From Choose Terry Doughty’s opinion yesterday in Hines v. Stamos (W.D. La.) (already being appealed), rejecting defendants’ movement to compel arbitration:
Hines is a … co-Director of Well being Freedom Louisiana, a client and human rights advocacy group. Hoft is … the founder, proprietor, and operator of the information web site, The Gateway Pundit. Hines and Hoft allege their … First Modification [rights] … had been violated by the censorship and/or suppression of their views on social media platforms….
Defendants [who are involved with the Stanford Internet Observatory and other similar organizations] are alleged to have labored intently and/or collaborated with state and federal authorities officers to induce, strain, and coerce social media platforms to observe and censor disfavored audio system and content material….
In line with Hines and Hoft, they don’t search to implement Fb, Twitter and/or YouTube’s phrases of service (which included an arbitration settlement) in opposition to the social media platforms, however they as a substitute intend to problem the strain, coercion, cooperation, and entwinement of those exterior individuals and entities working with authorities officers to suppress and/or take away free speech from social media platforms….
No celebration disputes an arbitration clause exists within the Fb and Twitter phrases of service agreements. Additionally, no celebration disputes that the Defendants had been neither events nor signatories to the arbitration agreements entered into by Hines and Hoft. In an try to implement the arbitration clause and the selection of regulation provisions within the Hines and Hoft phrases of service settlement, Defendants try to make use of an equitable estoppel authorized principle….
In Grigson v. Artistic Artists Company, LLC (fifth Cir. 2000), the USA Courtroom of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held {that a} non-signatory to an arbitration settlement can compel arbitration underneath equitable estoppel in two circumstances: (1) when a signatory should depend on the phrases of the written settlement in asserting its claims in opposition to the non-signatory; or (2) when the signatory to a contract containing an arbitration clause raises allegations of considerably unbiased and concerted misconduct by each the non-signatory and a number of of the signatories to the contract.
The Courtroom finds that Defendants usually are not entitled to using equitable estoppel to implement arbitration for a lot of causes. First, Hines and Hoft usually are not counting on the phrases of the Fb and/or Twitter phrases of service settlement to say their claims.
Second, Hines and Hoft haven’t named both Fb or Twitter of their lawsuit as the lawsuit solely alleges that Defendants have labored intently with and collaborated with state and federal authorities officers to induce, strain, and coerce the social media platforms to censor disfavored audio system and content material. {The alleged concerted misconduct is between Defendants and authorities officers, not between Defendants and Fb and/or Twitter.}
Third, as a result of the appliance of equitable estoppel is discretionary and primarily based upon equitable equity concerns, the Courtroom finds that Defendants should not have the “clean hands” required for the appliance of equitable estoppel…. Primarily based upon the allegations contained within the First Amended Criticism, it might be inequitable to permit Defendants to compel arbitration. In line with the allegations, each of the signatories to the phrases of the service settlement are victims of Defendant and authorities collusion and strain to violate Plaintiffs’ free speech rights. To permit Defendants to benefit from an arbitration settlement in opposition to the 2 alleged victims can be inequitable.
Moreover, the Defendants are alleged to have violated the Plaintiffs’ elementary constitutional proper of free speech, as assured by the First Modification. To permit Defendants to keep away from a court docket continuing primarily based upon an arbitration settlement they didn’t signal would even be inequitable, particularly when a elementary proper is at problem.
The phrases of the service settlement state the settlement is ruled by California regulation. In Hernandez v. Meridian Administration Providers, LLC (Cal. App. 2023), the California court docket held that the place a signatory to an arbitration settlement sues a non-signatory, there is no such thing as a unfairness in permitting the go well with to proceed….