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IMDb Prevails at Ninth Circuit in Unanimous Opinion

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In a published opinion, the Ninth Circuit sided with IMDb in an important and closely watched First Amendment case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the lower court’s judgment that California’s Assembly Bill 1687 (AB 1687)—which prohibited IMDb from publishing the ages of individuals in the entertainment industry—was an unconstitutional restraint on speech.

“The 9th Circuit’s opinion in this important 1st Amendment case establishes that the state cannot censor speech, despite how the state labels that speech and reinforces the centrality of an open marketplace of ideas,” John Hueston said to the Los Angeles Times.

As noted in the opinion, while “age discrimination has no place in the entertainment industry,” “not all statutory means of ending such discrimination are constitutional.”

The Hueston Hennigan team included John C. Hueston, Moez M. Kaba and Michael Todisco.

Media coverage includes the Los Angeles Times, Law360, the Daily Journal, Deadline, The Recorder, Yahoo!, and The Hollywood Reporter, among others.