Age Verification Resources > Lawsuits

FSC v. Paxton (Texas)

Free Speech Coalition, the advocacy organization for the adult industry, has filed a legal challenge in Texas over the state’s unconstitutional age-verification law. As with laws FSC has challenged laws in Louisiana and Utah, Texas forces consumers to provide identification information to access adult content. In addition, the Texas law requires that adult sites carry pseudoscientific “warning labels.” More »

Case Status: In Progress

Law Status: In Effect

Timeline

  • September 20-23, 2024
    Twelve parties filed “friend of the court” briefs in support of our arguments.
  • September 16, 2024
    We filed our merits brief with the Supreme Court.
  • July 31, 2024
    The Supreme Court set deadlines for briefing in our case. Our merits brief will be due on September 16, 2024. The Texas response is due November 15, 2024.
  • July 2, 2024
    The Supreme Court granted our petition for certiorari! Read our statement here.
  • Jun 20, 2024
    Our case was on the agenda for consideration by the Justices. While not was not one of the seven cases the Court agreed to hear at that meeting, it was not one of the 81 that they denied.
  • April 26, 2024
    The Supreme Court denied our application for a stay of the 5th Circuit’s decision. Read FSC’s statement on the decision.
  • March 7, 2024
    The 5th Circuit barred the state from mandating pseudoscientific “health warnings” on adult websites and lifted the injunction against the state’s age verification mandate. Read FSC’s statement on the decision.
  • November 14, 2023
    The 5th Circuit converted the administrative stay of the preliminary injunction to a merits stay (for more, read our statement about what this means).
  • Oct 4, 2023
    5th Circuit hearing re: preliminary injunction.
  • September 5, 2024
    Texas appealed the preliminary injunction decision to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals
  • Aug 31, 2023
    The judge ordered a preliminary injunction blocking the Texas law from taking effect! (read our announcement)
  • August 23, 2023
    District Court hearing regarding our motion for preliminary injunction.
  • Aug 4, 2023
    FSC & co-plaintiffs filed a lawsuit challenging Texas HB 1181.
District court case history and documents
Full appeal history and documents
Supreme Court case information

Attorneys

David D. Cole
Vera Eidelman
Scott L. Cole
Derek Shaffer
Michael T. Zeller
Arian Joseph Koochesfahani
Jeff Sandman

Firms
ACLU Foundation
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP
Webb Daniel Friedlander LLP

Key Points

  • The law provides that the Attorney General may bring an action to impose a civil penalty of up to $10,000 per day of noncompliance.
  • Websites are required to display pseudoscientific “health” warnings to consumers on their “landing page”, footer, and all advertisements “in 14-point font or larger”.
  • The law violates the First Amendment rights of creators and consumers, has a chilling effect on constitutionally-protected speech and compels speech in the form of health warnings.

Court Filings

Initial Complaint

Read the Complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, on August 4, 2023.

Preliminary Injunction (District Court)

Along with the Complaint, we filed a motion for preliminary injunction to keep the law from going into effect as scheduled on September 1, 2023.

Texas opposed our request for a preliminary injunction on August 21, 2023.

We filed our response to the Texas opposition brief on August 21, 2023.

The District Court granted a preliminary injunction on August 31, 2023, blocking the law from taking effect.

Texas filed notice that it would appeal the District Court’s decision on August 31, 2023.

Preliminary Injunction (5th Circuit Court of Appeals)

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay of the preliminary injunction, allowing the law to take effect on September 19, 2023.

The ACLU, CDT, EFF, FIRE, Media Coalition, and TechFreedom filed an amicus brief in support of our case.

On November 14, 2023, the 5th Circuit converted the administrative stay of the preliminary injunction to a merits stay.

The 5th Circuit handed down a mixed opinion, barring the state from mandating pseudoscientific “health warnings” on adult websites while lifting the injunction against the state’s age verification mandate on March 7, 2024. 

Petition for Certiorari (Supreme Court)

We filed a petition for a writ of certiorari requesting that the 5th Circuit decision be stayed and overturned by the Supreme Court on April 12, 2024.

On April 26, the Supreme Court denied our application for a stay of the 5th Circuit’s decision. Read FSC’s statement on the decision.

Four groups of amici curiae filed briefs in support of our petition for a writ of certiorari:
International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Electronic Frontier Foundation and Woodhull Freedom Foundation
American Booksellers for Free Expression, Authors Guild, Inc. Association of American Publishers, Inc., Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and Freedom to Read Foundation

Brief of respondent Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas in opposition filed on May 30, 2024.

We filed our reply on June 4, 2024.

Motion to Dismiss (District Court)

Texas filed a motion to dismiss our case on October 11, 2023.

We opposed the state’s motion to dismiss on October 24, 2023.

Texas replied to our opposition on November 1, 2023.

Merits Brief & Amici in Support (Supreme Court)

We filed our merits brief and joint appendix on September 16, 2024

Eleven groups of amici curiae filed briefs in support of our case with the Supreme Court:

In addition, the Solicitor General filed a brief on behalf of the United States supporting our position that the Fifth Circuit’s decision should be overturned.