Via America’s Lawyer: The Texas 14th court of appeals rejected a petition by Facebook last week where the social media giant tried to claim that they were immune from a group of lawsuits brought by the victims of human trafficking. Also, the ninth circuit has revived a lawsuit brought against the NFL by former pro football players, who claimed that the league created a painkiller culture in order to increase their profits. Mike Papantonio explains more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
And finally tonight, some good news. The Texas 14th court of appeals rejected a petition by Facebook last week where the social media giant tried to claim that they were immune from a group of lawsuits brought by the victims of human trafficking. In three separate lawsuits, women claimed that they were trafficked by individuals who learned them in by way of Facebook and the women were suing, the women were suing Facebook for not policing this kind of behavior. We’ve seen these lawsuits many times, but Facebook thought they were above that. In their petition to the court, Facebook argued that they had blanket immunity for anything posted on the site and they cited the communications decency act, which was a gift, a gift by Bill Clinton in 1996. It was a political exchange. This act does protect internet service and platform providers for being sued for posts that they have no control over.
But the judges in Texas said that this new law doesn’t apply in this instance, this was an exception. This is one that Bill Clinton did not give this huge gift to the industry. They didn’t get away with this and my prediction is they won’t. This is a huge victory in the fight against human trafficking. Many victims have been lured by contacts on social media, and it’s time for these social media companies like Facebook to either do something to crack down on this problem or suffer very, very severe penalties for their failures. They know exactly what they’re doing here. It’s all about the dollar.
A federal judge in Missouri has ruled that a group of hair salons can move forward with their lawsuit against their insurance companies over business interruption claims. Similar business interruption lawsuits are being filed all over the country by small businesses who’ve been denied claims by their insurance company. Business interruption insurance policies are designed to protect small businesses from anything that could cause a temporary interruption of their ability to conduct business, as usual, like the global pandemic that we’re experiencing right now. Great example, that’s what this lawsuit was about, but because insurance companies are being hit with hundreds of thousands of these claims, they’re doing whatever they can to avoid making the payouts that they should be making after they have a customer that’s been paying for years to have this coverage.
This is similar to how insurance companies behave following any type of natural disaster deny, deny, deny payments and drag the process out as long as possible to tire out the claimant. The fact of the matter is that these businesses paid their premiums. They’re entitled to the payouts. This court decision in Missouri is a victory for small businesses everywhere who are just trying to survive this pandemic while their insurance company tries to keep all the money without any responsibility to actually take care of the person that paid them all those premiums.
That’s all for tonight. Find us on Twitter and Facebook @facebook.com/rtamericaslawyer. You can watch all RT America programs on Direct TV channel 321 and also stream them live on YouTube. Be sure to check out RT’s new portable app, where you can watch all your favorite shows. I’m Mike Papantonio and this is America’s Lawyer where every week we tell you the stories that corporate media is ordered not to tell because of their advertisers, they won’t let them do it, and because of their political connections that put so much political pressure on them, that they don’t tell the story. Have a great night.
