Defense Distributed v. Attorney General New Jersey, No. 19-1729 (3d Cir. 2020)
Annotate this Case
Firearm interest organizations, together with one of their members, challenged the New Jersey Attorney General’s efforts to prevent unregistered and unlicensed persons from distributing computer programs that can be used to make firearms with a three-dimensional (3D) printer. The same claims by some of the same plaintiffs were already pending in Texas. The plaintiffs moved for a preliminary injunction in New Jersey, but the district court stayed the proceedings until the Texas action was resolved and dismissed the injunction motion.
The Third Circuit dismissed an appeal. The stay and dismissal orders are not appealable. The orders here do not have the “practical effect of refusing an injunction.” The court removed the motion from its docket pending the stay, without prejudice, and did not substantively deny the request for an injunction or dismiss the claims. The stay does not impose “serious, perhaps irreparable consequence[s].” The court noted that the federal government and several state attorneys general are still preventing the dissemination of the files at issue; a stay that delays consideration of a request for injunctive relief is of no consequence because, even if the district court considered granted an injunction, that injunction would not alleviate the alleged censorship.
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.