Cases

Illinois, ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc. 538 U.S. 600,

Riley v. National Federation of the Blind of North Carolina, Inc. 487 U.S. 781

Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205,

Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., Inc.

Internet Solutions Corp. v. Marshall 557 F.3d 1293

Granholm v. Heald 544 U.S. 460

National Awareness Foundation v. Abrams 50 F.3d 1159

Butler v. Beer Across America 83 F.Supp.2d 1261 N.D.Ala.,2000

Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, 444 U. S. 620;

Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian & Bisexual Group, 515 U.S. 557, 573 (1995)  (the right of the speaker to choose “what not to say” applies “equally to statements of fact the speaker would rather avoid

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n, 514 U.S. 334, 348-49 (1995).

Bensusan Restaurant Corp. v. King 937 F.Supp. 295

International Shoe v. Washington

Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union

Notes

High fundraising costs, without more, do not establish fraud, , ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc. 538 U.S. 600,

“will almost certainly hamper the legitimate efforts of professional fundraisers to raise money for the charities they represent.”

“[W]here the statute unquestionably attaches sanctions to protected conduct, the likelihood that the statute will deter that conduct is ordinarily sufficiently great to justify an overbreadth attack,” citing Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205, 217, 95 S.Ct. 2268, 2277, 45 L.Ed.2d 125 (1975)).

FN16. The dissenters' suggestion that, because the Maryland statute regulates only the economic relationship between charities and professional fundraisers, it is not a direct restriction on the charities' First Amendment activity is perplexing. Post, at 2858-2859. Any restriction on the amount of money a charity can pay to a third party as a fundraising expense could be labeled “economic regulation.” The fact that paid solicitors are used to disseminate information did not alter the Schaumburg Court's conclusion that a limitation on the amount a charity can spend in fundraising activity is a direct restriction on the charity's First Amendment rights. See 444 U.S., at 635-636, 100 S.Ct., at 835-836. Whatever the State's purpose in enacting the statute, the fact remains that the percentage limitation is a direct restriction on the amount of money a charity can spend on fundraising activity.For similar reasons, it is the dissent that “simply misses the point” when it urges that there is an element of “fraud” in a professional fundraiser's soliciting money for a charity if a high proportion of those funds are expended in fundraising. Post, at 2859, and n. 2. The point of the Schaumburg Court's conclusion that the percentage limitation was not an accurate measure of fraud was that the charity's “purpose” may include public education. It is no more fraudulent for a charity to pay a professional fundraiser to engage in legitimate public educational activity than it is for the charity to engage in that activity itself. And concerns about unscrupulous professional fundraisers, like concerns about fraudulent charities, can and are accommodated directly, through disclosure and registration requirements and penalties for fraudulent conduct.

The possibility of a waiver may decrease the number of impermissible applications of the statute, but it does nothing to remedy the statute's fundamental defect. We conclude that, regardless of the waiver provision, Schaumburg requires that the percentage limitation in the Maryland statute be rejected.

Neither fact that Maryland statute placing 25% limit on fund-raising expenses of charities does not impose a prior restraint on protected activities, as organizations may register as activities and solicit funds without first demonstrating that they comply with the statute, nor fact that statute restricts only fund-raising expenses and not other expenses which are not spent directly on the organization's charitable purpose, nor fact that charity might elect to be bound by fund-raising percentage for the prior year or to apply the limitation on a campaign-by-campaign basis, nor fact that statute regulates all charitable fund raising and not just door-to-door solicitation precluded finding that statute was unconstitutionally overbroad because of its effect on First Amendment rights of charities, Secretary of State of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., Inc.

467 U.S. 947

Internet Solutions Corp. v. Marshall 557 F.3d 1293 C.A.11 (Fla.),2009.

Jurisdiction – internet – Florida – 11^th cir.

New York’s statue may be a restraint on interstate commerce. The Court has held that a high % of expenses are not a clear indicator of fraud, so the statute would tend to restrict collecting funds in new york. Granholm v. Heald 544 U.S. 460

Jurisdication ---- “The fact that many companies have established virtual beachheads on the Internet *1268 and the fact that the Internet is now accessible from almost any point on the globe have created complex, new considerations in counting minimum contacts for purposes of determining personal jurisdiction. Recently, the Fifth Circuit adopted the carefully considered opinion of Zippo Mfg. Co. v. Zippo Dot Com, Inc., 952 F.Supp. 1119 (W.D.Pa.1997), for analyzing Internet contacts. See Mink v. AAAA Development LLC, 190 F.3d 333, 336 (5th Cir.1999). Under Zippo, as adopted in Mink, jurisdiction is proper when the “defendant clearly does business over the Internet by entering into contracts with residents of other states which ‘involve the knowing and repeated transmission of computer files over the Internet....’ ” Mink, 190 F.3d at 336 (quoting Zippo, 952 F.Supp. at 1124.) In personam jurisdiction is improper, however, when the nonresident defendant has established a passive Internet site, which acts as little more than an electronic billboard for the posting of information. See Mink, 190 F.3d at 336 (citing Zippo, 952 F.Supp. at 1124). Between those two extremes lies a gray area “where a defendant has a website that allows a user to exchange information with a host computer”; there, the determination turns on the nature of the information transmitted and on the degree of interaction. See Mink, 190 F.3d at 336. Applying these principles to the present case, clearly Beer Across America's site does not even anticipate the regular exchange of information across the Internet, much less provide for such interaction. Rather, it is closer to an electronic version of a postal reply card; the limited degree of interactivity available on the defendants' website is certainly insufficient to satisfy the minimum contacts requirement of due process for this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over these defendants.” Butler v. Beer Across America 83 F.Supp.2d 1261 N.D.Ala.,2000

NY statute does not violate 1^st., National Awareness Foundation v. Abrams 50 F.3d 1159

Held: The ordinance in question is unconstitutionally overbroad in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Pp. 444 U. S. 628-639.

Bensusan Restaurant Corp. v. King
937 F.Supp. 295
S.D.N.Y.,1996.
 

International Shoe v. Washington

For a state to obtain jurisdiction to impose its regulations upon online solicitors, it must comply with the constitutional standards set forth in the seminal U.S., Supreme Court case, International Shoe v. Washington. The constitutional standard of "minimum contacts" sets forth the minimum amount of contacts necessary for a state to exercise jurisdiction over a person or entity. To meet the constitutional minimum contact standard: (1) the defendant must purposefully avail himself of the privilege of doing business in the state; (2) the cause of action or regulation must relate to the defendant's activities with the state; and (3) the exercise of jurisdiction must be reasonable in light of the various interests at stake.

Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston
515 U.S. 557, 115 S.Ct. 2338
U.S.Mass.,1995.
One important manifestation of the principle of free speech is that one who chooses to speak may also decide “what not to say,” id., at 16, 106 S.Ct., at 912. Although the State may at times “prescribe what shall be orthodox in commercial advertising” by requiring the dissemination of “purely factual and uncontroversial information,”

 Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union

In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union, the U.S. Supreme Court gives broad support to free speech on the Internet. The justices rule that the Communications Decency Act violates the First Amendment by criminalizing many kinds of non-obscene and non-offensive material on the Internet, such as medical information or artistic depictions of the human body.

Notes:

The power of the states to regulate charitable solicitation has largely been defined by three key U.S. Supreme Court decisions, Schaumburg v. Citizens for a Better Environment, Maryland v. Joseph H. Munson Co., and Riley v. National Federation of the Blind.

Under Schaumburg, Munson, and Riley, the proper standard by which to analyze restrictions on charitable solicitation in the First Amendment context is strict scrutiny, and a statute restricting such solicitation will be upheld only if narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. Furthermore, such statutes must not discriminate against the smaller charities. Those states which have chosen to regulate charitable solicitation have typically set forth various organizational filing requirements which organizations must satisfy prior to soliciting funds. As indicated in Riley, laws requiring organizations wishing to solicit funds in a certain jurisdiction to register with the local authority withstand constitutional analysis because such requirements are deemed not to constitute too great a burden on speech, and serve compelling state interests. Generally, then, "[s]o long as the required information is objective, and state officials have little discretion in rejecting or delaying a charity's solicitation campaign, a registration requirement will be upheld."

There are two key jurisdictional questions that affect the work of nonprofits online. The first issue is whether a court has the power to adjudicate claims against an organization for its conduct on the Web. For example, can a homeless shelter in Atlanta, with no ties to Illinois other than maintaining a Web site that is accessible by Illinois residents, be brought before a state court in Illinois for allegedly posting fraudulent information on the charity's Web site?

The second jurisdictional issue involves the extent of statutory authority given to state or federal regulatory agencies. Can the Illinois attorney general require the homeless shelter in Atlanta to register in Illinois simply because its Web site is accessible to Illinois residents?

The question of personal jurisdiction is as critical to nonprofits that engage in Internet fundraising and revenue-generating activities as it is to for-profits. If merely setting up a Web site that is available nationwide triggers registration and reporting requirements in every jurisdiction in the United States that imposes them, this would create an insurmountable burden for the vast majority of charities that are small community-based organizations.

For a state to obtain jurisdiction to impose its regulations upon online solicitors, it must comply with the constitutional standards set forth in the seminal U.S., Supreme Court case, International Shoe v. Washington. The constitutional standard of "minimum contacts" sets forth the minimum amount of contacts necessary for a state to exercise jurisdiction over a person or entity. To meet the constitutional minimum contact standard: (1) the defendant must purposefully avail himself of the privilege of doing business in the state; (2) the cause of action or regulation must relate to the defendant's activities with the state; and (3) the exercise of jurisdiction must be reasonable in light of the various interests at stake.

New York's long-arm statute provides for narrower jurisdiction than the constitutional limit. In Bensusan Restaurant Corporation vs. Richard B. King, individually and d/b/a The Blue Note, the so-called Blue Note case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declined to exercise jurisdiction over a jazz club in Missouri when the only contact with New York was that its Web site was accessible in the state. The Appeals Court held that the Missouri Blue Note's maintenance of a Web site accessible to New York residents did not create the level of contacts required to exercise jurisdiction under New York's long-arm statute.

The exact opposite result was found that same year in Connecticut under almost identical facts. In Inset Systems, Inc. v. Instruction Set, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut found that the state could constitutionally assert jurisdiction over the Massachusetts Web site host because "advertising via the Internet" both satisfied the Connecticut long-arm statute covering solicitation of business in-state and the Supreme Court's constitutional minimum contacts standard.

The Inset court's ruling represents the outer limits of jurisdiction over Internet activities and allows a passive Web site to create sufficient contacts for the state to obtain jurisdiction over the Web site owner. Several states have taken a similar expansive view of personal jurisdiction, including Virginia, Missouri and Minnesota.

All participants in the study group must always follow the BSL Honor Code.