Opinion ID: 792900
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Unconstitutionality of the French Court's Orders

Text: 107 The dissent repeatedly states that the French court's interim orders are facially unconstitutional. It writes, The French orders on their face . . . violate the First Amendment and are plainly contrary to one of America's, and by extension California's, most cherished public policies. (Dissent at 1239.) It later refers to the French court's orders as foreign court orders that so obviously violate the First Amendment. ( Id. at 1239-40.) It writes further, [T]he absence of a discernible line between the permitted and the unpermitted . . . makes the orders facially unconstitutional. ( Id. at 1244) 108 The dissent is able to conclude that the French court's interim orders are facially unconstitutional only by ignoring what they say. The dissent appears to assume that the orders, on their face, require Yahoo! to block access by United States users. It writes, [T]he question we face in this federal lawsuit is whether our own country's fundamental constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech protects Yahoo! (and, derivatively, at least its users in the United States) against some or all of the restraints the French defendants have deliberately imposed upon it within the United States.  ( Id. at 1234-1235) (emphasis in original). Further, Yahoo! confront[s] the dilemma of whether or not to stand by its United States constitutional rights or constrain its speech and that of its user[.] ( Id. at 1238.) Legions of cases permit First Amendment challenges to governmental actions or decrees that on their face are vague, overbroad and threaten to chill protected speech. Indeed, the sweeping injunction here presents just such a paradigmatic case. ( Id. at 1238.) Still further, Under the principles articulated today, a foreign party can use a foreign court decree to censor free speech here in the United States[.] ( Id. at 1240.) 109 If it were true that the French court's orders by their terms require Yahoo! to block access by users in the United States, this would be a different and much easier case. In that event, we would be inclined to agree with the dissent. See, e.g., Sarl Louis Feraud Int'l v. Viewfinder Inc., No. 04 Civ. 9760, 2005 WL 2420525, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22242 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 29, 2005) (holding unenforceable as contrary to the First Amendment a French damage judgment based on photographs posted on the Internet freely accessible to American viewers). But this is not the case. The French court's orders, by their terms, require only that Yahoo! restrict access by users in France. The boundary line between what is permitted and not permitted is somewhat uncertain for users in France. But there is no uncertainty about whether the orders apply to access by users in the United States. They do not. They say nothing whatsoever about restricting access by users in the United States. 110 The dissent's conclusion that the French court's orders are unconstitutional may be based in part on an assumption that a necessary consequence of compliance with the French court's orders will be restricted access by users in the United States. But if this is the basis for the dissent's conclusion, it could hardly say that the orders are unconstitutional on their face. Whether restricted access by users in the United States is a necessary consequence of the French court's orders is a factual question that we cannot answer on the current record. 111 If the only consequence of compliance with the French court's orders is to restrict access by Internet users in France, Yahoo!'s only argument is that the First Amendment has extraterritorial effect. The dissent fails to acknowledge that this is inescapably a central part of Yahoo!'s argument, let alone acknowledge that it may be Yahoo!'s only argument.