The United States Supreme Court announced last week that it will hear our case, Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins. The case raises the important issue of whether the Constitution permits a lawsuit to proceed merely on the allegation that federal law has been violated when the plaintiff cannot claim that he has been harmed in a concrete way. Unfortunately, many companies face these types of lawyer-driven suits. For that reason, when we filed our petition requesting that the Supreme Court hear our case, major players in our industry supported our effort, including Facebook, Google, eBay, and Yahoo!. As the Wall Street Journal recognized, allowing these no-injury cases to go forward would “open the floodgates” for class action lawsuits seeking billions of dollars in damages against companies and ultimately raising costs and sacrificing important company innovations for consumers. Forbes contributors also highlighted the harmful effect of by a “no-injury” requirement in a piece published before the Court announced it would hear our case.
We believe that our court system has a crucial job to do in protecting the rights of Americans and should be used only by people who have suffered genuine injury. We are proud to fight against these no-injury cases to protect important businesses providing services, like reuniting families, that people need every day. We look forward to presenting our arguments to the Supreme Court.