Suit vs. Theater Chain Should Be Dropped Because Movie Theaters Not in VPPA: Brief
An April privacy lawsuit against Southern Theatres should be dismissed for failure to state a claim, said the defendant's Wednesday brief (docket 1:23-cv-00346) in support of its motion to dismiss. Plaintiff Jeffrey Hoge sued the North Carolina theater, alleging it…
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shared his private video viewing information without consent, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (see 2304270016). Southern “partnered with Facebook” to collect personally identifiable information (PII) each time Hoge viewed a video or bought a ticket on Southern’s websites, alleged the complaint. The theater chain’s Wednesday brief said the alleged facts of the case are “far removed from the circumstances” that led to the passage of the VPPA, citing the publishing in a newspaper of a list of movies rented by former U.S. Solicitor General Robert Bork, then a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, from a video rental store. “Plaintiff does not allege Southern Theatres did anything like handing a list of Judge Bork’s video rentals to a reporter,” said the brief. Hoge’s complaint asserts Facebook could combine Southern’s webpage address and Hoge’s Facebook user ID to reveal that he visited a web page for a specific movie “and that this violates a statute enacted to prevent ‘video tape service providers’ from disclosing their customers’ rental history,” said the defendant. It noted Hoge’s statutory damage award claim of $2,500 for every Facebook user who purchased tickets on the Southern Theatres websites in the past two years, plus attorneys’ fees. The case should be dismissed because (1) Congress didn’t include movie theaters in the VPPA, (2) Hoge fails to plausibly allege the information disclosed constitutes PII, and (3) even if the allegedly disclosed information is PII, Hoge “fails to plausibly allege that Southern Theatres knowingly disclosed that information," said the brief.