TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A U.S. district court judge granted on Tuesday a motion by Free Speech Coalition to dismiss the trade association’s lawsuit over Florida’s age verification law, a case that had been on hold pending the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the constitutionality of state AV laws.
According to court documents, Chief United States District Judge Mark E. Walker, of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, granted FSC’s notice of voluntary dismissal, which the organization’s attorneys filed on Monday.
As XBIZ reported in January, Walker originally granted Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s motion for a stay of proceedings until the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton, the FSC-led challenge to Texas’ age verification law, HB 1181.
Walker noted at the time that the SCOTUS decision was likely to guide the court’s analysis of FSC’s claims in the case. The June 27 decision did indeed establish a lower standard of scrutiny for AV laws targeting adult content, resulting in a new legal landscape for the online adult industry, and making a successful outcome in Florida essentially impossible for FSC.
Following the dismissal, FSC Director of Public Policy Mike Stabile told XBIZ, “We’re actively looking at the legal landscape and trying to determine not only where there might be paths forward, but how to best utilize our resources. While the decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton was a significant setback and rewrite of First Amendment jurisprudence, it has its limitations. As disappointing as Paxton was, we will now have to fight even greater potential restrictions, and we’ll need to fight to make sure that states are not emboldened to further target or restrict the industry.”
Stabile and FSC Executive Director Alison Boden recently unpacked the implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in a webinar for industry stakeholders.