A federal decide in Kansas has dismissed two of the 4 non-public age verification lawsuits filed in Might 2025 by an unnamed plaintiff on behalf of her teenage son. As the primary age verification circumstances filed by a non-public plaintiff to achieve closing decision, the rulings counsel that non-public plaintiffs can lack private jurisdiction to sue out-of-state web site operators underneath the Kansas statute.
On Tuesday, the decide granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss in Jane Doe v. Titan Web sites, Inc. and Doe v. ICF Expertise Inc., ruling that the plaintiff lacked private jurisdiction to convey the fits. The decide discovered that merely working a web site accessible in Kansas – even one which Kansas residents may view – just isn’t sufficient to determine legal responsibility. Underneath the U.S. Structure, courts could solely train energy over defendants which have intentionally focused or performed actions within the state. Permitting lawsuits primarily based solely on web site accessibility, the courtroom defined, would imply any web site could possibly be sued anyplace, a consequence lengthy rejected by federal courts.
Defendant Titan Web sites was represented by Jeffrey Sandman of Sandman Legislation LLC. “Choose Teeter issued a radical, considerate, and persuasive resolution reminding that non-public jurisdiction includes a constitutional dimension that can’t be overwritten by a state legislature,” says Sandman. “Due Course of calls for {that a} defendant with out significant contacts with a discussion board state can’t be dragged into courtroom to defend a lawsuit there. We’re happy to see these important constitutional rules vindicated and hope that the Kansas Legislature will rethink its brazen effort to subvert the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”
The courtroom emphasised in its choices that the defendants had no places of work or workers in Kansas, no promoting or gross sales directed at Kansas, and no intentional concentrating on of Kansas customers. As a result of the plaintiff couldn’t present that the defendants purposefully aimed their conduct at Kansas, the decide dismissed the case. Importantly, the rulings didn’t deal with whether or not the web sites violated Kansas’s age-verification regulation – solely whether or not Kansas was the right discussion board to resolve that query.
“Yesterday’s ruling gives important steering for platforms who’re confronted with legal guidelines in Kansas and elsewhere,” says Alison Boden, Government Director of Free Speech Coalition. “Whereas not precedent-setting, nor essentially relevant in each case, the District Courtroom’s rulings are an necessary victory towards state legal guidelines enforced by non-public rights of motion. Within the meantime, the specter of litigation is actual, and we encourage our members to proceed to adjust to all relevant legal guidelines.”
The plaintiffs have thirty-days to file discover in the event that they intend to enchantment the ruling.
Two associated non-public age verification lawsuits (Doe v. Multi Media LLC and Jane Doe v. Techpump Options, SL) are nonetheless pending.
