From Judge Judith Rogers' opinion today in Ass'n of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. v. Schiff, joined by Judges Neomi Rao and Laurence Silberman:
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons maintains a website and publishes the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, both of which host information concerning "important medical, economic, and legal issues about vaccines," According to the Association, its perspective on these issues should not be considered "anti-vaccine," but rather in favor of "informed consent based on disclosure of all relevant legal, medical, and economic information." Representative Adam B. Schiff is a Member of the House of Representatives from California's 28th Congressional District and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
Joined by an individual, Katarina Verrelli, who has sought vaccine-related information online, the Association sued Representative Schiff, individually and as a Member of Congress, seeking damages as well as injunctive and declaratory relief. The Association and Verrelli alleged that Representative Schiff wrote letters on February 14, 2019, to Google and Facebook "encourag[ing] them to use their platforms to prevent what [Representative] Schiff asserted to be inaccurate information on vaccines." Shortly after, Representative Schiff wrote essentially the same letter to Amazon, and thereafter posted the letters on the House.gov website in a press release as well as on the social media website Twitter.
In the letters, as reproduced in the press release, Representative Schiff expressed concern about the danger of vaccine hesitancy and the prevalence of vaccine-related misinformation on internet platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Google's search engine. He stated: "As a Member of Congress who is deeply concerned about declining vaccination rates around the nation, I am requesting additional information on the steps that you currently take to provide medically accurate information on vaccinations to your users, and to encourage you to consider additional steps you can take to address this growing problem." He requested that the companies respond to a list of questions regarding the companies' policies about and approaches to vaccine-related misinformation. [More factual details omitted here, because they are repeated below. -EV] …
The court concluded that plaintiffs lacked standing to sue Rep. Schiff, because they didn't plausibly allege enough evidence that the injury to them stemmed from his actions; here is part of the court's reasoning:
