Judge in Online Child Safety Case Oversaw Major Golf, Tech Suits

The California federal judge who recently struck down the state’s online child safety law has overseen major litigation, from corporate disputes involving Bay Area tech giants to a high-profile antitrust battle that divided professional golf.

Judge Beth Labson Freeman, an Obama appointee on the US District Court for the Northern District of California, blocked a California state statute that imposed requirements on online services children were likely to access.

Her Sept. 18 ruling delivered a victory to a trade group representing technology companies that had claimed the first-in-the-nation law was overly broad and infringed on free speech protections.

The litigation was only the latest high-profile case to reach Freeman’s courtroom in San Jose since her confirmation in 2014.

Freeman oversaw antitrust litigation brought by a group of professional golfers against the PGA Tour over the organization’s policies that penalized players for participating in a tour sponsored by the Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf. PGA countersued, accusing LIV Golf of illegally interfering with players’ contracts.
She rejected a request in August 2022 by the players for a temporary restraining order allowing them to play in the PGA Tour’s FedEx Cup Playoffs, after finding they players had not shown they were sufficiently harmed by being excluded. Freeman concluded that the contracts the players signed with the Saudi-backed golf organization “richly reward them for their talent and compensate for lost opportunity” at the PGA Tour.

Despite months of discovery disputes, the case never made it to trial. Instead, the organizations agreed to toss the suit in June after announcing plans to merge. The merger has prompted a Senate inquiry and Justice Department scrutiny.

Though the golf organizations have dropped their claims, Freeman has continued to oversee the New York Times’ request to unseal documents.

Earlier Cases

Freeman has also overseen a series of cases involving Alphabet Inc.'s Google and other major Silicon Valley companies, including a recent breach of contract suit from Google Workspace users against the search engine giant, and a trademark case against the online dog walking service Wag.

In 2020, she issued a nationwide order blocking the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order barring federal contractors and grant recipients from conducting workplace trainings focused on diversity and structural racism.

Freeman was a “First Amendment expert” who asked “very challenging questions of both sides” in that case, Camilla Taylor, litigation director for Lambda Legal and an attorney involved in the challenge to Trump’s order said.

“She was clearly very informed about our case even before we entered the courtroom, before our argument,” Taylor said. “She had read everything.”

Freeman is “very careful, very meticulous, not ideologically driven,” said Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge for the Northern District of California who has known Freeman personally and professionally for two decades.

“She just really takes judgecraft seriously, and I think that’s reflected in the” online child safety rulin, Fogel said. “She just tries to call it as she sees it and do the best job that she can.”

Freeman’s spot on the bench opened up after Fogel left to serve as director of the Federal Judicial Center. She was confirmed by a vote of 91-7, with seven Republicans voting against her nomination.

In written responses to questions posed by senators, she described her judicial philosophy as “grounded in my commitment to the impartial adherence to the rule of law and binding precedent.”

Freeman was born in Washington D.C, but moved to California as a teenager, she said during her 2013 Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing. Before joining the federal bench, Freeman spent over a decade as a judge on the San Mateo County Superior Court.

Freeman previously worked at the San Mateo County Counsel’s office and in private practice.

In 1972, Freeman ran for the California state assembly at the age of 18, winning a primary but losing in the general election, according to the Senate questionnaire she completed during her confirmation process.