Austin-Spearman v. AMC Network Entertainment LLC

98 F. Supp. 3d 662, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45159, 2015 WL 1539052
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedApril 7, 2015
DocketNo. 14 Civ. 6840(NRB)
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 98 F. Supp. 3d 662 (Austin-Spearman v. AMC Network Entertainment LLC) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Austin-Spearman v. AMC Network Entertainment LLC, 98 F. Supp. 3d 662, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45159, 2015 WL 1539052 (S.D.N.Y. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

NAOMI REICE BUCHWALD, District Judge.

Plaintiff Ethel Austin-Spearman (“Austin-Spearman”) commenced this action against defendants AMC Network Entertainment, LLC, and AMC Networks, Inc. (collectively, “AMC”), alleging that AMC disclosed her personal information in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2710. AMC moved to dismiss the complaint pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Following oral argument on this motion (and presumably anticipating this decision), Austin-Spearman requested leave to amend the complaint to add new factual allegations. The proposed amendment adds an additional piece of information but leaves intact the Court’s analysis of the original complaint. For the reasons stated herein, AMC’s motion is granted, but Aus[664]*664tin-Spearman is granted to leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

AMC maintains a website that provides information about its television programming, on which it offers video clips and episodes of many of its television shows. Cmplt. ¶ 11. Web users may access the website’s content either as a guest or by using an existing online account with participating cable television providers. Id. ¶ 12.

AMC’s website also incorporates a software development kit (“SDK”) provided by Facebook. Id. ¶ 23. This SDK allows companies to add Facebook-related features to their websites: for instance, sites can include a “Facebook Login,” which lets visitors log into a website using their Face-book credentials, or a “Facebook Social Plugin,” which lets visitors use Facebook’s “Like,” “Share,” and “Comment” functions. Id. ¶ 15. To make use of this SDK, a company will add Facebook’s source code to its website and then customize that code. Id. ¶ 17.

Notably, the Facebook SDK relies in part on cookies. Id. ¶ 18. In particular, through its “e_user” cookie, Facebook’s code allegedly forces a user’s web browser to look for the user’s Facebook ID.1 Meanwhile, if a person has chosen to remain logged into Facebook by checking the “keep me logged in” button on Facebook’s homepage, this “c_user” cookie will continue to operate, regardless of what the user does with the web browser. Id. ¶ 20. If a person then visits a webpage (such as AMC’s) that includes Facebook’s SDK, Austin-Spearman asserts, “data about the user’s web browsing may be silently transmitted back to Facebook.” Id. ¶ 21. Specifically, Austin-Spearman. alleges that when a user clicks on a hyperlink on AMC’s webpage (for example, to view a video clip), Facebook’s SDK “initiates a transmission to Facebook called ‘/plugins/like.php?’ which contains values from the ‘c_user’ cookie and full URL of the video’s webpage.” Id. ¶ 24. “As a result of these data transmissions, Facebook receives a full record of: (i) the Facebook ID of the visitor browsing AMC’s website, along with (ii) the exact titles of the audiovisual material (ie. the video clips) that they viewed.” Id. ¶ 26.

Austin-Spearman has been a member of Facebook since 2007 and remains logged in through her web browser. Id. ¶ 36. Since 2013, she has been visiting the AMC website to, among other things, watch video clips from AMC’s The Walking Dead. Id. ¶ 37. She alleges that as she viewed these video clips, AMC disclosed her Facebook ID and the titles of the videos she viewed to Facebook. Id. ¶ 40.

Austin-Spearman filed the present complaint on August 22, 2014. The complaint, a putative class action, contains one cause of action under the Video Privacy Protection Act (‘VPPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2710. The VPPA provides that “[a] video tape service provider who knowingly, discloses,, to any person, personally identifiable information concerning any consumer of such provider shall be liable to the aggrieved person for the relief provided in subsection (d),” 18 U.S.C. § 2710(b)(1), and it specifies that “the term ‘consumer’ means any renter, purchaser, or subscriber of goods or services from a video tape service provider.” Id. § 2710(a)(1). AMC moved to dismiss the complaint on October 23, 2014, raising two arguments in support of the motion: [665]*665first, that Austin-Spearman lacks Article III standing, and second, that AustinSpearman does not constitute a “subscriber” under the VPPA. The motion was fully-briefed on December 22, 2014, and oral argument was held on March 25, 2015.

As noted earlier, after oral argument, on March 27, 2015, Austin-Spearman submitted a letter requesting leave to amend the complaint to add new factual allegations in the event the Court otherwise deemed her complaint inadequate. Below, we address AMC’s motion to dismiss the complaint as pled and Austin-Spearman’s request for leave to amend in turn.

DISCUSSION

I. Motion to Dismiss — Legal Standard

“To survive a motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on standing pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1), the plaintiff ‘must allege facts that affirmatively and plausibly suggest that it has standing to sue.’ ” New York State Psychiatric Ass’n, Inc. v. UnitedHealth Grp., 980 F.Supp.2d 527, 538 (S.D.N.Y.2013) (quoting Amidax Trading Grp. v. S.W.I.F.T. SCRL, 671 F.3d 140, 145 (2d Cir.2011)). Where the defendants place jurisdictional facts in dispute, the court may properly consider “evidence relevant to the jurisdictional question [that] is before the court.” Robinson v. Gov’t of Malaysia, 269 F.3d 133, 140 (2d Cir.2001). However, if the defendants challenge only the legal sufficiency of the jurisdictional allegations, “the court must take all facts alleged in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff.” Id.

Similarly, a court ruling on a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) must accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences in plaintiffs favor. Hams v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 71 (2d Cir.2009); Kassner v. 2nd Ave. Delicatessen Inc., 496 F.3d 229, 237 (2d Cir.2007). A motion to dismiss may be granted only where “it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Still v. DeBuono, 101 F.3d 888, 891 (2d Cir.1996). Nevertheless, a plaintiffs “[fjactual allegations must be enough to raise a right of relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct.

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Bluebook (online)
98 F. Supp. 3d 662, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45159, 2015 WL 1539052, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/austin-spearman-v-amc-network-entertainment-llc-nysd-2015.