X Corp. v. Center for Countering Digital Hate, INC. Court Filing, retrieved on March 25, 2024 is part of HackerNoonâs Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part in this filing here. This part is 10 of 19.
B. Breach of Contract Claim
The complaintâs first cause of action is for breach of contract. FAC ¶¶ 73â79. To state a claim for breach of contract, a plaintiff must allege (1) the existence of a contract, (2) plaintiffâs performance or excuse for nonperformance, (3) defendantâs breach, and (4) resulting damages to the plaintiff. See Oasis W. Realty, 250 P.3d at 1121.
X Corp. alleges that X Corp. and CCDH U.S. are parties to the ToS, which explicitly prohibits ââscraping the Services without the prior consent of Twitter.ââ FAC ¶¶ 74, 75. X Corp. further alleges that it fully performed its obligations, but that CCDH U.S. violated the ToS by scraping the X platform, and that CCDH then âmischaracterized the data it obtained by unlawfully scraping in its reports and articles, in efforts to claim X is overwhelmed with harmful conduct, and support CCDHâs call to companies to stop advertising on X.â Id. ¶¶ 76â78. X Corp. notes that CCDHâs February 9, 2023 report admits that ââ[t]o gather tweets from each of the ten reinstated accounts, [CCDHâs] researchers used the social media web-scraping tool SNScrape, which utilizes Twitterâs search function to enable data collection.ââ Id. ¶ 77. And X Corp. alleges that â[a]s a direct and proximate result of CCDH U.S.âs breaches of the ToS in scraping X, X Corp. has suffered monetary and other damages in the amount of at least tens of millions of dollars.â Id. ¶ 78. The âat least tens of millions of dollarsâ of damages derives from companies pausing paid advertising on the X platform in response to CCDHâs âallegations against X Corp. and X regarding hate speech and other types of content on X.â Id. ¶ 70.
CCDH argues that X Corp. fails to state a breach of contract claim, for three reasons: (1) X Corp. has failed to adequately allege a breach; (2) if the ToSâs anti-scraping provision applies, it violates public policy; and (3) X Corp. has failed to adequately allege recoverable damages. MTD&S at 9â18. The Court concludes that CCDHâs argument about damages is persuasive, and does not reach CCDHâs other arguments.
CCDH maintains that X Corp. fails to adequately allege damages resulting from CCDHâs alleged scraping of the X platform because: (a) under state contract law, X Corp.âs lost advertising revenue is not recoverable; (b) constitutional law bars X Corp. from using a non-defamation cause of action to recover reputational damages; and (c) allowing this cause of action, in which X Corp. seeks tens of millions of dollars, to stand would subject CCDH to âsignificant costs of enduring discovery and litigation . . . against a well-resourced adversary with every incentive to impose crushing burdens on the CCDH Defendants.â Id. at 15â18. That last argument is emotional rather than legal; while the Court is not blind to the David and Goliath dynamic here, the law does not bar big companies from suing small nonprofits, so long as the suit is otherwise up to snuff. This order therefore addresses only CCDHâs arguments based on state contract law and constitutional law.
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