Arizona State Law Journal Blog

By Caitlin White. On September 9, 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the Northern District Court of California’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction forbidding LinkedIn from denying plaintiff hiQ access to publicly available LinkedIn member profiles. As a result of HiQ Labs, Inc. v. LinkedIn Corp., hiQ may continue scraping data from public LinkedIn profiles to provide data analytics to its clients under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). LinkedIn has over 660 million members on its professional networking website. LinkedIn members own the content they post to LinkedIn but grant LinkedIn a non-exclusive license to “use, copy, modify, distribute, publish, and process” their personal information. hiQ is a data analytics company that uses automated bots to “scrape” information from public LinkedIn profiles. This information yields analytics identifying employees…

By Delilah Cassidy. Taylor Swift is one of the best-selling singer-songwriters of all time. At fifteen, she signed her first record deal with Big Machine Label Group (“Big Machine”) and created six albums with the label. Upon expiration, Swift signed with Universal Music Group (“UMG”). Under the UMG agreement, she owns all original sound recordings of new songs (original sound recordings are “masters”). However, about eight months after her switch, talent manager Scooter Braun purchased Big Machine, including the masters to Swift’s first six albums. Swift publicized her frustration with the deal because she was not offered the chance to buy her masters. Swift said in an August interview that she will begin re-recording her Big Machine-era songs in November 2020, the first opportunity her contract with Big Machine allows…

By KC Hooker. In May 2019, the Supreme Court decided Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, which overturned Nevada v. Hall and held that citizens cannot sue a state in another state’s courts. The decision was not surprising given the Court’s expansion of sovereign immunity—or the idea that governments are immune from suits by private parties—since the mid 1990s. As the Court expanded sovereign immunity during that decade, it departed from the literal text of the Eleventh Amendment, which limits federal court jurisdiction to entertain suits against states, and began to rely on a principle called the “dignity rationale.” The dignity rationale is the idea that States are immune from suit because it is an affront to their dignity, as sovereign entities, to be dragged into court at the…

By Christian Fernandez. What is Arizona’s compulsory arbitration program? Arbitration is a form of alternative dispute resolution where an independent third party hears the case and determines the result. Arizona courts have adopted a compulsory arbitration program for all civil lawsuits that meet the requirements listed in Rules 72–77 of the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure. All civil disputes valued under a specific amount are resolved through this arbitration program instead of litigating in court. This program applies to plaintiffs that are only seeking money damages. In addition, this program does not apply to criminal lawsuits. How does the compulsory arbitration program work? A person that brings a lawsuit in Arizona is required to fill out a form stating the type and estimated value of damages they seek. The compulsory…

By Kacie Donovan. Data breaches and resulting amounts of compromised personal information are increasing rapidly. The FBI has said “[T]here are only two types of companies: those that have been hacked and those that will be. And even they are converging into one category: companies that have been hacked and will be hacked again.” Unsurprisingly, plaintiffs affected by these ever-common data breaches are seeking relief in court. Standing doctrine is a hotly contested battleground for the parties to litigation following a data breach. In some courts, plaintiffs experience difficulty demonstrating that the theft of their data alone gives them standing. Several courts require that the data be misused in order for a plaintiff to establish standing. Background on Standing in Data Breach Litigation Justice Scalia once described standing in “pedestrian terms,”…

By Abby Dockum. Over the past several years, products containing cannabidiol—better known as CBD—have spread across the shelves of grocery stores and pharmacies. Sales of CBD products are expected to surpass $5 billion dollars in 2019, up 700% from 2018. This may be attributed in part to increased research on the health benefits of CBD, but it is more likely due to changes in CBD’s legal status. What is CBD? CBD, like tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is an active ingredient of cannabis. Unlike THC, however, CBD has no psychoactive effect, meaning it does not cause a “high.” CBD is not addictive, and the World Health Organization reported that there is no evidence that CBD poses any public health risk. While scientists are still working to determine the health benefits of CBD, there…

By Caitlin Doak. No published Arizona opinion provides for an implied right to cure. However, a recent unpublished Court of Appeals opinion suggests that Arizona is inching closer to adopting an implied right to cure absent a contractual right to cure. In Fisher v. Rondo Pools, 1 CA-CV 18-0343 (Ariz. App. 2019), the court found no error in the superior court instructing the jury that “in determining whether Rondo materially breached the contract, it could consider Rondo’s ‘ability to cure or fix the alleged breach’ and whether Rondo ‘can make any reasonable assurances that it would cure the alleged breach.’” Fisher v. Rondo Pools In Fisher v. Rondo Pools, an owner terminated a contractor mid-project for various defaults. The owner sued, and the jury found the contractor did not materially breach…

By Harman Dhanoa. On October 7th, 2019, the justices returned to the bench for what has been called “the most significant Supreme Court term in a decade.” The docket of 59 cases is set to cover high-profile matters including abortion, gun rights, LGBT+ rights, presidential power, and more. While Chief Justice John Roberts has long sought to maintain an image of the Court as an apolitical institution, all eyes will be on the conservative-leaning Court as it rules on divisive issues ahead of the 2020 presidential election. A brief overview of the issues on the docket this term: Abortion In June Medical Services v. Gee, the Court will assess the constitutionality of a Louisiana law requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the…

By Chase Colwell. By 1986, it was clear that computers were becoming an inextricable component of modern society. However, this new and developing technology was ripe for abuse in various ways. At the time, there were not any adequate legal remedies for victims of these abuses, so Congress saw fit to create a criminal statute addressing those concerns. Thus, The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1986 was born. The CFAA’s primary concern was to prevent “hacking.” As such, the CFAA made it a crime under § 1030(a)(2)(C) for an individual to “intentionally access[] a computer without authorization or exceed[] authorized access” to obtain “information from any protected computer.” The CFAA defines “exceeding authorized access” in § 1030(e)(6) as accessing a computer with authorization and using such access to…

By Madelaine Bauer. For many years, there has been a crucial debate circulating the college athletics world—whether college athletes should be compensated, specifically, for their name, image or likeness. Circling back to 2009, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) faced their first uproar of the controversy on college athlete compensation with the release of their EA Sports NCAA Basketball ’09 video game. The NCAA found themselves as the defendants of a class action lawsuit headed by former UCLA basketball player, Ed O’Bannon. The claim of this class action was for a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act and denying the athletes’ right of publicity—by using the athletes’ name, image and likeness in the production of their games without permission or compensation. After a long-awaited trial, the court ruled the NCAA’s use of the college athletes’ name, image and likeness without the athletes’…