Tag: Jewel

Avvo’s ‘Sponsored Listings’ Not Commercial Enough to Escape First Amendment Protection in Lawyer’s Publicity Suit – IL ND

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In its decade old existence, Avvo, Inc., an “on line legal services marketplace,” has been no stranger to controversy.  Private attorneys and bar associations alike have objected to Avvo’s business model and practices – some filing defamation lawsuits against the company while others have demanded in regulatory venues that Avvo stop its unconsented “scraping” of attorney data.

Vrdolyak v. Avvo, Inc. is the latest installment of a lawyer suing Avvo; this time challenging Avvo-pro, the on-line directory’s pay-to-play service.

For about $50 a month, Avvo-pro users can ensure that no rival attorney ads appear on their profile page.  But if the attorney chooses not to participate in Avvo-pro, he will likely see competitor ads on his Avvo page.

The plaintiff, a non-Avvo-pro participant, sued Avvo under Illinois’ Right to Publicity Act.  He argued that by selling competitor ads on his profile page, Avvo usurped plaintiff’s right to monetize his identity.

In effect, according to plaintiff, Avvo was capitalizing on plaintiff’s brand and using it as a platform for rival lawyers to peddle their services to anyone who visited plaintiff’s Avvo page.

The Court granted Avvo’s motion to dismiss on the basis that Avvo’s ads were protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The key inquiry was whether Avvo’s site constitutes commercial or non-commercial speech.  If speech is non-commercial, it is entitled to expansive First Amendment protection that can only be restricted in extraordinary circumstances.

Commercial speech, by contrast, receives less First Amendment protection.  It can be more easily scrutinized and vulnerable to defamation or publicity statute claims.

The court cited daily newspapers and telephone directory “yellow pages” as prototypical examples of non-commercial speech.

While both sell advertising, a newspaper’s and yellow pages’ main purpose is to provide information.  Any ad revenue derived by the paper or phone directory is ancillary to their primary function as information distributor.

Commercial speech proposes a commercial transaction, including through the use of a trademark or a company’s brand awareness.  If speech has both commercial and non-commercial elements (e.g. where a commercial transaction is offered at the same time a matter of social importance is discussed), the court tries to divine the main purpose of the speech by considering if (1) the speech is an advertisement, (2) it refers to a specific product and (3) the speaker’s economic motivation.

The Court agreed with Avvo that its site was akin to a computerized yellow pages; That the core of Avvo was non-commercial speech: it provides attorney information culled from various sources.

The court distinguished basketball legend Michael Jordan’s recent lawsuit against Jewel food stores for taking out an ad in Sports Illustrated, ostensibly for commending Jordan on his recent basketball hall of fame induction.

The Seventh Circuit there found that Jewel’s conduct clearly aimed to associate Jordan with Jewel’s brand and in the process promote Jewel’s supermarkets.  As a result, Jewel’s actions were deemed commercial speech and subject to a higher level of court scrutiny. Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 743 F.3d 509, 515 (7th Cir. 2014).

In the end, the Avvo case turned on this binary question: was Avvo a non-commercial attorney directory with incidental advertising, or was each Avvo attorney profile an advertisement for the competitors’ “Sponsored Listings” (the name ascribed to competing attorneys who paid for ads to be placed on plaintiff’s profile page).

Since not every attorney profile contained advertisements and none of the challenged ads used plaintiff’s name, the Court found Avvo was like a newspaper or yellow pages directory entitled to free speech protection.

The Court likened Avvo to Sports Illustrated – a publication that features ads but whose main purpose is non-commercial (i.e. Providing sports news).  Like SI, Avvo publishes non-commercial information – attorney stats – and within that information, places advertisements.

To hold otherwise and allow plaintiff’s publicity suit to go forward, “any entity that publishes truthful newsworthy information about….professionals, such as a newspaper or yellow page directory, would risk civil liability simply because it generated ad revenue” from competing vendors.

Afterword:  This case presents an interesting application of venerable First Amendment principles to the post-modern, computerized context.

A case lesson is that even if speech has some obvious money-making byproducts, it still  can garner constitutional protection where its main purpose is to impart information rather than to attract paying customers.

 

 

 

 

Basketball Deity Can Add Additional Plaintiff in Publicity Suit Versus Jewel Food Stores – IL ND (the ‘Kriss Kross Will Make You…Jump’ Post(??)

There’s No Way(!) I’m going to simply pull-and-post just any Google Image of His Airness and hope no one sees it (or, more accurately, takes it seriously enough to engage in some copyright saber-rattling about it).  Not after Michael Jordan is fresh off his nearly $9M Federal jury verdict in a publicity suit against erstwhile Chicago grocer Dominick’s and its parent company.  I didn’t even know he filed a companion suit – this one against Jewel Food Stores – another iconic Midwest grocery brand – pressing similar publicity claims against the chain for using his image without his permission.  Now I do.

In fact, just a couple days before that Friday night Federal jury verdict in the Dominick’s suit, Jordan successfully moved to add his loan-out company1, Jump 23, Inc. as a party plaintiff in his Jewel suit.  The Jewel case, like its Dominick’s case counterpart, stems from Jewel’s use of Jordan’s likeness in an ad congratulating him on his 2009 hoops Hall of Fame induction.

In granting Jordan’s motion to add the Jump 23 entity, the court in Jordan v. Jewel Food Stores, Inc., 2015 WL 4978700 (N.D.Ill. 2015), quite naturally, drilled down to the bedrock principles governing amendments to pleadings in Federal court as expressed in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

In the Federal scheme, Rule 15 controls pleading amendments and freely allows amendments to pleadings “when justice so requires.”  Rule 15(c)(1)(C) governs where an amended claim is time-barred (filed after the statute of limitations expires) and seeks to add a new claim or a new party.  If the party or claim to be added stems from the same transaction as the earlier pleading, the amended pleading will “relate back” to the date of the timely filed claim.

Assuming an amended claim arises out of the same conduct, transaction or occurrence as the earlier (and timely) claim, the (normally) time-barred claim will be deemed timely as long as the party to be brought in by the amendment (1) received such notice of the action that it will not be prejudiced in defending the suit on the merits; and (2) knew or should have known that the action would have been brought against it, but for a mistake concerning the proper party’s identity.

While Rule 15 only speaks to bringing in additional defendants, it’s rationale extends to situations where a party seeks to add a new plaintiff.  Delay alone in adding a party (either plaintiff or defendant) usually isn’t enough to deny a motion to amend to add a new party. Instead, the party opposing amendment (here, Jewel) must show prejudice resulting from the joined party.  Prejudice here means something akin to lost evidence, missing witnesses or a compromised defense caused by the delay.

In this case, the court found there was no question that the Jump 23 entity was aligned with Jordan’s interests and its publicity claim was based on the same conduct underlying Jordan’s.  It also found there was no prejudice to Jewel in allowing Jump 23 to be added as co-plaintiff.  The court noted that Jump 23’s addition to the suit didn’t change the facts and issues in the case and didn’t raise the specter of increased liability for Jewel.  In addition, the court stressed that Jewel is entitled to use the written discovery obtained in the Dominick’s case.  As a result, Jewel won’t be exposed to burdensome additional discovery by allowing the addition of Jump 23 as plaintiff.

Take-away:

This case provides a good summary of Rule 15 amendment elements in the less typical setting of a party seeking to add a plaintiff as a party to a lawsuit.  The lesson for defendants is clear: delay alone isn’t severe enough to deny a plaintiff’s attempt to add a party.  The defendant (or person opposing amendment) must show tangible prejudice in the form of lost evidence, missing witnesses or that its ability to defend the action is weakened by the additional parties’ presence in the suit.

Jordan versus Jewel is slated for trial in December 2015.  I’m interested to see how the multi-million dollar Dominick’s verdict will impact pre-trial settlement talks in the Jewel case.  I would think Jordan has some serious bargaining leverage to exact a hefty settlement from Jewel.  More will be revealed.

  1. Loan-out company definition (see http://www.abspayroll.net/payroll101-loan-out-companies.html)