The US Supreme Court says that corporations are people, and therefore every civil right that applies to humans applies to corporations. I suppose that will make things easier for aliens (if they ever move to Earth) to have the same civil/legal rights as humans. I guess replicants will all need to incorporate in order to avoid being slaves (to avoid a Bladerunner future).
I read their actual claims.
They claim as part of their defenses to California’s various misleading speech regulations are facially invalid under the first amendment.
it might surprise you to learn that this particular thing has actually been litigated before many many years ago, and upheld ever since . they are not facially invalid. They are not invalid at all.
I could also point out that facial invalidity charges are remarkably disfavored.
you can only really win on facial invalidity if every application of the law to everyone would be invalid (rather than an as-applied challenge, which basically says the law is invalid as applied to you).
The defense here is beyond a waste of time. It borders on sanctionable frivolity, and if a court finds that they’re not doing it in good faith, it would be sanctionable.
as for what they’re doing it to generate news or not, you honestly believe that Tesla is above PR?
of course, they are doing it to generate news - if you generate enough PR in your favor, people will push the government to change its mind or drop the case.
This happens in any meaningful lawsuit involving government - there is always a PR campaign with it. You may or may not like it, but it's reality.
Not to mention the defense reads like an Elon tweet, so ...
> Specifically, the Complainant’s claim under Cal. Veh. Code § 24011.5 is barred
because the statute is facially invalid under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 2, of the California Constitution, as a substantial number of the statute’s applications impermissibly restrict constitutionally protected speech that is truthful and nonmisleading. The Complainant’s claims under Cal. Veh. Code § 24011.5, Cal. Civ. Code § 1770(a)(5), Cal. Code Regs. Title 13 § 260.00, and Cal. Veh. Code § 11713(a) are also barred because these statutes and regulations, as applied to Tesla in this proceeding, are unconstitutional under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 2, of the California Constitution, as they impermissibly restrict Tesla’s truthful and nonmisleading speech about its vehicles and their features.
Now, to be fair, you have to raise every defense you might want to raise at some point in the litigation in the answer to the complaint, so just because it's listed as an affirmative defense doesn't necessarily mean Tesla is actually going to use that defense. But given that it's the first affirmative defense raised, it does feel like Tesla is going to very strongly litigate this argument.
But this is commercial speech, plain and simple, and the First Amendment is widely agreed to permit these kind of restrictions on commercial speech. It's not even close; SCOTUS won't even bother hear to the case should Tesla be stupid enough to appeal it that far.
If we had a normal Supreme Court right now, I’d agree.
They’ve been unilaterally reversing decisions that are decades old, and some of the justices are openly accepting bribes then failing to recuse themselves on related cases.
Musk certainly has enough cash to buy a few votes. I’m not sure if it’ll be enough to eliminate regulation of commercial speech, but I wouldn’t be surprised, given how popular that would be with politically-connected propagandists in the US.
Misleading commercial speech has no first amendment protection.
Tesla is just trying to generate news