Court Opinion

ID: 9891571
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-18 21:00:29.032601+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:43:19.060493
License: Public Domain

the

    United States Court of Appeals
                 For the Seventh Circuit
                     ____________________
No. 22-2621
G.G. and DEANNA ROSE,
                                                Plaintiffs-Appellants,
                                 v.

SALESFORCE.COM, INC.,
                                                 Defendant-Appellee.
                     ____________________

         Appeal from the United States District Court for the
           Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
           No. 1:20-cv-02335 — Andrea R. Wood, Judge.
                     ____________________

   On Petition for Rehearing En Banc or Panel Rehearing
                   ____________________

                   DECIDED October 18, 2023
                    ____________________

   Before SYKES, Chief Judge, EASTERBROOK, ROVNER,
BRENNAN, SCUDDER, ST. EVE, KIRSCH, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, LEE,
and PRYOR, Circuit Judges.
    PER CURIAM. On consideration of defendant-appellee’s pe-
tition for rehearing en banc or panel rehearing, ﬁled on Au-
gust 17, 2023, all judges on the panel have voted to deny panel
2                                                 No. 22-2621

rehearing. A judge in regular active service called for a vote
on the petition for rehearing en banc, and a majority in active
service voted to deny the petition for rehearing en banc.
Judges Brennan, Scudder, St. Eve, and Kirsch voted to grant
the petition for rehearing en banc.
   Accordingly, the petition for rehearing en banc or panel
rehearing by defendant-appellee is DENIED.
No. 22-2621                                                    3

   SCUDDER, Circuit Judge, joined by ST. EVE, Circuit Judge, dis-
senting from the denial of the petition for rehearing en banc.
    While I agree with the panel’s narrow holding that G.G.
stated a claim against Salesforce for participation liability un-
der 18 U.S.C. § 1595, I am troubled by the overbroad and un-
necessary language in the panel opinion, which risks being
read to oﬀer answers to questions not presented in this case.
   Article III’s Case or Controversy requirement limits fed-
eral courts to the resolution of concrete disputes between ad-
verse parties. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555,
559–61 (1992). When our decisions exceed that limitation—
when we reason with overbreadth—we risk the issuance of
advisory opinions. See Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346,
362 (1911); see also TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 141 S. Ct.
2190, 2203 (2021). The majority opinion leaves me with that
worry.
    The opinion clearly explains Backpage’s notorious sex
traﬃcking operations, the widespread awareness of those op-
erations, and the scope of Salesforce’s assistance—which, on
the facts alleged in G.G.’s complaint, could only be under-
stood as furthering those aﬀairs. See Slip Op. at 3–6. The panel
majority is also right to conclude that § 1595 does not require
victim-speciﬁc knowledge.
    Had the opinion stopped there, nobody would be reading
this dissent. But in too many places the opinion goes further
and suggests without qualiﬁcation that § 1595 participant lia-
bility could attach to anyone in a “continuous business rela-
tionship” with a sex traﬃcking operation like Backpage. See
Slip Op. at 17–18, 25, 28, 36–37. It also suggests that
knowledge can be inferred from the bare allegation that a de
4                                                  No. 22-2621

fendant “repeatedly consulted” with a traﬃcker about its
business without a link to the illegal activity. See Slip Op. at
17.
    Better to leave tomorrow’s diﬃcult questions about the
scope of § 1595 for tomorrow’s cases. To put the point more
directly, everyone reading the majority opinion ought to dis-
tinguish between the court’s holding and key reasoning and
the broader unwarranted commentary suggesting that § 1595
participant liability may apply in expansive ways to more or-
dinary business relationships. In my respectful view, our full
court missed an opportunity to come together to preserve the
panel’s essential and sound reasoning and to leave everything
else for another day.