RFK Jr. Suit Claiming Online Censorship Sent Back to Trial Court

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s claims that the White House unconstitutionally censored his anti-vaccine comments must be reconsidered in light of a Supreme Court opinion siding with the White House in a similar case, a federal appeals court said Thursday.

The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit remanded Kennedy’s case back to the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana to determine if Kennedy, and two other plaintiffs, have standing to bring their suit alleging censorship on social media.

• Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in the high court’s June Murthy v. Missouri ruling, found that two states lacked standing to sue the federal government for allegedly coercing platforms into taking down posts about the pandemic
• While Kennedy, his nonprofit, and a health care professional “assert at least some different, and perhaps stronger, grounds for standing than the plaintiffs in Murthy,” the record needs to be further developed in the trial court to determine if the Kennedy plaintiffs have standing post-Murthy, the Fifth Circuit judges said in an unsigned opinion
• The Fifth Circuit stayed the district court’s deferred preliminary injunction against the White House in Kennedy’s case—issued prior to the Murthy ruling—as the district court reconsiders the case on remand

Judges James Ho, Cory T. Wilson, and Irma Carrillo Ramirez joined the per curiam opinion.

Welborn & Hargett, L.L.C. represent Kennedy and the two other plaintiffs.

The case is Kennedy v. Biden, 5th Cir., No. 24-30252, 7/25/24.