State law

Uh, I'd like to reserve three minutes for rebuttal at the court's indulgence.

This case features an unprecedented attempt to impose state law tort liability on individuals who repost a third party's false claim on social media.

This novel type of liability is contrary to the text of Section two thirty of the Communications Decency Act, and it would weaken the free and open discourse that Congress sought to guarantee.

This court should reverse.

But appellee says this is different because Bratton and Hoskins added policy commentary about illegal immigration to the resharing.

But with respect, that tees up another point.

If the court adopts appellee's approach, that is going to create routine First Amendment problems and routine clashes, uh, between the First Amendment and state law tort liability arising from speech on the Internet.

Uh, appellants raised this point prominently in their opening brief.

So You definitely want to pay attention to state law on this, much more so than federal law.

Federal law, there's no prohibition on employers being able to discipline employees for moonlighting or work at a side hustle unless there's a policy or some other type of prohibition that might be industry specific.

but state laws tend to be a little bit more aggressive in that area.

Yeah, absolutely.

And for that reason, because the state laws are so different even than the federal laws in this case, having one moonlighting policy isn't really acceptable for organizations that have multiple states.

I'm sure you would agree with that.

I would.

The goal is not necessarily to eliminate outside employment or side hustles.

Staley fails to cite any case holding that the TVPA forecloses identification or contribution claims, nor could he.

the sole authority squarely on point holds just the opposite, under analogous Pennsylvania state law.

In AB v. Marriott International Incorporated, the court held that the hotel chain, sued under the TVPA for knowingly benefiting from sex trafficking, could maintain third-party claims under Pennsylvania law for contribution and indemnity against local hotel franchises and sex traffickers.

Even though the TVPA did not directly address how to apportion liability, the court found Marriott's reading sufficiently supported by the act's text to permit the court to conclude that traffickers may be liable to Marriott if Marriott is found liable to AB under Pennsylvania law of indemnity and contribution.

Two incorporated versus Kohl's department stores incorporated 213 FRD 138 SDNY 2003 Lanham Act.

Indeed, the New York Contribution Statute expressly carves out the workers' compensation laws of the federal government and why CPLR Section 1401 surplus usage were federal claims categorically exempted.

Staley also goes through great pains to argue that any contribution claim in this case must be a matter of federal common law rather than state law.

But that academic distinction is of no consequence here, as Staley himself recognizes New York state law would supply the rule of decision for any contribution or identification claim that exists under the TVPA.

It does not create one.

State law does.

Morgan v.

Commissioner put it cleanly.

State law determines what property interests the decedent had, and federal law then determines the tax consequences.

Watch what that does.

A couple has $5 million, all of it earned by one spouse during the marriage and title in that spouse's name.

Section 2033 reaches beneficial interest, not bare legal title, so a trustee includes nothing, but lawful title is not required either.

Massachusetts has MI.

These state laws were modeled on NEPA and in many cases have developed the same pathologies or worse.

In California, CEQA has been used to challenge infill housing projects, dense transit-adjacent apartment buildings of the type that climate and affordability advocates agree we need more of.

On grounds ranging from traffic impacts to neighborhood character to, in some memorable cases, shadows.

How much does the First Amendment Establishment Clause factor into this?

You know, that's a great question because there weren't claims of a First Amendment issue, right? It was based on violation of the state law.

But as I mentioned earlier, the court... looking at and trying to interpret their constitution, um, would in the, in the past historically has looked at how the Supreme court has, um, evaluated the establishment clause of the first amendment.

And so unlike, um, kind of applying more recent and more capacious, um, and permissive, uh, decisions as far as public, um, uh, public property and the presence of religious property or religious statues or significance on public square, this court read things very narrowly.