Hassell v. Bird

Yelp argues that, to the extent the removal order would impose upon it a duty to remove these reviews, the directive violates its right to due process under the federal and state Constitutions because it was issued without proper notice and an opportunity to be heard. Yelp also asserts that this aspect of the

basically, dawn hassell made a bad situation much worse for me. she told me she could help with my personal injury case from falling through a floor, then reneged on the case because her mom had a broken leg, or something like that, and that the insurance company was too much for her to handle. and all of this after i met with her office (not her personally, she was nowhere to be found) signed paperwork to 'hire' them and gained confidence in her office (due mostly to yelp reviews) so, in all fairness, i have to share my experience so others can be forewarned. she will probably not do anything for you, except make your situation worse. in fact, after signing all the paperwork with her office, like a broken record, they repeated 'DO NOT TALK TO THE INSURANCE COMPANY' over and over and over. and over and over. so I honored that and did not speak to them. but the hassell law group didn't ever speak with the insurance company either, neglecting their said responsibilities and not living up to their own legal contract! nor did they bother to communicate with me, the client or the insurance company AT ALL. then, she dropped the case because of her mother and seeming lack of work ethic. (a good attorney wont do this, in fact, they aren't supposed to) to save your case, STEER CLEAR OF THIS LAW FIRM! and research around to find a law firm with a proven track record of success, a good work ethic, competence and long term client satisfaction. there are many in the bay area and with some diligent smart

Turning to Yelp's section 230 argument, the Court of Appeal recognized that " section 230 has been construed broadly to immunize 'providers of interactive computer services against liability arising from content created by third parties' " ( Hassell v. Bird , supra , 247 Cal.App.4th at p. 1361, 203 Cal.Rptr.3d 203 , quoting Fair Housing Coun., San Fernando v. Roommates.com (9th Cir. 2008) 521 F.3d 1157 , 1162, fn. omitted), and that in Barrett v. Rosenthal (2006) 40 Cal.4th 33 , 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ( Barrett ), this court similarly regarded section 230 as, in the words of the Court of Appeal, "afford[ing] interactive

A. Section 230

Section 230 appears within the Communications

AOL claimed immunity under section 230. ( Zeran , supra , 129 F.3d at p. 328.) In affirming a grant of judgment on the pleadings entered in favor of AOL on this ground ( id ., at p. 330 ), the federal court of appeals in Zeran emphasized the broad parameters of the statutory grant of immunity. The court observed, "By its plain language, § 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service. Specifically, § 230 precludes courts from entertaining claims that would place a computer service provider in a publisher's role. Thus, lawsuits seeking to

C. Analysis

In construing section 230, we apply our standard approach to statutory interpretation. " 'When we interpret a statute, "[o]ur fundamental task ... is to determine the Legislature's intent so as to effectuate the law's purpose. We first examine the statutory language, giving it a plain and commonsense meaning. We do not examine that language in isolation, but in the context of the statutory framework as a whole in order to determine its scope and purpose and to harmonize the various parts of the enactment. If the language is clear, courts must generally follow its plain meaning unless a literal interpretation would result in absurd consequences the Legislature did not intend. If the statutory language permits more than one reasonable interpretation, courts may consider other aids, such as the statute's purpose, legislative history, and public policy." [Citation.] "Furthermore, we consider portions of a statute in the context of the entire statute and the statutory scheme of which it is a part, giving significance to every word, phrase, sentence, and part of an act in pursuance of the legislative purpose." ' [Citation.]" ( City of San Jose v. Superior Court (2017) 2 Cal.5th 608 , 616-617, 214 Cal.Rptr.3d 274 , 389 P.3d 848 .)

Our analysis of the statute begins with an uncontroversial observation: Yelp could have promptly sought and received section 230 immunity had plaintiffs originally named it as a defendant in this case. There is no doubt that Yelp is a "provider or user of an interactive computer service" within the meaning of section 230(c)(1) (see Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. (9th Cir. 2009) 570 F.3d 1096 , 1101 [concluding that as an operator of a website, Yahoo acts as a provider of an interactive computer service] ), or that the substance of the reviews was provided to Yelp by "another information content provider" ( § 230(c)(1) ; see Shiamili v. Real Estate Group of New York, Inc. (N.Y. 2011) 17 N.Y.3d 281 , 929 N.Y.S.2d 19 , 952 N.E.2d 1011 , 1019-1020 ). Had plaintiffs' claims for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and false light been alleged directly against Yelp, these theories would be readily understood as treating Yelp as the "publisher or speaker" of the challenged reviews. (See, e.g., Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 [ section 230 applies to claims for defamation];

In his dissent, Justice Cuéllar argues that even if the injunction cannot on its face command Yelp to remove the reviews, the removal order nevertheless could run to Yelp through Bird under an aiding and abetting theory premised on conduct that remains inherently that of a publisher. (See dis. opn. of Cuéllar, J., post , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 904, 913-915, 921-924, 420 P.3d at pp. 807, 815-816, 822-824.) We disagree. As applied to such behavior, Justice Cuéllar's approach would simply substitute one end-run around section 230 immunity for another. (Accord,

For almost two decades, courts have been relying on section 230 to deny plaintiffs injunctive relief when their claims inherently treat an Internet intermediary as a publisher or speaker of third party conduct. Certainly in some instances where immunity has been recognized prior to judgment, the plaintiff was in fact defamed or otherwise suffered tortious harm susceptible to being remedied through an injunction. Yet Congress has declined to amend section 230 to authorize injunctive relief against mere republishers, even as it has limited immunity in other ways. (See Pub.L.No. 115-164, § 4 (April 11, 2018) 132 Stat. 1253 [amending section 230 to add section 230(e)(5), clarifying that immunity does not apply to certain civil claims and criminal actions associated with sex trafficking].) Although this acquiescence is not itself determinative, it provides a final indication that the dissenting justices are simply substituting their judgment for that of Congress regarding what amounts to good policy with regard to online speech. But that is not our role.

Even as we conclude that Yelp is entitled to immunity, we echo Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th 33 , 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 , in emphasizing that our reasoning and result do not connote a lack of sympathy for those who may have been defamed on the Internet. ( Barrett , at p. 63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Nevertheless, on this record it is clear that plaintiffs' legal remedies lie solely against Bird, and cannot extend-even through an injunction-to Yelp.

On this last point, we observe that plaintiffs still have powerful, if uninvoked, remedies available to them. Our decision today leaves plaintiffs' judgment intact insofar as it imposes obligations on Bird . Even though neither plaintiffs nor Bird can force Yelp to remove the challenged reviews, the judgment requires Bird to undertake, at a minimum, reasonable efforts to secure the removal of her posts. A failure to comply with a lawful court order is a form of civil contempt ( Code Civ. Proc., § 1209, subd. (a)(5) ), the consequences of which can include imprisonment (see In re Young (1995) 9 Cal.4th 1052 , 1054, 40 Cal.Rptr.2d 114 , 892 P.2d 148 ). Much of the dissents' rhetoric regarding the perceived injustice of today's decision assumes that plaintiffs' remaining remedies will be ineffective. One might more

Although the plurality opinion begins its analysis with the special immunity conferred on interactive computer service providers in section 230, I would begin with legal principles of considerably older vintage. It is an "elementary common law principle of jurisprudence"-followed in California, as elsewhere-that "a judgment may not be entered either for or against one not a party to an action or proceeding." ( Fazzi v. Peters (1968) 68 Cal.2d 590 , 594, 68 Cal.Rptr. 170 , 440 P.2d 242 .) A court's power is limited to adjudicating disputes between persons who have been designated as parties or made parties by service of process; it has "no power to adjudicate a personal claim or obligation unless it has jurisdiction over the person of the defendant." ( Zenith Corp. v. Hazeltine (1969) 395 U.S. 100 , 110, 89 S.Ct. 1562 , 23 L.Ed.2d 129 ( Zenith ).) This common law principle is backed by the Constitution's guarantee of procedural fairness-a guarantee

As all these authorities have recognized, while the law generally forbids courts from naming nonparties, the law does in certain circumstances permit a court to enforce an injunction against a nonparty. Without such a rule, enjoined parties could "play jurisdictional 'shell games' "; that is, they could "nullify an injunctive decree by carrying out prohibited acts with or through nonparties to the original proceeding." ( Conrad , supra , 55 Cal.App.4th at p. 902, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 248 .) For that reason, as this court observed more than a century ago, even though injunctions "[o]rdinarily" run only to the named parties in an action,

Distilling the available authorities, section 230 immunity applies to an effort to bring a cause of action or impose civil liability on a computer service provider that derives from its status as a publisher or speaker of third party content. This reading of the statute is consistent with the policies articulated in influential cases interpreting section 230 immunity such as Zeran and reiterated in the plurality opinion: Section 230 forbids a cause of action or the imposition of liability when the effect is to impose liability for, or draw the provider into litigation to defend, its past

I would, however, stop there; I venture no opinion as to how section 230 might apply to other take-down orders based on different justifications. I understand the plurality opinion's application of section 230 to be similarly limited. The plurality opinion "recognize[s] that not all legal duties owed by Internet intermediaries necessarily treat them as the publishers of third party content, even when these obligations are in some way associated with their publication of this material"; it instead holds that, on the record before us, "Yelp is inherently being treated as the publisher of the challenged reviews, and it has not engaged in conduct that would take it outside section 230's purview in connection with the removal order." (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 883, 420 P.3d at p. 790.) This restraint is, I believe, appropriate here. Section 230 is often credited with giving rise to the modern Internet as we know it, but the broad sweep of section 230 immunity also has "troubling consequences." ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 40, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ; see id. at pp. 62-63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Section 230, as broadly construed, has brought an end to a number of lawsuits seeking remedies for a wide range of civil wrongs accomplished through Internet postings-including, but not limited to, defamation, housing discrimination, negligence, securities fraud, cyberstalking, and material support of terrorism. (See, e.g., Jane Doe No. 1 v. Backpage.com, LLC (1st Cir. 2016) 817 F.3d 12 , 19 [citing cases]; Pennie v. Twitter, Inc. (N.D.Cal. 2017) 281 F.Supp.3d 874 , 888-889.) Whether to maintain the status quo is a question only Congress can decide. But at least when it comes to addressing new questions about the scope of section 230 immunity, we should

This court long ago observed that "it has been a common practice to make the injunction run also to classes of persons through whom the enjoined party may act, such as agents, servants, employees, aiders, abetters, etc., though not parties to the action, and this practice has always been upheld by the courts, and any of such parties violating its terms with notice thereof are held guilty of contempt for disobedience of the judgment." ( Berger v. Superior Court (1917) 175 Cal. 719 , 721, 167 P. 143 ( Berger ).) Justice Kruger doubts that "Bird acts, or has ever acted,

The treatment of user comments by other websites may be more passive, and I do not suggest that any website that posts user comments may be subject to a removal order like the one here. But Yelp's relationship with reviewers like Bird is not passive. Even if Yelp was not Bird's agent or servant (cf. Ross v. Superior Court (1977) 19 Cal.3d 899 , 905-909, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 ( Ross ); Ex parte Lennon (1897) 166 U.S. 548 , 555-556, 17 S.Ct. 658 , 41 L.Ed. 1110 ), it is evident that Bird acted through Yelp in the most relevant sense: It was Bird's defamation of Hassell, facilitated by Yelp's willing and active participation, that the trial court sought to enjoin. The removal order directed at Yelp is an example of the "common practice" of "mak[ing] the injunction effectual against all through whom the enjoined party may act, and to prevent the prohibited action"-here, the continued display of Bird's defamatory reviews on Yelp-"by persons acting in concert with or in support of the claim of the enjoined party." ( Berger , supra , 175 Cal. at p. 721, 167 P. 143 , italics omitted.)

Justice Kruger suggests that whether Bird acted through Yelp in a manner that made Yelp a proper subject of the injunction is an issue on which Yelp had a right to notice and an opportunity to be heard before the injunction issued. (Conc. opn. of Kruger, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 892, fn. 3, 420 P.3d at p. 797, fn. 3.) But I agree with the Court of Appeal that "a trial court does have the power to fashion an injunctive decree so that the enjoined party may not nullify it by carrying out the prohibited acts with or through a nonparty to the original proceeding." ( Hassell v. Bird , supra , 247 Cal.App.4th at p. 1357, 203 Cal.Rptr.3d 203 .)

Again, Alemite is instructive. After obtaining an injunction "against John, 'his agents, employees, associates and confederates,' enjoining them from infringing, or 'aiding or abetting or in any way contributing to the infringement,' " the aggrieved plaintiff initiated an action "to punish Joseph for contempt, asserting that he was

In Ross , supra , 19 Cal.3d 899 , 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 , we rejected the local supervisors' claim that they could not be held in contempt for violating an injunction directed at state officials and their " 'agents' " ( id. at p. 906, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 ) because they were not parties to the suit in which the injunction was issued and "received no notice and were afforded no opportunity to defend that action" ( id. at p. 905, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 ). We determined that the local supervisors were, by statute, "agents" of the state officials for purposes of administering welfare benefits, notwithstanding the supervisors' arguments to the contrary. ( Id. at pp. 906-909, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 .) The supervisors had no opportunity to present their arguments that they were not "agents" of the state before the injunction issued-yet we upheld the finding of contempt because they

The superior court granted Hassell a default judgment against Bird, awarding over $550,000 in damages and an injunction requiring Bird to remove the defamatory reviews about Hassell from Yelp.com and anywhere else they appeared on the Internet. The default judgment entered in favor of Hassell on January 14, 2014, stated: "Plaintiffs' Request for Injunctive Relief is Granted. Defendant AVA BIRD is ordered to remove each and every defamatory review published or caused to be published by her about plaintiffs HASSELL LAW GROUP and DAWN HASSELL from Yelp.com and from anywhere else they appear on the internet within 5 business days of the date of the court's order. [¶] Defendant AVA BIRD, her agents, officers, employees, or representatives, or anyone acting on her behalf, are further enjoined from publishing or causing to be published any written reviews, commentary, or descriptions of DAWN HASSELL or the HASSELL LAW GROUP on Yelp.com or any other internet location or website. [¶] Yelp.com is ordered to remove all reviews posted by AVA BIRD under user

Yelp petitioned this court for review. It asked us to resolve two related issues: whether California law authorizes an injunction to extend to a nonparty online publisher, and whether section 230 prevents a court from enjoining and directing a website publisher to remove third party content from its website. We granted Yelp's petition for review.

Time and again in the course of its extensive participation in this litigation, Yelp urged the court to embrace a specific reading of section 230. That reading would categorically shield Yelp from responsibility to comply with any conceivable injunction issued by the superior court. Only by conjuring immunity from a statute that does not provide it to advance a purpose

To reach our limited holding in Barrett , we weighed the meaning of section 230(c)(1) and (e)(3) together. We explained that "[t]hese provisions have been widely and consistently interpreted to confer broad immunity against defamation liability for those who use the Internet to publish information that originated from another source." ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 39, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Our reasoning in Barrett is consistent with the view that interactive service providers may invoke section 230 immunity to protect themselves from certain causes of action or liabilities, such as those seeking defamation liability based on the provider's publication or distribution of defamatory speech. ( Barrett , at p. 63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 [" section 230 exempts Internet intermediaries from defamation liability for republication"].) A plaintiff might file a state law defamation cause of action against an interactive service provider-one treating the provider "as the publisher or speaker" of "information provided by another information content provider," as described in section 230(c)(1). Under section 230(e)(3), a provider may escape that cause of action or avoid the liability sought in the plaintiff's claim. Barrett instructs that a defamation claim filed against Yelp for acting as the "distributor" of Bird's speech would be barred by section 230. But no such claim was filed against Yelp in this case.

Barrett clarified that a plaintiff aggrieved by defamatory speech must file its cause of action against the original speaker. We instructed that the proper procedure to address defamation in Internet publications is for plaintiffs "to pursue the originator of a defamatory Internet publication" and observed that "further expansion of liability must await congressional action." ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal. 4th at p. 63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Hassell followed the procedure described in our prior opinion by filing their claims against Bird, the originator of the defamatory statements. In line with our directive, Hassell did not bring a cause of action for liability against Yelp. Hassell's lawsuit against Bird, the information content provider, fits with section 230's terms and our prior opinion.

In Barrett we found section 230 immunity protected an interactive computer service user sued directly for defamation liability. We held only that "by its terms section 230 exempts Internet intermediaries from defamation liability for republication."

This conclusion fits with what we held in Barrett . Congress's purpose was "to create a blanket immunity from tort liability for online republication of third party content." ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 57, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Here, Hassell do not seek tort liability from Yelp for republishing Bird's content. Rather, Hassell filed suit directly against Bird, seeking liability in money damages and injunctive relief against Bird as the speaker and originator of the defamatory speech. As Yelp quotes in its opening brief, " 'Plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement.' " (Quoting Barrett , at p. 58, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Hassell did exactly that.

Yelp and the plurality opinion are left to rely on nonbinding case law from other jurisdictions-addressing markedly distinct circumstances-to support their strained interpretation of section 230. Yelp relies on the Fourth Circuit decision in Zeran , which held that lawsuits against interactive service providers seeking to hold the provider liable for decisions to publish, withdraw, postpone, or alter content are barred under section 230. ( Zeran , 129 F.3d at p. 330 ). Zeran assessed a provider's immunity from a state tort claim and the Fourth Circuit's holding does not conflict with our reading of section 230. There, the victim of defamatory posts on an America Online (AOL) message board filed claims against AOL, an interactive service provider. ( Zeran , at pp. 329, 332.) The plaintiff did not bring a cause of action against the poster of the offensive messages, but instead sought to hold AOL liable for the third party's defamatory speech. ( Id . at pp. 329-330.) Addressing whether AOL could assert section 230 as an affirmative defense to the claims against it, the court reasoned that "[ section] 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third party user of the service." ( Zeran , at p. 330, italics added.) What the court addressed is section 230 immunity for tort claims filed against an interactive service provider, not immunity for a claim against the originator of the defamatory speech. Under these facts, the court reasoned that websites faced with "lawsuits seeking to hold a service provider liable" for the decision to publish, withdraw, or alter content, may enjoy section 230 immunity. ( Zeran , at p. 330.) Zeran 's holding is inapposite here, where Hassell filed their claim against the speaker of the defamatory speech, and not

Neither description of this test from Barnes carries the day for Yelp. Barnes 's assessment was limited to a claim filed against a provider and conceived of section 230 immunity only where that defendant provider was sued as liable for third party speech. This analysis addresses a claim or theory of recovery filed against the defendant-not a third party, as in the instant case. The causes of action here are Hassell's defamation claims against Bird. The court must assess whether those causes of action "treat the defendant as the 'publisher or speaker' of content provided by another." ( Barnes , supra , 570 F.3d at p. 1102.) The answer is no. Bird, as the defendant, is treated as the speaker of her own speech. Hassell's claims were filed

The plurality opinion posits that the trial court's order overrules Yelp's decision to post the defamatory review and is therefore barred by section 230. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 881-883, 420 P.3d at pp. 788-790.) But the plurality's conclusion doesn't follow from its premise, because section 230 no more preempted all state law governing injunctions than it preempted all state law governing defamation. Yelp's obligation here is to refrain from violating the injunction issued against Bird. An obligation not to act in concert or with an enjoined party to violate the terms of an injunction is not a cause of action or a financial or legal obligation treating Yelp as the publisher or speaker of Bird's speech. This obligation does not hold Yelp to account for its publication decisions such that it is treated as the publisher of Bird's speech. It holds Yelp accountable for aiding,

Nowhere in section 230 or anywhere else in the Communications Decency Act is there support for the conclusion that injunctions issued by state courts are categorically barred. Yelp and the plurality opinion cite a California Court of Appeal opinion and a case from an appellate court in Florida as evidence

The court reasoned that section 230(e)(3)"precludes not only 'liability,' but also causes of action for other forms of relief" based on state or local law. ( Medytox , supra , 152 So.3d at p. 731.) The court explained that "[a]n action to force a website to remove content on the sole basis that the content is defamatory is necessarily treating the website as a publisher, and is therefore inconsistent with section 230." ( Ibid . ) That plaintiffs filed an action directly against an interactive service provider seeking removal of third party information was an essential fact supporting the court's conclusion. Medytox imposed a different burden from that presented here: a burden on the provider to defend itself against a cause of action seeking liability for third party speech. No claim was filed against Yelp seeking damages or injunctive relief based on posts written by Yelp users. Medytox provides no persuasive or controlling authority in favor of Yelp's position.

What we find more instructive are practical considerations-ones consistent with the Communications Decency Act and to some extent motivated the federal statute. These remain vital as we consider the powers of a sovereign jurisdiction whose authority has not been explicitly curbed. Our proposed reading of section 230 supports the statute's purpose to protect service providers from state law causes of action and liabilities that treat the provider as the publisher or speaker of third party speech. Here, no cause of action seeks to hold Yelp liable for its publication of Bird's speech. We instead address a court ordered solution for a victim of defamation that does not infringe section 230's protections from state law causes of action and liabilities against providers for acting as publishers or speakers of third party speech. California citizens rely on the power of our courts to protect and vindicate their rights. Our interpretation recognizes that the statute does not prohibit court crafted remedies for victims of harmful Internet content. The plurality opinion is incorrect in its assertion that allowing the injunction against Bird to run to nonparty Yelp would contravene Congress's

We have affirmed this long-standing principle of California law before. ( Ross , supra , 19 Cal.3d at pp. 908-909, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 [concluding that nonparties were subject to an injunction as agents of the named defendants]; In re Berry (1968) 68 Cal.2d 137 , 155-156, 65 Cal.Rptr. 273 , 436 P.2d 273 ( Berry ) [recognizing that "injunctive orders to persons 'in active concert or participation with' specifically named parties defendant

These concerns are also reflected in rule 65(d)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 U.S.C.). It specifies that certain nonparties, "who receive actual notice" of the injunction and are "in active concert or participation" with the enjoined party may be bound by its terms. ( Ibid .; see Regal Knitwear , supra , 324 U.S. at p. 15, 65 S.Ct. 478 [whether an injunction may be enforced against a nonparty "depends on an appraisal of his relations and behavior and not upon mere construction of terms of the order"].) Evidentiary findings assessing a nonparty's notice and acts in concert or participation with an enjoined party may occur at a contempt hearing, when the plaintiff seeks to enforce the injunction against a nonparty. (See Ross , supra , 19 Cal.3d at pp. 903-904, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 ; Regal Knitwear , supra , 324 U.S. at p. 16, 65 S.Ct. 478 .)

So Berger , Ross , and Berry clearly establish that California courts may enforce an injunction against a nonparty. A nonparty

We do not believe the Court of Appeal was wrong to conclude that Yelp's degree of notice and involvement below assuaged due process concerns. By filing and appearing in the superior court to argue its motion to vacate the default judgment, Yelp initiated a proceeding through which it had opportunity to participate and be heard. The superior court considered Yelp's motion and held a hearing on August 27, 2014. In its papers and at the hearing, Yelp argued that as an interactive service provider, section 230 granted it immunity from compliance with the injunction because the reviews were provided by a third party. Yelp also availed itself of the opportunity to argue that the judgment, to the extent it was directed at Yelp, violated its due process rights as a nonparty. Yelp further asserted that Hassell did not sufficiently plead or prove their case. Specifically, Yelp argued that Hassell did not make any reasonable attempt to locate Bird before attempting service, did not prove that Bird was provided adequate notice of the action

Although few existing cases find an Internet platform to have acted as an aider and abettor, a range of evidence and interactions could support such a finding. For example, Yelp cites Blockowicz , a Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals case, to argue that its refusal to remove Bird's posts is mere "inaction" insufficient to prove it acted as an aider and abettor to Bird. We are not convinced that logic categorically protects Yelp from injunctions requiring removal of unlawful content. The Blockowicz court observed that the plaintiffs presented no evidence of any contact between the defendants and the website operator or manager after the injunction was issued, nor was there any indication that defendants and the employees for the website worked in concert to violate the injunction. ( Blockowicz , supra , 630 F.3d at p. 568.) What the court concluded is that the record indicated the website operator and manager simply did "nothing relevant to [the] dispute" after the injunction was issued, so their "mere inactivity is simply inadequate to render them aiders and abettors" in violating an injunction directing a user to remove defamatory statements from the website. ( Blockowicz , supra , 630 F.3d at p. 568.) Here, Yelp's post-injunction involvement in this case, including its legal arguments on behalf of Bird, and its litigation director's written refusal of Hassell's removal request, suggest that Yelp has gone beyond the "mere inactivity" found in Blockowicz . ( Ibid . ) Moreover, if we believed a court could glean no support for an aiding and abetting finding based merely on a provider's failure to remove unlawful content after receiving notice of an injunction, the sum of a provider's conduct could still amount to aiding and abetting.

By using algorithms to facilitate further distribution of the information in question to

interviewing, you can find a competent attorney, but this wont be one of them."

Hassell believed Bird to be the author of this review, and sent her an e-mail. Hassell wrote Bird that "[y]ou are certainly free to write a review about your experience and provide constructive feedback. But slandering someone and intentionally trying to damage their business and reputation is illegal." Disputing statements in the review, Hassell requested that Bird remove or revise it, and wrote that "[i]f you are unwilling to talk to me or respond, I will assume you don't intend to work this out [with] me directly and I will retain a defamation attorney this week to file a legal action against you for slander and defamation." Bird responded with a lengthy e-mail of her own, in which she stated that Hassell would "have to accept the permanent, honest review [I] have given you."

Shortly thereafter, on February 6, 2013, another one-star review of the Hassell Law Group was posted on Yelp. This review was from the user "J.D.," identified as hailing from Alameda, California. It provided in full as follows: "Did not like the fact that they charged me their client to make COPIES, send out FAXES, POSTAGE, AND FOR MAKING PHONE CALLS about my case!!! Isn't that your job. That's just ridiculous!!! They Deducted all those expenses out of my settlement."

On April 10, 2013, plaintiffs filed suit against Bird in San Francisco Superior Court. The verified complaint alleged that Bird wrote both of the

The Court of Appeal nevertheless determined that section 230 does not prohibit a directive that Yelp remove the challenged reviews. The court reasoned that "[t]he removal order does not violate ... section 230 because it does not impose any liability on Yelp. In this defamation action, [plaintiffs] filed their complaint against Bird, not Yelp; obtained a default judgment

1. Zeran

Section 230 was the subject of an early and influential construction in Zeran , supra , 129 F.3d 327 . (See Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 41, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 [describing Zeran as "[t]he leading case on section 230 immunity"].) The lawsuit in Zeran involved messages posted on an America Online, Inc. (AOL) online bulletin board. ( Zeran , at p. 329.) These messages promoted t-shirts, bumper stickers, and key chains bearing offensive content, and added

Other courts have followed Zeran in adopting a broad view of section 230's immunity provisions. (See Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 39, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) Several decisions by the Courts of Appeal of this state, for example, have advanced a similar understanding of section 230. (See, e.g., Doe II v. MySpace Inc. (2009) 175 Cal.App.4th 561 , 567-575, 96 Cal.Rptr.3d 148 [ section 230 immunity applies to tort claims against a social networking website, brought by minors who claimed that they had been assaulted by adults they met on that website]; Delfino v. Agilent Technologies, Inc. (2007) 145 Cal.App.4th 790 , 804-808, 52 Cal.Rptr.3d 376 [ section 230 immunity applies to tort claims against an employer that operated an internal computer network used by an employee to allegedly communicate threats against the plaintiff]; Gentry v. eBay, Inc. (2002) 99 Cal.App.4th 816 , 828-836, 121 Cal.Rptr.2d 703 [ section 230 immunity applies to tort and statutory claims against an auction website, brought by plaintiffs who allegedly purchased forgeries from third party sellers on the website].)

Among the decisions of the Courts of Appeal construing section 230, the ruling in Kathleen R. , supra , 87 Cal.App.4th 684 , 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 , is particularly relevant

Kruger, J.

I concur in the judgment. I agree with the plurality opinion that the injunction against Yelp Inc. (Yelp) is invalid, but I begin with a more basic reason. Yelp is not a party to this litigation, and the courts' power to order people to do (or to refrain from doing) things is generally limited to the parties in the case. Although there are qualifications to the rule, there is no exception that permits the sort of order we confront here: an order directing a nonparty website operator to remove third party user content just in case the user defaults on her own legal obligation to remove it. Before Yelp can be compelled to remove content from its website, the company is entitled to its own day in court.

The plurality opinion instead concludes the injunction is invalid because it violates section 230 of title 47 of the United States Code, part of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 ( Pub.L. No. 104-104 (Feb. 8, 1996) 110 Stat. 56 ; hereafter section 230 ), a statute that bars civil suit against website operators like Yelp for permitting third parties to post content on their sites. Although I believe it is unnecessary to reach the issue, I agree with the plurality opinion that even if it were permissible to enter an injunction against a nonparty website operator based solely on its past decision to permit the defendant to post content on its website, the operator would be entitled to section 230 immunity in that proceeding. I express no view on how section 230 might apply to a different request for injunctive relief based on different justifications.

Judge Learned Hand, in an oft-cited statement of the rule, explained its logic in this way: "[N]o court can make a decree which will bind any one but

When Yelp was served, it promptly filed a motion to set aside and vacate the judgment.

C.

Although plaintiffs, like the Court of Appeal, rely largely on a rule concerning a trial court's power to forbid parties from nullifying an injunctive decree by carrying out prohibited acts through nonparties, their real concern does not appear to be that Bird is using or will use Yelp as a pawn to play "jurisdictional 'shell games.' " ( Conrad , supra , 55 Cal.App.4th at p. 902, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 248 .) Their concern instead appears to be that Bird will simply ignore the injunction-all on her own-and the offending reviews will remain visible unless and until Yelp takes independent action.

The concern is a substantial one, but the usual remedy for such concerns is to sue for a determination of the third party's legal obligation to do as plaintiffs wish. Plaintiffs have identified no instance in which a court has upheld the issuance of an injunction against a nonparty under remotely similar circumstances. Perhaps the closest plaintiffs have come is U.S. v. Hall , supra , 472 F.2d 261 , in which a federal court of appeals upheld the criminal contempt conviction of a nonparty for interference with the operation of a school campus for purposes of obstructing implementation of a desegregation order. The nonparty's actions, the court explained, "imperiled the court's fundamental power to make a binding adjudication between the parties properly before it." ( Id. at p. 265.) But the court's holding in that case turned on the nonparty's willful obstruction of the defendant's compliance with the court's judgment. ( Ibid. [distinguishing Alemite and Chase National Bank ]; see also U.S. v. Paccione (2d Cir. 1992) 964 F.2d 1269 , 1275 [similarly distinguishing Alemite because the case before it "dealt with a person who interfered with the res , the disposition of which the district court had specifically restricted, and who consciously impeded the rights, obligations and efforts of the parties bound by the court's order from attempting to comply with valid court orders"]; see generally Rest.2d Judgments, § 63 [discussing duty not to obstruct compliance with court judgment].) In this case, there is no argument that Yelp is obstructing Bird's compliance with the

D.

So far, I have described common ground with Justice Cuéllar's dissenting opinion. Justice Cuéllar does not defend the trial court's decision to issue an injunction against Yelp in a proceeding to which it was not a party, and he would vacate the Court of Appeal's judgment upholding that order. (Dis. opn. of Cuéllar, J., post , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 921-925, 420 P.3d at pp. 822-824.) Justice Cuéllar would, however, remand for consideration of whether the injunction against Bird can be enforced against Yelp because the company has aided and abetted, or otherwise acted in concert with, Bird in her violation of the court's injunction. ( Id. at p. 924, 420 P.3d at p. 824.)

I agree with Justice Cuéllar that this is the pertinent standard under Berger and related cases, but I do not believe a remand is warranted to consider whether Yelp has aided and abetted Bird's noncompliance with the court's

In each of the cases cited in the plurality opinion, the court applied section 230 to bar the filing of a lawsuit seeking to hold an interactive computer service responsible for offending posts written by a third party. This case concerns a different scenario. In this case, plaintiffs have filed no lawsuit against Yelp and have pursued no substantive claim against it. The injunction, as narrowed to Bird's past reviews, on its face does not seek to draw Yelp into litigation to second guess or penalize Yelp for its initial decision to post Bird's reviews, despite their defamatory content. As plaintiffs emphasize, the injunction instead requires only that, now that the reviews have been found by a court to be defamatory, Yelp remove the reviews. The injunction of course recognizes that Yelp is-as a matter of fact-the publisher of Bird's reviews; the reviews cannot come down without Yelp's cooperation. But that is not the pertinent question. The question is instead whether the injunction necessarily holds Yelp legally responsible for, or otherwise authorizes litigation against Yelp solely because of, its editorial choices.

As the case comes to us, I agree with the plurality opinion that the answer to that question is yes. The justification plaintiffs

III.

I, like my colleagues, am sympathetic to plaintiffs' dilemma. Plaintiffs have proved to the satisfaction of the trial court that Bird's critical Yelp

These concerns are not present in this case. No one has burdened Yelp with defending against liability for potentially defamatory posts. Here, the trial court ordered Yelp to remove postings that have been already adjudicated to be defamatory. Hassell sued Bird, not Yelp, and the litigation did not require Yelp to incur expenses to defend its editorial judgments or any of its business practices. The trial court ruled that Bird had defamed Hassell on Yelp, and it directed Yelp to help effectuate the remedy. Yelp's conduct as a speaker or publisher was never at issue in Hassell's lawsuit, and the trial court imposed no liability on Yelp for such conduct. Instead, the trial court enjoined Yelp as part of the remedy for Bird's tortious conduct toward Hassell. A company in Yelp's position may face burdens associated with determining the "validity or scope" of a removal order or "the manner in which it is implemented." (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 885, 420 P.3d at p. 791.) But these are not the type of burdens contemplated by Barrett or the cases upon which Barrett relied in explaining the purpose of section 230 immunity.

As for Yelp's due process claim, the Court of Appeal properly clarified that the question here is "whether the trial court was without power to issue the removal order in the first instance ." ( Hassell v. Bird (2016) 247 Cal.App.4th 1336 , 1357, 203 Cal.Rptr.3d 203 , italics added.) The matter before us is Yelp's motion to vacate the trial court's judgment; this is not a contempt proceeding or other action seeking to impose liability on Yelp for violating the injunction. ( Ibid. [Yelp's postjudgment conduct "has no bearing on the question" presented].) Justice Kruger argues that the removal order directed at Yelp violates due process because Yelp was never given its "own day in court" before the order was issued. (Conc. opn. of Kruger, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 893, 420 P.3d at p. 798.) She cites Judge Learned Hand's opinion in Alemite Manufacturing Corp. v. Staff (2d Cir. 1930) 42 F.2d 832 ( Alemite ) for the proposition that a court generally cannot "bind any one but a party" and "cannot lawfully enjoin the world at large." ( Id. at p. 832 ; see conc. opn. of Kruger, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 889, 420 P.3d at p. 795.)

But "[g]eneral propositions do not decide concrete cases" ( Lochner v. New York (1905) 198 U.S. 45 , 76, 25 S.Ct. 539 , 49 L.Ed. 937 (dis. opn. of

In saying that the removal order enjoins Yelp from engaging in "independent conduct," Justice Kruger strays from the meaning of that term as used in the cases she cites. (See Additive Controls & Measurement Sys. v. Flowdata (Fed.Cir. 1996) 96 F.3d 1390 , 1395 ( Flowdata ); Paramount Pictures Corp. v. Carol Pub. Group, Inc . (S.D.N.Y. 1998) 25 F.Supp.2d 372 , 375-376 ( Paramount Pictures ).) In those cases, as in Alemite , a plaintiff obtained an injunction against one or more defendants for patent or copyright infringement and thereafter sought to bind nonparties to the injunction based on the nonparties' acts of infringement. This was prohibited, the courts explained, because the nonparties had engaged in their own acts of infringement separate and apart

The only difference here is that the injunction names Yelp instead of using a general phrase to refer to nonparties (e.g., "Bird's agents, employees, associates, confederates, aiders and abettors") as in Alemite and Ross . But that makes no difference to the due process inquiry. Yelp may yet argue in a contempt proceeding that its relationship to Bird's tortious conduct was not sufficient to justify the trial court's removal order. But if that argument were to fail, the fact that Yelp-like the supervisors in Ross -had no notice or opportunity to be heard before the trial court issued the injunction would not preclude a finding of contempt. Such a finding would necessarily mean the injunction was valid when issued.

Finally, the nature of Yelp's relationship to Bird that makes Yelp a proper subject of the injunction is not that of a "publisher or speaker" for purposes of section 230 immunity. Yelp's obligation to remove Bird's defamatory reviews does not stem from any judgment as to the legality of any editorial decision by Yelp to publish Bird's speech. As noted, the only issue in the underlying suit was whether Bird, not Yelp, had defamed Hassell and her firm; the suit did not impose on Yelp any burdens

Yet the plurality opinion's answer to this question follows almost entirely from its analysis of section 230. Remarkably, it asserts that section 230 alone prevents a California court from directing Yelp, Inc. (Yelp) to remove from its website statements that have been judicially adjudged defamatory. The plurality opinion expands this court's precedent to reach its conclusion and

In pressing its argument to the contrary-that courts effectively have no power to affect what information an Internet platform posts-Yelp raises a variety of procedural and constitutional concerns. We

More than four months later, Yelp inserted itself into this case by filing a motion to vacate the superior court's default judgment as to Bird. On August 27, 2014, Yelp received a hearing on its motion to vacate the judgment against Bird. In its papers and at the hearing, Yelp argued that section 230 barred the injunction and that it could not be bound by the injunction as an agent or aider and abettor to Bird. The superior court found a factual basis to support Hassell's contention that Yelp aided and abetted Bird's violation of the injunction and included no discussion of section 230 in its order denying Yelp's motion to vacate the judgment against Bird. Yelp appealed.

The title of section 230(c) is "Protection for 'Good Samaritan' blocking and screening of offensive material." What section 230(c)(1) provides is this: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Section 230(c)(2) explains that providers or users of interactive computer services shall not be liable for actions taken in good faith to restrict access to obscene, harassing, or objectionable material, regardless of whether such material is constitutionally protected, or for efforts to make available technology that restricts such material. ( § 230(c)(2)(A)-(B).) Section 230(c) does not endow Internet platforms with a complete immunity from compliance with state court orders. Rather, it enunciates protections where offensive material is voluntarily restricted, blocked, or screened. Section 230(d) outlines the obligations of interactive service providers to provide notification regarding parental control protections that assist a customer in limiting minors' access to harmful online material. ( § 230(d).) And section 230(e) explains that section 230 has no effect on certain federal and state laws. ( § 230(e).) Section 230(e)(3), which pertains to state and local laws, is particularly relevant here. It states only: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to prevent any State from enforcing any State law that is consistent with this section. No cause of

There's no such codicil. Nor does Yelp even face "liability" here at all. (See § 230(e)(3).) The plurality opinion treats compliance with the court order pertaining to Bird's defamatory speech as a kind of liability against

All of which underscores why it is a contrast between apples and oranges-or apples and Oreos, for that matter-to compare a defendant's explicit targeting by a civil lawsuit with a person or entity's remedial responsibility to avoid helping others engage in prohibited conduct. A defendant to a state law cause of action may be subject to an adverse judgment triggering a responsibility to provide monetary or equitable relief to the plaintiff, and may

Given the plurality opinion's embrace of an approach to section 230 that is not

The Ninth Circuit first explained that no provision of section 230"declares a general immunity from liability deriving from third party content." ( Barnes , supra , 570 F.3d at p. 1100.) The court rejected Yahoo's assertion that section 230(c)(1) granted blanket immunity from any liability arising from third party information and read section 230(c)(1) and (e)(3) together, explaining that (e)(3) makes the terms of (c)(1) explicitly relevant, as "(c)(1) only protects from liability (1) a provider or user of an interactive computer service (2) whom a plaintiff seeks to treat, under a state law cause of action, as a publisher or speaker (3) of information provided by another information content provider." ( Barnes , at pp. 1100-1101.) The Ninth Circuit defined the inquiry for section 230 immunity as "whether the cause of action inherently requires the court to treat the defendant as the 'publisher or speaker' of content provided by another." ( Barnes , at p. 1102.) The court "must ask whether the duty that the plaintiff

Kathleen R. addressed state law claims filed against an interactive service provider seeking injunctive relief and damages. Relying on section 230(e)(3), the Court of Appeal explained that "claims for declaratory and injunctive relief are no less causes of action than tort claims for damages, and fall squarely within the section 230(e)(3) prohibition." ( Kathleen R ., supra , 87 Cal.App.4th at p. 698, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 .) Notably, the court in Kathleen R. did not rely solely on the terms of section 230(c)(1) to assert a complete immunity; rather, the court looked expressly to the section 230(e)(3) requirement that no causes of action may be brought and no liabilities may be imposed against interactive service providers. The claims were barred, not because the plaintiff sought injunctive relief, but because she brought causes of action against a service provider directly . Our understanding of section 230 does not conflict with Kathleen R : Under section 230(c)(1) and (e)(3), section 230 immunity

Given the range of circumstances where state law may properly impose responsibility on an entity such as Yelp without imposing "liability," we question whether it was within the ambit of congressional purpose that the statute preclude any effective remedy for people defamed or injured by Internet content. Recall that here, Bird failed to ever respond in the superior court proceedings. The record indicates that she was aware of the lawsuit addressing her posts, as evidenced by her request to the San Francisco Bar Association for mediation, but she refused to defend her speech in court or comply with the judgment or injunction. Bird is also apparently judgment proof. The underlying facts of this case are far from unique, and many aggrieved Californians may find themselves in similar circumstances. Nothing in the legislative history supports the idea, implicit in the plurality opinion's position, that Congress reasonably sought to deprive victims of defamation and other torts committed online of any effective remedy.

Our reading of section 230 takes account of what it means, practically, to let providers spurn state court orders. It considers as well the statute's express directive that section 230 shall not be construed to prevent a state from enforcing laws consistent with the section. ( § 230(e)(3).) At core, the plurality opinion reads as though it finds section 230 a definitive barrier to imposing any injunctive responsibility on service providers. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 887-888, 420 P.3d at p. 793.) That reading of section 230 would render state courts incapable of providing effective relief to their citizens when providers make "editorial" decisions that permit defamatory or injurious speech to remain on the Internet, even where that speech has been deemed unlawful. A complete immunity for interactive service providers under section 230 would preclude remedies for victims of defamation where the content providers are unavailable, like in circumstances of absentia or death, and where the website operator is unsympathetic. Victims would be without recourse where, as here, the service provider refuses to remove content even when that content violates the provider's terms of service. And under the expansive immunity Yelp demands, harmful statements that could be retracted or removed if made in print could remain online indefinitely with no recourse.

Our analysis of section 230 lends further importance to a procedural and remedial question Yelp raised in its petition: may an injunction be extended to a nonparty website acting in concert with an enjoined party? From Yelp's vantage point, the answer is a simple no. Hassell's injunction against Bird therefore may not be enforced against Yelp as a nonparty. We disagree. California law is clear that injunctions may be enforced against a nonparty that has notice of the injunction and aided, abetted, or otherwise acted in concert with or support of the enjoined defendant to violate the injunction.

California's long-standing practice is to allow enforcement of injunctions against certain nonparties-and rightly so. Berger is the seminal case from

It is quite clear Yelp was able to participate and assert arguments against the entry of the injunction. Yelp did so at a motion to vacate the underlying judgment, without the initiation of any contempt proceedings, and after more than four months of inaction following the entry of the underlying judgment. Yelp's involvement at the hearing on the motion to vacate the default judgment, before it suffered any deprivation of its rights, was functionally equivalent to participation at the entry of the default judgment.

But this due process appraisal does not merge with the separate issue of what California law requires before a court imposes an injunction on a nonparty. A nonparty may indeed be enjoined where it has notice of the injunction and acts as an aider, abettor, or in concert with or in assertion of the enjoined party's rights. Section 230 does not grant a nonparty immunity from compliance with an injunction because it functions as a website or

From the hearing transcript, it is clear the superior court heard and asked questions about the evidence of Yelp's conduct to aid, abet, act in concert with or support of Bird. These questions explored Yelp's position in its papers and at oral argument, asserting that the underlying default judgment against Bird be vacated, that Bird received insufficient notice, and that Hassell failed to prove Bird authored the defamatory posts. But the superior court's order denying Yelp's motion to vacate the default judgment does not apply the law to the facts of this case with sufficient detail. For example, the superior court's finding that Yelp acted on behalf of Bird was not accompanied by an explanation of the legal basis for the superior court's conclusion. The superior court may have reasoned that under Berger , Yelp may be bound by the injunction because it acted "in assertion" of Bird's "rights or claims" in presenting arguments that Hassell failed to adequately serve Bird and submitted insufficient evidence that Bird created the defamatory posts. (See Berger , supra , 175 Cal. at pp. 721-722, 167 P. 143 .) Yet the order does not describe the legal authority on which the court relied to reach its determination. Similarly, the superior court may have determined that the letter issued by Yelp's director of litigation asserting that it would not comply with the injunction, although removal of the posts was feasible and authorized under its terms of service, evidenced a willful refusal to comply with the injunction that supported an aiding and abetting finding. (See Ross , supra , 19 Cal.3d at pp. 904, fn. 4, 916, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 .) But the superior court's order does not engage in an analysis of the legal bases for its conclusion that Yelp aided and abetted Bird in violating the injunction.

Whether Yelp aided, abetted, or acted in concert with or support of Bird's violation of the injunction must be assessed using the proper legal standard for an injunction to run to a nonparty, as enunciated in our precedent in Berger and Ross , and analyzed with sufficient detail. We would therefore

CANTIL-SAKAUYE, C. J.

"well, here is another business that doesn't even deserve one star.

After several attempts at personal service failed, plaintiffs effected substitute service. On April 17, 2013, the summons and complaint were left with another individual at the address where Bird was believed to reside. In November 2013, with Bird not yet having appeared in the case, plaintiffs moved for entry of a default judgment. In the interim, "Birdzeye B." had posted on Yelp an "update" of her review of the Hassell Law Group. This update (which henceforth will be described as a review), dated April 29, 2013, provided as follows:

"here is an update on this review.

dawn hassell has filed a lawsuit against me over this review I posted on yelp! she has tried to threaten, bully, intimidate, harass me into removing the review! she actually hired another bad attorney to fight this. lol! well, looks like my original review has turned out to be truer than ever! avoid this business like the plague folks! and the staff at YELP has stepped up and is defending my right to post a review. once again, thanks YELP! and I have reported her actions to the Better Business Bureau as well, so they have a record of how she handles business. another good resource is the BBB, by the way."

In a declaration filed in support of the request for a default judgment, Hassell explained that she had connected the January 2013 review to Bird "[b]ased on the poster's user name being similar to Ms. Bird's real name and the details such as 'falling through a floor.' " Hassell also averred that the review from "J.D." had been written by Bird. She further related that since the first of the challenged reviews had been posted, the Hassell Law Group had seen a significant decrease in user activity on Yelp that suggested interest in the firm, and that as a result of this review, its overall Yelp rating had dropped to 4.5 stars.

A "prove-up" evidentiary hearing was held

B. Judicial Construction of Section 230

The immunity provisions within section 230"have been widely and consistently interpreted to confer broad immunity against defamation liability for those who use the Internet to publish information that originated from another source." ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 39, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ; accord, Doe v. MySpace, Inc. (5th Cir. 2008) 528 F.3d 413 , 418 ["[c]ourts have construed the immunity provisions in § 230 broadly in all cases arising from the publication of user-generated content"]; Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc ., supra , 339 F.3d at p. 1123 ["reviewing courts have treated § 230(c) immunity

The plaintiff in Zeran , supra , 129 F.3d 327 , argued that section 230 should be read narrowly, so that AOL could be held liable as a "distributor" of the online posts. ( Zeran , at pp. 331-332.) In rejecting this limited view of section 230 immunity, the Zeran court stressed that if the notice-based legal standard for defamation liability that applies to distributors of printed information was transplanted to the Internet, it would place online intermediaries in an untenable position. "If computer service providers were subject to distributor liability," the court observed, "they would face potential liability each time they receive notice of a potentially defamatory statement-from any party, concerning any message. Each notification would require a careful yet rapid investigation of the circumstances surrounding the posted information, a legal judgment concerning the information's defamatory character, and an on-the-spot editorial decision whether to risk liability by allowing the continued publication of that information. Although this might be feasible for the traditional print publisher, the sheer number of postings on interactive computer services would create an impossible burden in the Internet context."

The plaintiff in Kathleen R. , supra , 87 Cal.App.4th 684 , 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 , filed suit against a city after her son, a minor, used computers at the city library to download sexually explicit photos from the Internet. ( Id ., at p. 690, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 .) She brought claims under state and federal law. ( Id ., at p. 691, 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 .) The plaintiff sought injunctive relief in connection with all of her causes of action, with her state-law claims seeking to prevent the city "from acquiring or maintaining computers which allow people to access obscenity or minors to access harmful sexual matter; from maintaining any premises where minors have that ability; and from expending public funds on such computers." ( Ibid . )

The court in Kathleen R. , supra , 87 Cal.App.4th 684 , 104 Cal.Rptr.2d 772 , held that section 230 barred all of the plaintiff's state-law claims, even insofar as they sought

We reversed. Our unanimous majority opinion in Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th 33 , 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 , rejected both the Court of Appeal's interpretation of the term "publisher"

The question here is whether a different result should obtain because plaintiffs made the tactical decision not to name Yelp as a defendant. Put another way, we must decide whether plaintiffs' litigation strategy allows them to accomplish indirectly what Congress has clearly forbidden them to achieve directly. We believe the answer is no.

For the foregoing reasons, section 230 immunity applies here. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeal insofar as it affirmed the trial court's denial of Yelp's motion to set aside and vacate the judgment. That motion should have been granted to the extent that it sought to delete from the order issued upon entry of the default judgment any requirement that Yelp remove the challenged reviews or subsequent comments of the reviewers. The cause is remanded for further proceedings as appropriate in light of this court's disposition.

WE CONCUR:

CHIN, J.

CORRIGAN, J.

Consistent with this principle, courts have long observed a general rule against entering injunctions against nonparties. An injunction is a " 'personal decree' " that " 'operates on the person of the defendant by commanding him to do or desist from certain action' " as a remedy for violations or threatened violations of the law. ( Comfort v. Comfort (1941) 17 Cal.2d 736 , 741, 112 P.2d 259 .) More than a century ago, the United States Supreme Court invalidated an injunction enjoining nonparties, explaining: "[W]e do not think it comports with well-settled principles of equity procedure to include [nonparties] in an injunction in a suit in which they were not heard or represented, or to subject them to penalties for contempt in disregarding such an injunction." ( Scott v. Donald (1897) 165 U.S. 107 , 117, 17 S.Ct. 262 , 41 L.Ed. 648 .) Some decades later, the high court again invalidated an injunction as "clearly erroneous" insofar as it "assumed to make punishable as a contempt the conduct of persons who act independently and whose rights have not been adjudged according to law." ( Chase National Bank v. Norwalk (1934) 291 U.S. 431 , 436-437, 54 S.Ct. 475 , 78 L.Ed. 894 , fn. omitted.) And again, in Zenith , supra , 395 U.S. at page 110, 89 S.Ct. 1562 , the high court ruled that the district court had erred in entering an injunction against an entity (there, the parent company of the named defendant) that "was not named as a party, was never

But under this general rule, while nonparties may be barred from acting on behalf of, or in concert with, a defendant in violating an injunction, they may not be barred from acting independently. The "whole effect" of the practice, we explained in Berger , "is simply to make the injunction effectual against all through whom the enjoined party may act, and to prevent the prohibited action by persons acting in concert with or in support of the claim of the enjoined party , who are in fact his aiders and abetters." ( Berger , supra , 175 Cal. at p. 721, 167 P. 143 .) Put differently, the practice permits a court to punish a nonparty for violating an injunction only "when he has helped to bring about, not merely what the decree has forbidden, because it may have gone too far, but what it has power to forbid, an act of a party ." (

To the extent the question might arise in the future, however, I offer a cautionary note. The difficulties with the trial court's aiding and abetting analysis extend beyond matters of timing and procedure. The trial court in this case reasoned, among other things, that Yelp is aiding and abetting Bird's violation of the injunction simply by failing to remove Bird's reviews from the website. But this establishes only that Yelp has not stepped forward to act despite Bird's noncompliance. That is not aiding and abetting. (See Blockowicz , supra , 630 F.3d at p. 568 [concluding that Internet service provider's refusal to comply with an injunction was "mere inactivity" that was "simply inadequate to render them aiders and abettors in violating the injunction"]; see also Conrad , supra , 55 Cal.App.4th at p. 903, 64 Cal.Rptr.2d 248 [before a nonparty can be punished for violating the terms of an injunction, it must be shown that the nonparty has acted " with or for those who are restrained"; "some actual relationship with an enjoined party is required" and "[m]ere 'mutuality of

In an early, influential discussion of section 230, the Fourth Circuit interpreted the provision to forbid any legal obligation that "would place a computer service provider in a publisher's role." ( Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (4th Cir. 1997) 129 F.3d 327 , 330.) The language of Zeran might be read to suggest that a court could never order a website to remove third party content, since any such order would necessarily interfere with the website's choices about what content to publish. But section 230 immunity has not been thought to sweep quite so broadly. Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. (9th Cir. 2009) 570 F.3d 1096 is illustrative. There, the Ninth Circuit concluded that section 230 immunity precluded a plaintiff's claim of negligence against the website Yahoo for failure to take down fake profile accounts purporting to be the

DISSENTING OPINION BY LIU, J.

LIU, J.

The court expresses "sympathy" for those who have been defamed on the Internet, including plaintiffs Dawn Hassell and the Hassell Law Group, who won a lawful judgment against defendant Ava Bird for defamatory reviews that Bird posted on Yelp. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 887-888, 420 P.3d at p. 793; see conc. opn. of Kruger, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 897-898, 420 P.3d at p. 802.) But Hassell is not seeking sympathy. She is seeking a remedy for the damage done to her and her law firm. The trial court provided that remedy in the form of damages against Bird and an injunction ordering both Bird and Yelp to remove the defamatory reviews, and the Court of Appeal affirmed. However, more than four years after the trial court issued its order, Bird's defamatory reviews remain posted on Yelp. Bird has refused to comply with the injunction, and Yelp claims it is under no legal obligation to comply. Today's decision agrees with Yelp, thereby ensuring that Hassell will continue to suffer reputational harm from the unlawful postings unless Bird is somehow made to comply.

This "dilemma" (conc. opn. of Kruger, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 897-890, 420 P.3d at p. 802) is one of the court's own making. As Justice Cuéllar explains, today's extension of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 ( 47 U.S.C. § 230 ) ( section 230 ) to immunize Yelp is not supported by case law or by the statute's text and purpose. (Dis. opn. of Cuéllar, J., post , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 906-919, 420 P.3d at pp. 809-820.) Section 230 does not immunize Yelp from this removal order issued by a California court in a case where "[n]o claim was ever brought against Yelp seeking defamation or tort liability for its editorial decisions." (Dis. opn. of Cuéllar, J., post , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 912, 420 P.3d at p. 814.) Decisions like Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (4th Cir. 1997) 129 F.3d 327 are inapposite because they involved lawsuits filed directly against providers of interactive computer services for tort liability. In Barrett v. Rosenthal (2006) 40 Cal.4th 33 , 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ( Barrett ), we relied on those decisions to conclude that " section 230 exempts Internet intermediaries from defamation liability for republication." ( Id. at p. 63, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 .) We rested our holding on the understanding that "[s]ubjecting service providers to notice liability would defeat 'the dual purposes' of section 230, by encouraging providers to restrict speech and abstain from self-regulation. [Citation.] A provider would be at risk for liability each time it received notice of a potentially defamatory

If Bird had gone to the town square every day to shout defamatory comments about Hassell, or if Bird had made those comments to 50 friends, it is doubtful this case would be here today. Instead, Bird posted a review on Yelp, a website that attracts tens of millions of visitors every month. Yelp is an interactive service provider dedicated to inviting people like Bird to post reviews of local businesses and inviting users to search, sort, and read those reviews (all while exposing website visitors to advertisements). Yelp formats the reviews, makes the reviews searchable, and aggregates reviews of each business into a rating from one to five stars. Yelp's Terms of Service make clear to reviewers that "[w]e may use Your Content in a number of different ways, including publicly displaying it, reformatting it, incorporating it into advertisements and other works, creating derivative works from it, promoting it, distributing it, and allowing others to do the same in connection with their own websites and media platforms." The Terms of Service also state that Yelp owns "visual interfaces, interactive features, graphics, design, compilation, including, but not limited to, our compilation of User Content and other Site Content,

To the extent the plurality opinion maintains that section 230 acts as an absolute bar to this long-standing application of California law, we disagree-and so does a majority of the court. The plurality opinion's analysis of section 230 is no more compelled by the statutory language of section 230, the legislative history of the statute, or any previous case law broadly interpreting section 230 than it is by anything in California law. Although it explicitly addresses only section 230, the plurality opinion nonetheless concludes that there is no remedy for Dawn L. Hassell and her law firm, even through an injunction extended to Yelp. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 887-888, 420 P.3d at p. 793.) We disagree.

To provide the nuanced analysis necessary for resolution of the question before us, we identify the circumstances under which a California court may properly enjoin an interactive service provider. A California court has such power if it is wielded appropriately and in the right circumstances. Even in the context of this case, Justice Liu's opinion posits an injunction might be properly enforced against an interactive service provider. (See dis. opn. of Liu, J., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 902-903, 420 P.3d at pp. 805-806.) And as Justice Kruger explains, section 230 does not necessarily foreclose a state court from specifically naming and enjoining an interactive service provider, provided courts observe proper procedural safeguards. (Conc. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 894-895, 895-897, 420 P.3d at pp. 798-799, 800-802.)

We also contemplate a different situation in our analysis-one specifically raised by Yelp before the Court of Appeal and in its petition for review. Our analysis addresses whether the injunction, issued against Ava Bird and directing her to remove her defamatory posts from Yelp.com, may run to Yelp. We conclude that, under proper conditions, it may. Although the trial court in this case did not make sufficiently clear findings supporting the conclusion that Yelp acted as an agent of or conspirator with Bird, or aided and abetted her, circumstances may indeed arise where a nonparty interactive service provider is found to have developed such a close entanglement of interests-based on the provider's behavior before the injunction, and having received sufficient notice and opportunity to participate in the litigation.

What this case does not implicate is the kind of situation where section 230 does confer immunity-against a cause of action filed directly against the

Dawn L. Hassell and the Hassell Law Group (collectively, Hassell) filed suit against their former client, Ava Bird, on April 10, 2013. They alleged that Bird posted "factually inaccurate and defamatory remarks" about Hassell on Yelp.com. Although Yelp was not named as a defendant in Hassell's lawsuit, Hassell sent copies of the complaint to Yelp via fax and e-mail on May 15, 2013. In their prayer for relief, Hassell sought damages and injunctive relief prohibiting Bird from continuing to defame Hassell as well as removal of every defamatory review Bird published about Hassell from Yelp's website and anywhere else on the Internet.

Yelp's own interpretation of section 230 is essentially the one embraced by the plurality opinion: that this provision works to immunize interactive

By its terms, section 230 conspicuously avoids conferring complete immunity from all legal proceedings. Its language expressly permits the enforcement of certain federal criminal laws as well as state laws consistent with the section. ( § 230(e).) In the context of state law, the section 230 only prohibits causes of action from being brought and liability from being imposed under state laws that are inconsistent with the section. ( § 230(e)(3).) From the statute's terms, an inconsistent state law is one in conflict with the terms in section 230(c). An inconsistent state law under section 230(c)(1) is a state

So liability in this context is best understood as a type of financial obligation, such as the responsibility to pay damages arising from a successfully-litigated tort suit. This conclusion is bolstered by our own decisions, together with cases from other jurisdictions and the history of the statute at issue that liability in this context is essentially a type of financial obligation. ( Id . at p. 1055 [defining "tortious liability" as "redressable by an action for compensatory, unliquidated damages" and in some cases "by extracompensatory or punitive damages"].) As the plurality opinion acknowledges, in Barrett , this court explained that "Congress intended to create a blanket immunity from tort liability for online republication of third party content" ( Barrett , supra , 40 Cal.4th at p. 57, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ) and was specifically concerned with compelling regulation of service providers "at the sword point of tort liability" ( id . at p. 53, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 ). We specifically cited subsequent legislative history affirming that Congress's purpose was to protect providers from liability for tort claims . ( Id . at p. 54, 51 Cal.Rptr.3d 55 , 146 P.3d 510 , citing H.R.Rep. 107-449, 2d Sess., p. 5 (2002) ["The courts have correctly interpreted section 230(c), which was aimed at protecting against liability for such claims as negligence"].) One of the first cases to interpret section 230, Zeran v. America Online, Inc. (4th Cir. 1997) 129 F.3d 327 , 330 ( Zeran ), explained that "Congress recognized the threat that tort-based lawsuits pose" and the purpose of the statutory immunity was to prohibit the "imposition of tort liability on service providers" in a burgeoning Internet. Zeran , on which the plurality opinion relies, expressed that section 230 was enacted to prevent the imposition of "tort liability on service providers for the communication of others." ( Zeran , at p. 330.) This focus on tort liability suggests that Congress understood "liability" to mean tort liability, and supports our definition of liability as a financial obligation, like damages.

Yelp and the plurality opinion also cite Barnes v. Yahoo!, Inc. (9th Cir. 2009) 570 F.3d 1096 ( Barnes ), a Ninth Circuit case that considered state law claims brought against an interactive service provider. ( Id . at p. 1099.) This Ninth Circuit opinion provides a framework to assess whether a cause of action filed against a provider seeks to treat the provider as a publisher or speaker of third party information. But applying the framework offered in Barnes to the instant case does not compel the conclusion that section 230 grants complete immunity to a provider seeking to evade compliance with a state court order.

Plaintiff Barnes's ex-boyfriend created and posted fake online profiles of Barnes on a website run by Yahoo. The profiles featured

What the test in Barnes treats as critical is whether the defendant's acts relate to the defendant's status or conduct as a publisher or speaker. Yelp suggests this test should be manipulated to ask whether the duty Yelp ( a nonparty , and not a defendant) violated derives from Yelp's status or conduct as a publisher or speaker. This reformulation of the Barnes test does nothing to advance Yelp's position. Yelp's duty is not the result of its status or acts as a publisher. Yelp's duty is to refrain from violating the injunction or assisting Bird in evading the injunction. (See Barnes , supra , 570 F.3d at p. 1107 [reasoning that liability "would come not from Yahoo's publishing conduct, but from Yahoo's manifest intention to be legally obligated to do something, which happens to be removal of material from publication"].) Yelp's obligation could arise from a valid conclusion that it aided and abetted unlawful conduct or a subsequent contempt proceeding. Neither of these amounts to a direct claim alleging Yelp engaged in defamation or the publication or distribution of defamatory speech. Again we find no support for far-reaching conclusions about section 230 immunity.

The plurality opinion acknowledges that even under its reading of section 230, Yelp could conceivably be forced to comply with an injunction. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at pp. 882-883, 420 P.3d at pp. 789-790.) Of course it can, but our focus is on the issue most directly raised by this case-the injunction provision directing Bird to remove her defamatory posts, and whether that injunctive duty may be enforced against Yelp. Our conclusion is that section 230 does not categorically ban enforcement of the injunction against Bird, Yelp, or similarly situated entities.

Yelp and its supportive amici curiae cite other nonbinding cases to press the case for Yelp's complete immunity under section 230. These cases are

Nor does Yelp or the plurality opinion's reliance on Medytox compel such a conclusion. That Florida court of appeal decision addressed an action for declaratory and injunctive relief against Investorshub.com, an interactive service provider. ( Medytox , supra , 152 So.3d at p. 729.) Medytox sued Christopher Hawley for defamation and tortious interference after he posted statements about Medytox on Investorshub.com. ( Ibid. ) Medytox requested that Investorshub.com remove Hawley's posts, which contained "allegedly

Under our precedent, an injunction may run to persons through whom the enjoined party may act, such as "persons acting in concert with or in support of the claim of the enjoined party , who are in fact his aiders and abettors." ( Berger , supra , 175 Cal. at p. 721, 167 P. 143 (original italics).) As we explained in Berger , nonparties may be bound by an injunction where they have knowledge of the injunction, are servants or agents of the enjoined party, or act " 'in combination or collusion with them or in assertion of their rights or claims.' " ( Id . at p. 722, 167 P. 143 , quoting

The Court of Appeal affirmed the superior court's denial of Yelp's motion vacating the default judgment against Bird. In doing so, the Court of Appeal concluded that the superior court had authority under settled principles of California law to include a provision in the injunction that ordered Yelp to effectuate the injunction against Bird by deleting her defamatory reviews from its website. ( Hassell , supra , 247 Cal.App.4th at p. 1355, 203 Cal.Rptr.3d 203 .) Relying on the superior court's observation in its order denying Yelp's motion to vacate, the Court of Appeal reasoned that California law provides that injunctions can be applied to nonparties, such as agents, servants, employees, aiders, abettors, etc. ( Ibid . ) Having found no due process violation at the superior court proceedings, the Court of Appeal concluded that the

A website's willful refusal to comply with an injunction, where compliance is feasible, may also provide evidence to support a finding that the service provider aided, abetted, or acted in concert, combination, or collusion with an enjoined defendant. (See Ross , supra , 19 Cal.3d at pp. 904, fn. 4, 916, 141 Cal.Rptr. 133 , 569 P.2d 727 .) Evidence that a website prominently featured a defamatory review-to attract viewers or for other reasons-after it had notice of a defamation judgment and injunction directing the speaker to remove the defamatory post may indicate the provider has acted to violate the injunction in support of the enjoined party. A provider's actions to maintain unlawful Internet posts in concert with a defendant may support a factual finding of aiding, abetting, or acting in concert or in support of the defendant. So could situations where a defendant has reason to believe her content is unlawful but is encouraged by a provider to retain the content, or where a defendant attempts to remove unlawful content, but the provider retains the content citing its right to use, display, or promote the content under its terms of service. The plurality opinion appears to maintain in contrast that section 230 grants Yelp immunity from compliance with the injunction even where Yelp is found to have aided, abetted, or acted in concert with or support of Bird to violate the injunction. (Plur. opn., ante , 234 Cal.Rptr.3d at p. 884, fn. 14, 420 P.3d at p. 790, fn. 14.) We are unpersuaded. Neither the plurality opinion's logic nor its reliance upon a nonbinding federal case support the conclusion that section 230 would bar as "publication decisions" all the conduct that a trial court might rely on to make valid factual findings that action in concert or collusion occurred between a service provider and a defendant.

In its order denying Yelp's motion to vacate the defamation judgment, the superior court first cited Ross and Berger to explain how injunctions can apply to nonparties under California law. The court then stated three factual findings with respect to whether Yelp aided, abetted, and acted in concert or with Bird in violation of the injunction. "First, the evidence establishes that Yelp highlighted at least one of Bird's defamatory reviews about the Hassell Law Firm on its website by featuring it as a 'Recommended Review.' "

To the extent the Communications Decency Act merits its name, it is because it was not meant to be-and it is not-a reckless declaration of the independence of cyberspace. Nothing in section 230 allows Yelp to ignore a properly issued court order meant to stop the spread of defamatory or otherwise