Stebbins v. Garcia Baz

Background

David A. Stebbins filed claims concerning videos posted by Thiago Chagas Garcia Baz. The opinion states that Stebbins produces YouTube videos, has filed other cases involving users who allegedly copied his videos, and has used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to ask Google to remove videos from YouTube. Most of the videos at issue had been removed by Google or Garcia Baz.

Stebbins’s amended complaint asserted copyright-infringement claims, a libel claim, and a Digital Millennium Copyright Act misrepresentation claim. The libel and misrepresentation claims relied on Garcia Baz’s statement that the person who sent a copyright strike appeared to have wrongly assumed that the use was not fair use.

Earlier filing restrictions

In an earlier related proceeding, Judge Trina Thompson declared Stebbins a vexatious litigant and required him to submit any copyright or copyright-related claim to the Clerk for review by the duty judge before filing. Judge Casey Pitts later allowed Stebbins’s original complaint to proceed only on the copyright-infringement claims and struck the libel and Digital Millennium Copyright Act misrepresentation claims.

The court determined that the two reasserted claims were copyright-related because they depended on a statement about Stebbins’s view of fair use made in response to his efforts to have Garcia Baz’s videos removed. The court therefore ordered Stebbins to show why those claims should not be stricken for failing to comply with the earlier pre-filing review requirement.

Potential dismissal

Because Stebbins was proceeding without paying filing fees, the court also explained that federal law required it to screen the amended complaint and dismiss claims that were frivolous, malicious, or failed to state a legally sufficient claim. The court stated that the challenged statement appeared to express an opinion, particularly because it used the phrase “seems,” and that opinion generally is constitutionally protected and not actionable as defamation.

The court emphasized that it had not yet conducted a comprehensive review of the libel and misrepresentation claims. It raised the protected-opinion issue as an apparent potential defect that could be considered together with the pre-filing restriction. The court found no basis to dismiss the copyright-infringement claims at that stage and stated that those claims would be allowed to proceed if Stebbins withdrew the other two claims.

Orders

Judge A. J. Cisneros granted Stebbins’s application to proceed without paying filing fees. The court denied as moot Stebbins’s motion for a hearing on that application. The court ordered Stebbins, by May 22, 2024, to file either a second amended complaint limited to the copyright-infringement claims previously allowed to proceed or a response explaining why the current complaint should be allowed to proceed.

The order states that if Stebbins failed to file either document, or if his response did not address the court’s concerns, the case would be reassigned to a district judge with a recommendation to dismiss or strike the libel and Digital Millennium Copyright Act misrepresentation claims. The court denied Stebbins’s motion to serve Garcia Baz by email without prejudice to requesting that relief again if the court later allowed the claims to proceed.