In its ongoing enchantment in opposition to Epic Video games over App Retailer guidelines, Apple has determined to quote a latest U.S. Supreme Courtroom resolution on President Trump’s birthright citizenship directive. Listed below are the small print.
In a brand new submitting submitted to the Ninth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals this week (through Reuters), Apple argues {that a} June Supreme Courtroom resolution in Trump v. CASA straight helps its effort to overturn two injunctions issued in its long-running antitrust case in opposition to Epic Video games.
Apple’s argument is the next: for the reason that Supreme Courtroom discovered within the Trump v. CASA case that federal judges don’t have “freestanding authority” to difficulty so-called common injunctions, the district court docket overstepped its authority when it prolonged App Retailer-related cures to each developer within the U.S., not simply Epic.
From Apple’s submitting:
Apple Inc. respectfully submits that Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. __, (2025), confirms that the district court docket’s civil contempt order can’t stand, and that the district court docket improperly prolonged its injunctions—new and outdated—to nonparties.
First, CASA reinforces that the district court docket erred by wielding civil contempt as punishment. CASA explains that “[u]nder ‘conventional rules of fairness apply,’” civil contempt is used to “‘coerce . . . compliance with an injunction.’” Slip Op. 15 n.11 (quoting Taggart v. Lorenzen, 587 U.S. 554, 560 (2019)). Moderately than hew to that precept, the district court docket imposed a brand new injunction that zeroes out Apple’s fee on builders, despite the fact that the district court docket beforehand concluded—and this Courtroom affirmed—that Apple might cost a fee, simply as Epic does on its retailer. Opening Br. 11, 34-36.
Second, CASA establishes that the district court docket lacked authority to increase its injunctions—and particularly its new zero-commission rule—to all builders. CASA held, for the primary time, that federal courts lack freestanding authority to difficulty “common” injunctions and should style solely “full reduction between the events.” Slip Op. 16 (quotation omitted; emphasis added); see id. at 15 (argument that “complete-relief precept justifies the award of reduction to nonparties” is “mistaken”).
The district court docket’s new injunction, like its authentic one, applies to “[e]very developer in the USA.” Opening Br. 41 n.4. Neither Epic nor the court docket demonstrated that treatment was “mandatory to offer full reduction,” a lot much less justified such “most” scope. Slip. Op. 17-18. CASA requires these showings. Furthermore, Epic opted out of a developer class motion (since settled) and elected to pursue this case alone, not on behalf of different builders, making the district court docket’s common injunctions all of the extra inapt. See id. at 14 (rejecting common injunctions as a “workaround” for satisfying “Rule 23’s necessities”).
Below CASA, neither of the district court docket’s injunctions can stand. This Courtroom ought to vacate the brand new injunction. And if the unique injunction survives the enchantment of Apple’s Rule 60(b) movement right here, Opening Br. 62-71, the Courtroom ought to direct the district court docket to rethink it in mild of CASA.
In a nutshell, Apple argues that as a result of Epic selected to pursue the case by itself, the court docket’s resolution ought to apply solely to Epic. And primarily based on the Supreme Courtroom’s ruling within the Trump case, Apple says the court docket lacked the authority to increase its injunction that broadly.
Within the new submitting, Apple additionally doubled down on its earlier argument that the court docket had expanded cures between the primary and second injunctions, when it issued a brand new “zero-commission” injunction, barring it from gathering any payment on exterior transactions. That, Apple argues, went past the scope of the unique order.
Apple is now asking the appeals court docket to vacate the second injunction completely, and to order the district court docket to rethink the primary one in mild of the CASA resolution.
Accent offers on Amazon
FTC: We use revenue incomes auto affiliate hyperlinks. Extra.
