Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/21-459_6k47.pdf
Page Number: 3

Cite as:  595 U. S. ____ (2022) 

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Statement of THOMAS, J. 

on the statute’s plain text.  Id., at ___ (slip op., at 4).  Here, 
the  Texas  Supreme  Court  recognized  that  “[t]he  United 
States Supreme Court—or better yet, Congress—may soon 
resolve  the  burgeoning  debate  about  whether  the  federal
courts have thus far correctly interpreted section 230.”  625 
S. W. 3d, at 84.  Assuming Congress does not step in to clar-
ify §230’s scope, we should do so in an appropriate case. 

Unfortunately, this is not such a case.  We have jurisdic-
tion  to  review  only  “[f ]inal  judgments  or  decrees”  of  state 
courts.  28 U. S. C. §1257(a).  And finality typically requires
“an  effective  determination  of  the  litigation  and  not  of 
merely interlocutory or intermediate steps therein.”  Mar-
ket Street R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n of Cal., 324 U. S. 548, 
551  (1945).  Because  the  Texas  Supreme  Court  allowed
Doe’s statutory claim to proceed, the litigation is not “final.” 
Conceding as much, Doe relies on a narrow exception to the 
finality rule involving cases where “the federal issue, finally
decided by the highest court in the State, will survive and 
require decision regardless of the outcome of future state-
court  proceedings.”    Cox  Broadcasting  Corp.  v.  Cohn,  420 
U. S. 469, 480 (1975).  But that exception cannot apply here 
because the Texas courts have not yet conclusively adjudi-
cated  a  personal-jurisdiction  defense  that,  if  successful, 
would  “effectively  moot  the  federal-law  question  raised
here.”  Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U. S. 75, 82 (1997). 
I, therefore, concur in the Court’s denial of certiorari.  We 
should, however, address the proper scope of immunity un-
der §230 in an appropriate case.