Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution extends federal court jurisdiction to, inter alia, “all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution . . . .” In Murthy v. Missouri, decided on June 26, 2024, the Court decided that it and the lower federal courts that first heard the case, lacked jurisdiction to hear the case because the plaintiffs lacked “standing” to complain about social media company suppression of their postings on company owned web sites. The plaintiffs had alleged that officials of the federal government, who were the defendants, successfully pressured the social media companies to suppress the plaintiffs’ posts on the companies’ own web sites. None of the social media companies themselves had been named, as either plaintiffs or defendants, in the frustrated posters’ lawsuit. Therefore, the Court thought it too speculative to conclude that the government, as opposed to the social media companies, had suppressed the plaintiffs’ “free speech.” The vote on the Court was 6-3, with Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch dissenting. The dissenters contended that the defendant governmental officials had in fact suppressed the plaintiffs’ “speech,” and therefore their rights under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.[1]
COMMENT: The majority Opinion seems to conflate the majority’s understandable unease with the strength of the merits of the plaintiffs’ case with the better-established strength of the plaintiffs’ jurisdictional showing under the “standing-to-sue” doctrine. The plaintiffs did seem to have sufficient proof to show (1) an injury in fact (i.e., suppressed speech), (2) that was fairly attributable to the pressure tactics applied to social media companies by the governmental defendants, (3) and that was redressable by appropriate judicial relief the court could impose. The plaintiffs just had a weak case on the merits, in which it was difficult to convince the majority that governmental officials actually caused their injuries, instead of the social media companies that actually ran the web sites to which the plaintiffs were denied full access. Nevertheless, the Court’s jurisdictional ruling was correct. The plaintiffs had no case under the First Amendment. Whatever governmental officials may have done to interfere with the plaintiffs’ “freedom of speech” on social media sites, there had been no effort by the United States Congress to “make” a law “abridging” the “freedom” “of the press” as the First Amendment actually prohibits. Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ case did not “arise” under the First Amendment to the federal Constitution, and the federal courts therefore had no jurisdiction over that under Article III of the United States Constitution.
Dan Rhea
[1] “Congress shall make no Law abridging . . . the freedom of speech, or of the press . . . .” U.S. Const., Amendment I.
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