Ninth Circuit hands Meta a Section 230 win, lets Idaho's abortion bans stand, and revives the NFL Sunday Ticket case

One court, three fronts

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued three rulings that each turn on a different fault line in American law: platform liability, abortion regulation, and sports antitrust. None of the three is a final resolution. The Meta case ends a lawsuit, the Idaho case pauses an injunction while an appeal proceeds, and the NFL case sends a verdict back for a new trial on damages. Together, though, they show an appeals court doing the work it is built for: deciding which lower-court calls stand and which do not, across subjects that rarely share a docket. m:…7230 m:…3379 m:…5302

The practical stakes differ by case, but the pattern is consistent: the court deferred to the party exercising editorial or legislative judgment in two of the three cases, and corrected a trial judge's handling of expert evidence in the third. For companies and governments watching the court, the day's message is that process still decides outcomes — how a claim is framed, how an expert is treated, and how strong a showing a party makes at the stay stage. m:…7230 m:…3379 m:…5302

Section 230 still shields Meta's publishing decisions

The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of Shared Partnership's conversion claim against Meta Platforms, Inc., holding that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields an internet provider from liability when it acts as a publisher or speaker of third-party content. Shared had submitted more than 500,000 ads to Meta for review over a decade, and Meta rejected more than 18,000 of them for various reasons before canceling Shared's Facebook pages in October 2020 for repeatedly violating its terms and policies. m:…7230

Shared's argument was that a contractual duty took the case outside Section 230. The court rejected that framing, holding that the mere existence of a contractual duty is not a talismanic Section 230 loophole, and that a contractual promise reiterating a company's inherent publishing authority still amounts to publishing activity protected by the statute. The panel distinguished the case from Calise v. Meta Platforms, Inc., noting that the promise in Calise was a specific commitment to combat scams, whereas the terms here were general editorial discretion. The distinction draws a line that platforms and their critics will both study: specific promises can create exposure, but general terms of service do not. m:…7230

Idaho's abortion bans stay in force pending appeal

The court granted a stay of the district court's injunction against Idaho's abortion bans pending appeal, after determining that the defendants made a strong showing of likely success on the merits. The panel held that Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization precludes the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion, and noted Idaho's profound interest in preserving fetal life and its preference for live childbirth over abortion. The court consolidated three related appeals, numbered 26-5360, 26-5558 and 26-6068. m:…3379

A stay pending appeal is not a ruling on the ultimate merits, but it has immediate practical effect: the bans the district court had blocked are enforceable while the appeal runs. The panel's reasoning, grounded in Dobbs, signals how it views the likelihood of success, and the consolidation of three appeals means the eventual decision will address the bans across the related challenges together rather than piecemeal. m:…3379

The NFL Sunday Ticket verdict comes back to life

In the third ruling, the court reversed the district court's judgment as a matter of law for the National Football League and affirmed the district court's order granting a new trial on damages. The panel held that the district court abused its discretion by excluding the subscribers' expert testimony regarding antitrust injury and damages, and that expert opinions are not unreliable merely because they are impeachable. The jury's method of calculating damages showed that the award was not based on a proper consideration of the evidence, which is why damages go back for a new trial while the liability verdict is reinstated. m:…5302

The scale of the case explains why the evidentiary ruling matters so much: Sunday Ticket served 24,105,049 residential subscribers and 506,788 commercial subscribers during the class period, and the NFL earned more than $100 billion between 2011 and February 2023. With the liability verdict reinstated and damages to be retried, the case returns to the trial court with the central antitrust question answered in the subscribers' favor and only the price tag still open. m:…5302