Court To Revenge Porn Bro Suing Twitter: You Agreed To Twitter Picking The Courtroom Every Time You Created A New Alt Account

Legal Issues

from the pro-se-at-life dept

Craig Brittain’s $1 billion lawsuit against Twitter is still rolling slowly towards its inevitable dismissal. Bringing with him his usual legal expertise — which includes badly misreading the Knight Institute v. Trump decision and asking for some weird hybrid judgment/injunction/perma-unbanning — Brittain has so far forced Twitter to… move his case to another venue. (via Eric Goldman)

Twitter invoked the forum selection clause of its terms of service — terms Brittain agreed to time and time again as he created new accounts only to have them permanently suspended later. The terms say Twitter can move your lawsuit to its preferred venue (California federal court) and if you don’t like it, well… you can just not use Twitter and/or sue Twitter.

Brittain’s attempt to avoid having his Arizona lawsuit moved to California contains some rather novel legal arguments. First, he claimed Twitter’s terms of service were invalid because [checks filing] it doesn’t contain the mandatory “option” of arbitration. Here’s the court’s take [PDF]:

Brittain asserts that the Terms are unconscionable because they contain no arbitration clause and “have changed over time without arbitration.” Doc. 27 at 4. But Brittain cites no legal authority suggesting that Twitter is required to include an arbitration clause in its Terms. Nor has he otherwise shown that the Terms are unconscionable or illusory.

Second, he claimed it would be impossible for him to continue his doomed lawsuit in another state because he has no way of getting to California. It may be true — and forum selection does tend to create unnecessary expenses for plaintiffs/defendants — but in this case it isn’t because the federal courts are accessible by those with limited travel options.

Brittain asserts that his status makes it “gravely difficult” for him to participate in the litigation. Doc. 27 at 2, 5. He notes that he “is traveling primarily by bicycle and/or public transportation to file, upwards of 40 miles per trip[.]” Id. at 2. But the Northern District of California permits filing by mail, eliminating the need for Brittain to bicycle or use public transportation to file court documents.3 The fact that Brittain is a self-represented, indigent litigant is no basis for not enforcing the forum selection clauses. As noted, the private interests of the parties must be weighed in favor of the preselected forum. See Yei, 901 F.3d at 1087. Brittain has not shown that litigating in California “will be so gravely difficult and inconvenient that he will for all practical purposes be deprived of his day in court.” M/S Bremen, 407 U.S. at 18.

Brittain also claims millions of social media users would cry out at once and be silenced if Twitter was allowed to take Craig’s unwinnable lawsuit to California. Brittain asserts… reasons.

Brittain further asserts that enforcement of the forum selection clauses would “contravene a strong public policy of the venue in which the suit was brought,” and “the public policy of . . . the District of Arizona is superior to that of the requested forum.” Doc. 27 at 5. He cites the purported “public interest of over one billion total users,” including “tens of millions who have been censored, deverified, or suspended by Twitter,” but draws no connection between the interests of those alleged users and Arizona public policy.

The court is not swayed.

Twitter notes, correctly, that Arizona public policy favors enforcing forum selection clauses. Doc. 30 at 8. “Enforcement of a forum selection clause such as the one[s] at issue does not contravene any strong Arizona public policy as Arizona courts routinely hold that forum selection clauses are presumptively valid and that the party claiming the oppressiveness or unreasonableness needed to invalidate such a clause must meet a heavy burden of proof.”

Brittain’s lawsuit is still alive for the time being. He’ll just have to lose it in California, rather than in front of the home crowd.

Filed Under: content moderation, craig brittain, jurisdiction, pro se, revenge porn
Companies: twitter