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Ruling Issued on IMDb.com Challenge to CA Actor-Age Law
A federal judge in San Francisco issued a preliminary injunction on February 22 halting a California state law that requires online entertainment database IMDb.com to remove actors' ages on request. IMDb.com v. Kenealy, 3:16-cv-06535. Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California had made clear at a hearing earlier in February that he thought the law violated the First Amendment, although he held off ruling from the bench at that time.
California Civil Code §1798.83.5, which took effect on Jan. 1, is backed by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists union (see, http://bit.ly/2lLjDyj), and was billed as a tool to fight age discrimination in the entertainment industry. But in November, IMDb, an Amazon.com Inc. subsidiary, sued to block the law, claiming that it runs afoul of the First Amendment and the broad protections provided to websites by the Communications Decency Act (CDA).
Anthony Hakl, the deputy attorney general charged with defending the law on behalf of the state, figured out pretty quickly at a recent hearing where he stood with District Judge Chhabria. The judge, who worked for the city attorney's office in San Francisco before taking the bench, said he had defended “a number of laws that were very challenging to defend” in his prior work. But, he added, he couldn't remember defending “a law that is as challenging to defend as you are trying to defend now.”
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