails in which FBI leadership deliberated about appropriate responses to media and legislative pressure to alter FBI undercover tactics and internal conversations about the implications of changing undercover practices going forward. The government did not satisfy its burden to show either that the other documents at issue were deliberative or that their disclosure would cause foreseeable harm. View "Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press v. Federal Bureau of Investigation" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed this appeal concerning whether the Kansas Open Records Act (KORA), Kan. Stat. Ann. 45-215 et seq., requires a Kansas district court to make audio records of open court proceedings available for public inspection, holding that Appellant lacked standing.Appellant made a written request to listen to and copy digital audio recordings made during two public court hearings. Appellant was neither a party in the case nor counsel for any party. When Appellant was denied access to the recordings he sought declaratory and injunctive relief. The district court dismissed the claims, holding that the audio recordings were exempt from disclosure and that Appellant had no constitutional or common-law right to the recordings. The court of appeals reversed, holding (1) Appellant did not meet his burden to establish his standing; and (2) therefore, this Court and the court of appeals lacked jurisdiction over this appeal. View "Baker v. Hayden" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court vacated the circuit court's judgment on the pleadings in favor of Governor Michael Parson and Michelle Hallford, the custodian of records for the governor's office (collectively, the Governor's Office) and dismissing the underlying lawsuit, holding that the Governor's Office was not entitled to judgment, as a matter of law, on the face of the pleadings. This lawsuit stemmed from two public records requests Plaintiff made under the Sunshine Law, Mo. Rev. Stat. 610.010-.035. Plaintiff argued that the Governor's Office violated the Sunshine Law when it required Plaintiff to prepay an estimate of costs for his first request, arbitrarily refused to waive fees associated with his first request, failed to explain its estimated delay in producing certain requested records, and impermissibly redacted certain records. The circuit court entered judgment on the pleadings in favor of the Governor's Office. The Supreme Court vacated the judgment, holding that the circuit court erred in sustaining the Governor's Office's motion for judgment on the pleadings as to several issues. View "Gross v. Parson" on Justia Law

Five former employees of national security agencies who, during their employment, had clearances for access to classified and sensitive information, filed suit against the CIA, the Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They facially challenged the agencies’ requirements that current and former employees give the agencies prepublication review of certain materials that they intend to publish to allow the agencies to redact information that is classified or otherwise sensitive to national security. They alleged that the agencies’ regimes “fail to provide former government employees with fair notice of what they must submit,” “invest executive officers with sweeping discretion to suppress speech[,] and fail to include procedural safeguards designed to avoid the dangers of a censorship system.”The Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit, holding that the prepublication review regimes were “reasonable” measures to protect sensitive information and did not violate the plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights. The regimes were not unduly vague under the Fifth Amendment; they adequately informed authors of the types of materials they must submit and established for agency reviewers the kinds of information that can be redacted. View "Edgar v. Haines" on Justia Law

In 2019, the television program CBS This Morning broadcast interviews with two women who accused Fairfax, the Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, of sexual assault. Fairfax had previously denied the allegations. Although he admitted that both sexual encounters occurred, he claimed they were entirely consensual. The CBS interviewer, Gayle King read from a statement Fairfax had given CBS denying the allegations. King directed viewers to Fairfax’s full statement on CBS’s website. Fairfax later issued a public letter to a North Carolina district attorney, alleging for the first time the existence of an eyewitness. Fairfax demanded that CBS retract the interviews, and CBS refused. Fairfax sued CBS for defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court dismissed the complaint in its entirety but denied CBS’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs finding that CBS established its entitlement to statutory immunity under Virginia’s anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) statute.The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Fairfax’s complaint fails to plausibly allege that CBS made the allegedly defamatory statements with knowledge or reckless disregard of their falsity, as required to state a claim for defamation of a public official. The fee-shifting statute is discretionary, not mandatory or presumptive. Fairfax’s allegations did not plausibly allege that CBS broadcast its This Morning programs despite entertaining “serious doubts as to the truth” of those broadcasts. View "Fairfax v. CBS Corp." on Justia Law

Puma, a pharmaceutical company, created an investor presentation during a proxy contest with Eshelman, a Puma shareholder and the founder of PPD, another pharmaceutical company. Puma invited its shareholders to visit a link on its website where it had published the presentation, which indicated that, a decade earlier, while Eshelman was CEO of PPD, a clinical investigator falsified documents. The presentation was published at least 198 times. Puma also filed the presentation with the SEC, which made it permanently accessible on its website.Eshelman, a resident of North Carolina, initiated a diversity action with state-law claims of defamation. Puma is incorporated in Delaware and has its principal place of business in California; Auerbach, Puma’s CEO, resides in California. The court found defamatory per se Puma’s statements that Eshelman was “involved in clinical trial fraud” and that Eshelman was replaced as CEO after being forced to testify regarding fraud in 2008. A jury awarded Eshelman $15.85 million in compensatory damages and $6.5 million in punitive damages.The Fourth Circuit affirmed as to liability but vacated the award after finding that Puma waived its personal jurisdiction claim. Each of the statements at issue is capable of a singular, defamatory interpretation but “there is no evidence justifying such an enormous award.” View "Eshelman v. Puma Biotechnology, Inc." on Justia Law

B.L. failed to make her school’s varsity cheerleading squad. While visiting a store over the weekend, B.L. posted two images on Snapchat, a social media smartphone application that allows users to share temporary images with selected friends. B.L.’s posts expressed frustration with the school and the cheerleading squad; one contained vulgar language and gestures. When school officials learned of the posts, they suspended B.L. from the junior varsity cheerleading squad for the upcoming year.The Third Circuit and Supreme Court affirmed a district court injunction, ordering the school to reinstate B. L. to the cheerleading team. Schools have a special interest in regulating on-campus student speech that “materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.” When that speech takes place off-campus, circumstances that may implicate a school’s regulatory interests include serious bullying or harassment; threats aimed at teachers or other students; failure to follow rules concerning lessons and homework, the use of computers, or participation in online school activities; and breaches of school security devices. However, courts must be more skeptical of a school’s efforts to regulate off-campus speech.B.L.’s posts did not involve features that would place them outside the First Amendment’s ordinary protection; they appeared outside of school hours from a location outside the school and did not identify the school or target any member of the school community with vulgar or abusive language. Her audience consisted of her private circle of Snapchat friends. B.L. spoke under circumstances where the school did not stand in loco parentis. The school has presented no evidence of any general effort to prevent students from using vulgarity outside the classroom. The school’s interest in preventing disruption is not supported by the record. View "Mahanoy Area School District v. B. L." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals dismissing Appellant's complaint for a writ of mandamus to compel the production of public records, holding that the court of appeals did not err.Appellant, an inmate, sent a public-records request to Julie Loomis, who provided some, but not all, of the requested records. Appellant filed an original action seeking to compel Loomis to make the remaining requested records available for his inspection. On remand, the court of appeals dismissed the complaint based on Appellant's failure to strictly comply with the mandatory requirements of Ohio Rev. Code 2969.25(A). The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) Appellant was required to comply with the requirements of section 2969.25(A); and (2) the court of appeals did not err by not converting Loomis's motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. View "State ex rel. Bey v. Loomis" on Justia Law