Yahoo!, Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et L'Antisemitisme
169 F. Supp. 2d 1181, 30 Media L. Rep. (BNA) 1001, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 18378 (2001)
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Rule of Law:
A U.S. court will not enforce a foreign judgment under the principle of comity if the judgment is contrary to the public policy of the United States, such as when it would violate the First Amendment by imposing content-based restrictions on protected speech within the U.S.
Facts:
- Yahoo!, Inc. ('Yahoo!'), a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in California, operates an internet auction website on its U.S.-based servers at Yahoo.com.
- Users of Yahoo.com's auction site posted Nazi and Third Reich memorabilia for sale.
- La Ligue Contre Le Racisme Et l’Antisemitisme ('LICRA') and L’Union Des Etudiants Juifs De France, two French non-profit organizations, observed that this content was accessible to internet users in France.
- The exhibition and sale of Nazi artifacts violates Section R645-1 of the French Criminal Code.
- On April 5, 2000, LICRA sent a 'cease and desist' letter to Yahoo!'s California headquarters, demanding it prevent French citizens from accessing the prohibited materials and threatening legal action.
Procedural Posture:
- LICRA and L’Union Des Etudiants Juifs De France filed a civil complaint against Yahoo! in the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris ('French Court'), a court of first instance.
- On May 20, 2000, the French Court issued an order requiring Yahoo! to block access for French users to Nazi-related content on Yahoo.com and imposed a potential daily penalty for non-compliance.
- After Yahoo! argued technological impossibility, the French Court reaffirmed its order on November 20, 2000, finding compliance was possible and setting a date for penalties to begin accruing.
- The defendants utilized the U.S. Marshal's Office to serve Yahoo! with the French orders in California.
- Yahoo! filed a complaint for declaratory judgment in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, seeking a ruling that the French orders are unenforceable in the U.S.
- The defendants' motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was denied by the District Court.
- Yahoo! moved for summary judgment on its declaratory judgment claim.
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Issue:
Does the enforcement of a French court's order, which requires a U.S.-based internet company to remove content from its U.S.-based servers to prevent access by French citizens, violate the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution when the content is protected speech within the United States?
Opinions:
Majority - Fogel, District Judge
Yes, enforcement of the French court's order violates the First Amendment. A U.S. court cannot enforce a foreign order that would be unconstitutional if issued by a U.S. court. The French order constitutes a content-based and viewpoint-based regulation of speech that would fail the strict scrutiny analysis required by the First Amendment. It is also unconstitutionally vague and overbroad, mandating that Yahoo! 'render impossible' access to any site that 'may be construed as constituting an apology for Nazism.' While U.S. courts generally extend comity to foreign judgments, this principle is not absolute and does not apply when a foreign order is 'repugnant to fundamental notions of what is decent and just' or violates core public policy. The First Amendment's protection of free speech is a fundamental public policy, and the 'chilling effect' of enforcing the French order on protected speech occurring within the U.S. outweighs the interest of comity.
Analysis:
This case is a landmark decision in cyberlaw addressing the conflict between national sovereignty and the borderless nature of the internet. It establishes that U.S. First Amendment protections serve as a shield for U.S.-based internet companies against the enforcement of foreign censorship orders within the United States. The ruling reinforces the 'country of origin' principle for speech regulation, suggesting that the laws of the jurisdiction where the content is hosted and the speech occurs are paramount, at least for purposes of U.S. court enforcement. This precedent is crucial for U.S. internet companies navigating differing international speech laws, as it limits their legal exposure in the U.S. for content that, while legal domestically, may be illegal in other nations.
