Rutenburg v. Twitter, Inc.
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:21-cv-00548
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Rutenburg v. Twitter, Judge Rogers denied Maria Rutenburg’s temporary-restraining-order request and denied as moot her request to speed briefing.
Maria Rutenburg and Twitter, Inc.; the order denied Rutenburg’s requested temporary restraining order and made her request to shorten briefing moot.
What happened
In Rutenburg v. Twitter, Maria Rutenburg asked the court for a temporary restraining order against Twitter, Inc. The court denied that request.
The court said Rutenburg’s First Amendment and related Fourteenth Amendment claims could not be enforced against Twitter because Twitter is a private company, not the government. The court also said her motion did not comply with local rules and had not been properly served.
Judge Yvonne Rogers denied the temporary restraining order and denied as moot Rutenburg’s separate request to shorten the briefing schedule. The order terminated the docket entries for those two motions.
The detailed version
- Rutenburg v. Twitter, Inc. · No. 4:21-cv-00548
- Yvonne Rogers
- Jan. 28, 2021
Background
Maria Rutenburg moved for a temporary restraining order against Twitter, Inc. She also filed an ex parte motion asking the court to shorten the briefing schedule for the temporary-restraining-order motion.
Court’s reasoning
The court identified what it called a fundamental flaw in Rutenburg’s case: the First Amendment and related Fourteenth Amendment rights she asserted could not be enforced against a private entity such as Twitter. The court explained that the First Amendment’s free-speech protection prohibits government restrictions on speech, not restrictions imposed by private parties. It also stated that a constitutional claim under the Fourteenth Amendment requires government action.
The court separately found that Rutenburg had not complied with the court’s local rules and had not properly served the motion. It cited Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(b)(1) in describing the motion as procedurally defective.
Disposition
Judge Yvonne Rogers denied the motion for a temporary restraining order. In light of that ruling and the other defects, the court denied as moot the motion to shorten the briefing schedule. The order terminated Docket Numbers 9 and 10; it did not state that the case itself was dismissed.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.