Opinion ID: 852099
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Procedural Posture and Article 1, Section 9 Claim

Text: The State asks this Court to reverse the trial court's denial in part of its motion for preliminary injunction and the trial court's granting in part of FreeEats's motion for preliminary injunction. Essentially, the State's desired outcome is to have this Court determine that the Autodialer Law's live-operator requirement as applied to FreeEats's robocalls comports with Article 1, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution and accordingly enjoin FreeEats from violating that provision. Generally, to obtain a preliminary injunction, a party must demonstrate the following four elements by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) there exists a reasonable likelihood of success at trial; (2) the remedies at law are inadequate, thus causing irreparable harm pending resolution of the substantive action; (3) the threatened injury to the movant outweighs the potential harm to the nonmovant from the granting of an injunction; and (4) the public interest would not be disserved by granting the requested injunction. Apple Glen Crossing, LLC v. Trademark Retail, Inc., 784 N.E.2d 484, 487 (Ind.2003). Due to the procedural posture and nature of this case, two different standards relating to preliminary injunctions apply. But under either of these standards, this Court needs to examine only the trial court's evaluation of the first factorreasonable likelihood of success at trial. First, the State is appealing from the trial court's granting in part of FreeEats's motion for preliminary injunction. If FreeEats failed to prove any of the four preliminary injunction requirements, then the trial court's granting in part of its motion was an abuse of discretion. See id. at 487-88. The State asserts that the trial court incorrectly determined that FreeEats had a reasonable likelihood of success on its claim that the Autodialer Law as applied to the robocalls is unconstitutional under Article 1, Section 9. The State does not ask this Court to review the trial court's evaluation of any other preliminary injunction factor. Second, the State is appealing from the trial court's denial in part of its motion for preliminary injunction. The State asserts that the trial court should have granted its preliminary injunction motion to enjoin FreeEats from making the robocalls without complying with the live-operator requirement of the Autodialer Law. This argument invokes the per se injunction standard: if the action to be enjoined clearly violates a statute, the public interest is so great that the injunction should issue regardless of whether a party establishes irreparable harm or greater injury. See Ind. Family & Soc. Servs. Admin. v. Walgreen Co., 769 N.E.2d 158, 161-62 (Ind.2002). In this case, neither party disputes that the robocalls at issue violate the live-operator provision within the Autodialer Law: at issue is the legality of the provision as applied to the robocalls. Thus we need examine only whether the State is correct in asserting that it had a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of its claimthat the Autodialer Law's live-operator requirement as applied to FreeEats's robocalls comports with Article 1, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution, and thus FreeEats must be enjoined from violating the law. Under those standards, this Court must evaluate whether either party has a likelihood of success on the merits of its respective claim. We frame the ultimate issue as follows: did the trial court correctly determine that as applied to this case the Autodialer Law's live-operator requirement violates Article 1, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution? Indiana Code section 24-5-14-5(b) contains the live-operator provision of the Autodialer Law at sub-subsection (2): (b) A caller may not use or connect to a telephone line an automatic dialing-announcing device unless: (1) the subscriber has knowingly or voluntarily requested, consented to, permitted, or authorized receipt of the message; or (2) the message is immediately preceded by a live operator who obtains the subscriber's consent before the message is delivered. Because FreeEats did not have prior consent of the subscribers under sub-subsection (1), sub-subsection (2) requires FreeEats to obtain consent at the outset of the calls through a live operator. The trial court found that this live-operator requirement imposed a material burden on FreeEats's political speech in violation of Article 1, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution. The trial court acknowledged that the Autodialer Law in general does not prohibit FreeEats from making political calls but found that the live-operator requirement would increase FreeEats's costs more than tenfold and slow its process of disseminating political messages in Indiana for clients. The State does not dispute that the speech at issue is political in nature but argues that the live-operator requirement does not impose a material burden on the speech. Article 1, Section 9 of the Indiana Constitution prohibits the legislature from passing laws restraining the free interchange of thought and opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write, or print, freely, on any subject whatever. It further states that for the abuse of that right, every person shall be responsible. Ind. Const. art. 1, § 9. This clause embodies a freedom-and-responsibility standard, which prohibits the legislature from impairing the flow of ideas but allows it to sanction individuals who commit abuse. Price v. State, 622 N.E.2d 954, 958 (Ind. 1993). Claims that a statute violates the free speech clause of the Indiana Constitution are evaluated under a different standard than claims based on the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. See, e.g., id. For Article 1, Section 9 claims, if a statute affects political speech, which is an established core constitutional value, we engage in material burden analysis. Id. at 960, 963. In the present case, there is no dispute that the affected speech is political, as it clearly comment[s] on government action. Whittington v. State, 669 N.E.2d 1363, 1370 (Ind.1996). This Court has engaged in material burden analysis on several occasions, although in factual scenarios quite different than the present one. In Price v. State , the seminal case addressing Article 1, Section 9 in the context of political speech, this Court examined the constitutionality of Indiana's disorderly conduct statute. The defendant was arrested and ultimately convicted of disorderly conduct after her noisy protest on how police officers were treating her and other individuals. 622 N.E.2d at 957. The defendant appealed her conviction on several theoriesone was that the disorderly conduct statute violated the free speech clause of the state constitution. Id. After determining that the content of the defendant's speech was political, this Court shifted the focus to whether the statute, as applied, imposed a material burden on the speech. Id. at 963. We enunciated several important components of material burden analysis. First, we look only at the magnitude of the impairment. Id. at 961 n. 7. If the right, as impaired, would no longer serve the purpose for which it was designed, it has been materially impaired. Id. Second, treating as abuse political speech which does not harm any particular individual (`public nuisance') does amount to a material burden, but that sanctioning expression which inflicts upon determinable parties harm of a gravity analogous to that required under tort law does not. Id. at 964. With these considerations in mind, we noted that given the ongoing commotion at the time the defendant began shouting her protest at the officers, the State could not establish a link between the defendant's conduct and any particularized harm that was suffered. Id. Any harm suffered by individuals observing the scene was not more than a fleeting annoyance, and the defendant's actions were not analogous to conduct that would sustain tort liability against the speaker. Id. In essence, arresting the defendant for disorderly conduct based on her political speech, when her conduct could not be considered abuse under the particular facts, was a material burden on the defendant's right to engage in political speech. Several cases following Price elaborated on material burden analysis. In Whittington, a case also addressing the disorderly conduct statute, this Court stated that [o]ur opinion in Price suggests that state action does not impose a material burden on expression if either the `magnitude of the impairment' is slight or the expression threatens to inflict `particularized harm' analogous to tortious injury on readily identifiable private interests. Whittington, 669 N.E.2d at 1370 (internal citations omitted). [7] And in a case addressing a state statute that imposed certain requirements before a woman could get an abortion, this Court held that a state regulation creates a material burden if it imposes a substantial obstacle on a core constitutional value serving the purpose for which it was designed but that there is no material burden with a less than a substantial obstacle under most circumstances. Clinic for Women, Inc. v. Brizzi, 837 N.E.2d 973, 984 (Ind.2005). [8] Thus, determining whether a statute imposes a material burden on political speech may involve two components: magnitude of the impairment analysis and particularized harm analysis. Under magnitude of the impairment analysis, we look at whether there has been a substantial obstacle on the right to engage in political speech. The important inquiry is whether the right to engage in political speech, as affected, no longer serves the purpose for which it was designed. If a substantial obstacle does not exist, there is no material burden on the right to engage in political speech. But if a substantial obstacle does exist, we also engage in particularized harm analysis: we look at whether the speaker's actions are analogous to conduct that would sustain tort liability against the speaker. If there is a particularized harm, then we conclude that the state action does not impose a material burden on the right to engage in political speech. Conversely, a lack of particularized harm means there is a material burden. Ultimately, a material burden on political speech exists only in the presence of a substantial obstacle on the right and the absence of particularized harm caused by the speaker. The State argues (1) that the live-operator requirement's impairment on FreeEats's speech is slight and (2) that FreeEats's robocalls are akin to tort-like conduct. FreeEats, on the other hand, argues that because the live-operator requirement increases its costs and reduces the number of calls it can make within a given period of time, there is a significant impairment on its political expression. Furthermore, FreeEats contends that its robocalls are not excessive enough to be analogous to an actionable tort based on invasion of privacy or the like. We find that this issue can be resolved on magnitude of the impairment grounds and thus find it unnecessary to address the State's argument that the robocalls inflict particularized harm analogous to tortious injury. For the reasons explained below, we hold that the live-operator requirement of the Autodialer Law does not impose a substantial obstacle on FreeEats's right to engage in political speech. We agree with the State that FreeEats's right to engage in political speech continues to serve its purpose notwithstanding the live-operator requirement of the Autodialer law. The State elaborates on this argument: (1) the Autodialer Law does not prohibit the dissemination of political speech; (2) FreeEats and its clients may continue to use the AIC system as long as they obtain the residents' consent in either of the prescribed manners; and (3) despite the Autodialer law, FreeEats and its clients are free to broadcast their messages and engage in political discourse in countless other ways. In Price, the disorderly conduct statute's operation blocked the defendant's ability to engage in political expression. We recognize that an arrest and criminal conviction for nonabusive political speech clearly falls on the substantial-obstacle end of the spectrum. Not every restraint will be as easily definable, and this Court recognizes that lesser restraints may also present substantial obstacles to engage in political speech. But the State has explained why the magnitude of the impairment in this case does not rise to an Article 1, Section 9 violationthe live-operator requirement of the Autodialer Law does not, for various reasons, present a substantial obstacle to the purpose underlying FreeEats's right to engage in political expression. Furthermore, FreeEats's only substantial-obstacle argument is an economic onethat it is more expensive to make political calls if it complies with the live-operator requirement of the Autodialer Law. This purely economic burden is not the type of substantial obstacle that Price contemplated. The Autodialer Law prevents FreeEats from sending prerecorded political messages without obtaining the telephone subscriber's consent. FreeEats can obtain this consent prior to the call or at the outset of the call by using a live operator. FreeEats is correct in noting that its costs will increase if it complies with the live-operator requirement, but FreeEats fails to introduce any convincing argument that the result of the requirement is that its right to engage in political expression no longer serves the purpose for which it was designed. Any content-neutral statute that incidentally affects political expression could conceivably increase the economic costs of the speaker. A conclusion that a statute violates the state constitution when it increases the economic costs to engage in political expression, without any showing that the right to political expression no longer serves its purpose, would be unsound. FreeEats and its clients are still free to engage in political expression and are free to use the AIC system to do so. Although the Autodialer Law's live-operator provision is a less-than-ideal requirement for FreeEats, it is not a material burden on its right to engage in political expression.