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Facebook, Inc., et al. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco County, et al.

Paid petition · Court of Appeal of California, First Appellate District, No. A157902 · judgment July 30, 2019


Certiorari denied · May 18, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 1% cert probability

Before the decision, well below the 4.1% base rate, with no standout signals pointing toward a grant.

Question presented

Under the Stored Communications Act (“SCA”), covered service providers “shall not knowingly divulge to any person or entity the contents” of their account holders’ communications, absent an applicable exception. 18 U.S.C. § 2702(a). The question presented is: Whether a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to subpoena service providers and force them to turn over the contents of their account holders’ communications, notwithstanding the SCA’s express prohibition on such disclosures; and whether a service provider can be held in contempt for refusing to violate the SCA in response to such a subpoena.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Joshua Seth Lipshutz
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

For respondent
Stuart Banner
UCLA School of Law Supreme Court Clinic

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Linked docket
19A609

Proceedings

  1. May 18 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Apr 28 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 5/15/2020.
  3. Apr 27 2020
    Reply of petitioners Facebook, Inc., et al. filed. (Distributed)
  4. Apr 09 2020
    Brief of respondents Lee Sullivan in opposition filed.
  5. Feb 24 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response is granted and the time is extended to and including April 13, 2020.
  6. Feb 20 2020
    Motion to extend the time to file a response from March 12, 2020 to April 13, 2020, submitted to The Clerk.
  7. Feb 07 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 12, 2020)
  8. Dec 02 2019
    Application (19A609) granted by Justice Kagan extending the time to file until February 8, 2020.
  9. Nov 26 2019
    Application (19A609) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 10, 2019 to February 8, 2020, submitted to Justice Kagan.