Students v. Paxton
Issue
Texas SB2420 — the App Store Accountability Act — requires app stores to verify user age, obtain parental consent for minors' downloads and in-app purchases, and publish age-rating and content disclosures. Two federal district courts enjoined the law on First Amendment grounds, but the central legal question is whether app store transactions constitute protected speech at all, or whether they are commercial conduct that the First Amendment does not meaningfully constrain. That distinction determines whether Texas must satisfy strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny under *Central Hudson*, or no First Amendment standard at all — a choice that will almost certainly decide the statute's fate on the merits.
What Happened
Ken Paxton, in his capacity as Texas Attorney General, moved the Fifth Circuit to stay two universal preliminary injunctions that had blocked statewide enforcement of SB2420 while his appeals proceed. The Fifth Circuit, in a published per curiam order by Judges Smith, Haynes, and Oldham — with Judge Haynes concurring only in the grant — applies the four-factor *Nken v. Holder* test and finds every factor favors Texas. The panel identifies five likely errors below: the district courts applied strict scrutiny where intermediate scrutiny or no First Amendment scrutiny was warranted; the statute survives *Central Hudson* even if commercial speech is implicated; the courts misread narrow statutory exceptions as limitations on the Act's entire scope; the vagueness challenges fail given the terms' plain meaning and the Act's severability clause; and the universal statewide injunctions were overbroad under *Trump v. CASA, Inc.* The stay is immediate and lifts both injunctions, meaning SB2420 is now fully enforceable while merits briefing continues in both consolidated appeals.
Why It Matters
The panel's most consequential signal is its suggestion that app store download transactions may be commercial conduct with only incidental speech effects — a framing that, if adopted on the merits, would place a wide category of platform activity beyond First Amendment protection and weaken *Section 230*'s preemptive reach against state regulation of platform commercial operations. The order reinforces a broader doctrinal trend, accelerated after *Moody v. NetChoice*, of courts disaggregating "platform as publisher" from "platform as commercial intermediary" and subjecting the latter to substantially reduced federal protection. The panel's reliance on *Trump v. CASA, Inc.* to condemn universal injunctions also signals a structural constraint on how far even successful challengers can push their relief — a shift with major practical consequences for technology-sector litigation, where broad statewide injunctions have historically been the primary tool for neutralizing state internet regulations before they take effect.
Related Filings
Other proceedings in the same litigation tracked by this monitor.
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