Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-owned Media
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 23, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- March 23, 2020
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Gorsuch
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice GORSUCH delivered the opinion of the Court. Few legal principles are better established than the rule requiring a plaintiff to establish causation. In the law of torts, this usually means a plaintiff must first plead and then prove that its injury would not have occurred "but for" the defendant's unlawful conduct. The plaintiffs before us suggest that 42 U.S.C. § 1981 departs from this traditional arrangement. But looking to this particular statute's text and history, we see no evidence of an exception. I This case began after negotiations between two media companies failed. African-American entrepreneur Byron Allen owns Entertainment Studios Network (ESN), the operator of seven television networks-Justice Central.TV, Comedy.TV, ES.TV, Pets.TV, Recipe.TV, MyDestination.TV, and Cars.TV. For years, ESN sought to have Comcast, one of the nation's largest cable television conglomerates, carry its channels. But Comcast refused, citing lack of demand for ESN's programming, bandwidth constraints, and its preference for news and sports programming that ESN didn't offer. With bargaining at an impasse, ESN sued. Seeking billions in damages, the company alleged that Comcast systematically disfavored "100% African American-owned media companies." ESN didn't dispute that, during negotiations, Comcast had offered legitimate business reasons for refusing to carry its channels. But,…
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