Republic of the Gam. v. Meta Platforms, Inc.
| Docket Number | Miscellaneous Action No. 20-36 (JEB) |
| Decision Date | 03 March 2022 |
| Citation | 588 F.Supp.3d 1 |
| Parties | REPUBLIC OF the GAMBIA, Petitioner, v. META PLATFORMS, INC., Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Timothy P. O'Toole, Marcus A.R. Childress, Michael Jeremy Satin, Miller & Chevalier, Chartered, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.
Joshua Seth Lipshutz, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP, Washington, DC, for Respondent.
Several months ago, this Court reversed the Order of a Magistrate Judge and concluded that the Stored Communications Act blocks Respondent Meta Platforms from disclosing the contents of certain accounts, posts, and communications that it had deleted from its website. Petitioner Republic of The Gambia, which seeks that content in connection with an International Court of Justice proceeding, now challenges this Court's decision in that Opinion not to address The Gambia's alternative grounds for upholding the Magistrate Judge's finding. Determining that those alternative grounds have no merit, the Court will deny Petitioner's Motion for Reconsideration.
As this Court recently recounted the factual and procedural background of this case, it provides only a brief overview here that relates to the current dispute; it refers interested readers to its earlier Opinion. See Republic of The Gambia v. Facebook, Inc. (Facebook I ), No. 20-36, 575 F.Supp.3d 8 (D.D.C. Dec. 3, 2021).
In that Opinion, this Court agreed with Meta that the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2701, et seq. , prevented the platform from providing to The Gambia private pages and communications that it had removed from its website. See Facebook I, 575 F.Supp.3d at 11–16. Believing that those accounts and pages were used by Myanmar officials to propagate anti-Rohingya sentiment, The Gambia wishes to use their contents in support of its prosecution of Myanmar in the International Court of Justice. Id. at 9–10. In its ruling, the Court vacated the portions of Magistrate Judge Faruqui's Order, see ECF No. 22 (MJ Order), that had found that the SCA did not protect the communications at issue. The Court also declined to reach The Gambia's arguments that the Magistrate Judge's Order should be upheld on alternative grounds — namely, that the holders of the relevant accounts did not fall within the SCA's ambit. See Facebook I, 575 F.Supp.3d at 15–16. It found that The Gambia had not properly presented these arguments and, accordingly, gave them no consideration. Id.
Petitioner has now filed a Motion for Reconsideration, arguing that this Court's decision not to examine its alternative arguments was improper. See ECF No. 32 (Pet. Motion to Reconsider).
Because Petitioner seeks reconsideration of an interlocutory order, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) governs the Court's analysis. See Prince George's Hospital Center v. Advantage Healthplan Inc., 985 F. Supp. 2d 38, 42 (D.D.C. 2013) (). "The standard of review for interlocutory decisions differs from the standards applied to final judgments under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(e) and 60(b)." Williams v. Savage, 569 F. Supp. 2d 99, 108 (D.D.C. 2008). Petitioner has a lower bar to clear, as "reconsideration of an interlocutory decision is available under the standard ‘as justice requires.’ " Judicial Watch v. Department of Army, 466 F. Supp. 2d 112, 123 (D.D.C. 2006) ; accord Lemmons v. Georgetown University Hospital, 241 F.R.D. 15, 21–23 (D.D.C. 2007).
The "as justice requires" standard may be met where, for example, the court "has patently misunderstood" the parties, strayed far afield of the issues presented, or failed to consider "a controlling or significant change in the law or facts ... since the submission of the issue." Cobell v. Norton, 224 F.R.D. 266, 272 (D.D.C. 2004) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted). "These considerations leave a great deal of room for the court's discretion, and, accordingly, the ‘as justice requires’ standard amounts to determining ‘whether [relief upon] reconsideration is necessary under the relevant circumstances.’ " Lewis v. District of Columbia, 736 F. Supp. 2d 98, 102 (D.D.C. 2010) (quoting Cobell, 224 F.R.D. at 272 ). A court's discretion under Rule 54(b), however, is "limited by the law of the case doctrine and subject to the caveat that where litigants have once battled for the court's decision, they should neither be required, nor without good reason permitted, to battle for it again." Singh v. George Washington University, 383 F. Supp. 2d 99, 101 (D.D.C. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting In re Ski Train Fire in Kaprun, Austria, on Nov. 11, 2004, 224 F.R.D. 543, 546 (S.D.N.Y. 2004) ).
A district court's review of a magistrate judge order is governed by Fed. R. Civ. P. 72. When reviewing non-dispositive orders, a court must "set aside any part of the order that is clearly erroneous or is contrary to law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). The "clearly erroneous" standard provides for deferential review of factual findings, but the "contrary to law" standard "permits de novo review of a magistrate judge's legal conclusions." American Center for Civil Justice v. Ambush, 794 F. Supp. 2d 123, 129 (D.D.C. 2011) (citations omitted). Review of dispositive orders, conversely, is governed by Rule 72(b), which provides that courts should conduct de novo review of any part of a magistrate judge's order to which a party has objected. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(3). Since the Court now confronts only challenges to the Order's legal conclusions, whether such Order is considered non-dispositive or dispositive — a question that appears to remain open in this district — is of no consequence. The Court will thus apply de novo review to its consideration of the Magistrate Judge Order.
The Gambia's present Motion focuses on the Court's alleged error in declining to consider its alternative arguments in the last Opinion. See Pet. MTR at 4–8. The Court addresses the procedural issue briefly before examining the merits of those alternative grounds, drawing also from prior rounds of briefing.
In his Order granting The Gambia's request for the content in Meta's possession, Magistrate Judge Faruqui agreed with Petitioner that provider-deleted communications were not stored "for purposes of backup protection" and thus not subject to § 2702(a)(1)’s disclosure prohibition. See MJ Order at 12–18. Although it did not affect the result, that Order also rejected The Gambia's alternative grounds for finding these communications outside the SCA's scope. Id. at 10–11.
This Court vacated the Magistrate Judge Order's holding as to the interpretation of "for purposes of backup protection," ruling that private, provider-deleted communications are protected under the SCA. See Facebook I, 575 F.Supp.3d at 15–16. It declined to reach The Gambia's alternative grounds because, while discussed in their briefing before this Court, they were not properly presented as objections to a specific portion of the Magistrate Judge Order, as required by Local Rule 72.2(b). Id.
The Gambia now challenges the latter decision. The crux of its position is that this Court clearly erred when it declined to consider Petitioner's alternative grounds for upholding the Magistrate Judge Order. See Pet. MTR at 4–8. In essence, The Gambia accuses the Court of prioritizing form over substance and penalizing it for titling its arguments "alternate grounds" rather than "objections" to the Order. Id. Although the Court continues to believe that The Gambia did not technically comply with the requirements of Local Rule 72.2(b), there is no reason to discuss this matter further since the Court finds the merits of The Gambia's arguments unpersuasive.
The Gambia believes that the removed communications are not protected by the SCA because the posters of those communications are not "users" within the Act's definition of that term. See ECF No. 27 at 38–40. In particular, Petitioner advances two arguments: 1) Myanmar government officials, who comprise some portion of the posters, are not "users" because Congress excluded foreign-government officials from that term's scope, id. at 38–39, and 2) "users" encompasses only those "authorized" to use the ECS, which does not include posters who violate an ECS's terms of service and are subsequently removed. Id. at 39–40. Because The Gambia's argument relies on a "stacking doll of definitions," MJ Order at 10, the Court begins by reviewing the relevant statutory provisions.
Section 2702(a)(1) of the SCA prohibits one who provides an "electronic communication service" to the public from voluntarily divulging the contents of a communication held in its electronic storage, as the Court explained in its previous Opinion. See Facebook I, 575 F.Supp.3d at 11–13. "Electronic communication service" is defined elsewhere as "any service which provides to users thereof the ability to send or receive wire or electronic communications." 18 U.S.C. § 2510(15) (emphasis added). "User" encompasses "any person or entity who" uses the service and "is duly authorized by the provider of such service to engage in such use." Id. § 2510(13). "Person" is defined, in turn, as "any employee, or agent of the United States or any State or political subdivision thereof, and any individual, partnership, association, joint stock company, trust, or corporation." Id. § 2510(6).
As an initial matter, the Court observes that the statutory provision at the heart of this dispute, Section 2702(a)(1), makes no mention of "users." See also ECF No. 33 (Resp. MTR Opp.) at 7. Instead, the provision prohibits, subject to the exceptions listed in § 2702(b), the release of...
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