US judge won't shield Yelp from Texas lawsuit over crisis pregnancy
center notices
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[February 03, 2024]
By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) - A California federal judge has refused to shield Yelp from a
lawsuit by the state of Texas accusing it of posting misleading notices
about crisis pregnancy centers on its online review site.
U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in Oakland, California, ruled
Thursday that federal courts cannot interfere with state actions
enforcing their laws unless they are brought in bad faith. She said that
required her to dismiss a preemptive lawsuit Yelp had filed against
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last September in an effort
to stop him from suing the San Francisco-based company for posting
notices warning users that the centers provided limited medical
services.
"To be clear, the court is not convinced that Paxton acted entirely in
good faith in bringing this case against Yelp; still, Yelp has not
provided enough concrete evidence of his subjective motivations to prove
otherwise," Thompson wrote.
"Yelp cannot mislead and deceive the public simply because the company
disagrees with our state's laws," Paxton said in a statement.
"Yelp will continue to press forward to vigorously defend our
constitutionally protected free speech rights to provide consumers with
access to accurate information," the company said in a statement.
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Yelp sued Paxton in Oakland federal
court on Sept. 27 after hearing Paxton intended to sue the company,
which he did the next day. Paxton said that notices Yelp posted on
the review pages for crisis pregnancy centers violated a Texas law
against unfair business practices.
Crisis pregnancy centers offer pregnant women
counseling while seeking to prevent them from having abortions.
Generally, they do not clearly advertise their anti-abortion stance.
In August 2022, Yelp began posting a notice on crisis pregnancy
centers' pages stating: "This is a Crisis Pregnancy Center. Crisis
Pregnancy Centers typically provide limited medical services and may
not have licensed medical professionals onsite."
Last February, Paxton and other Republican state attorneys general
told Yelp the notice was misleading because it was posted on pages
of centers that did have licensed medical professionals.
The company, without conceding that the language was misleading,
changed the notices to state that crisis pregnancy centers "do not
offer abortions or referrals to abortion providers." Paxton said at
the time that the new language was accurate.
In his lawsuit, Paxton is seeking to make Yelp pay unspecified money
damages.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York, Editing by Alexia
Garamfalvi; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
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