Digital Recognition Network, Inc. v. Hutchinson, No. 14-3084 (8th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs sell technology that permits computers to identify license-plate numbers in digital photographs taken by cameras mounted on vehicles. The cameras automatically photograph everything the vehicles encounter, with GPS coordinates; software provides notice if a photographed vehicle is subject to repossession. The information is sold to clients, including automobile finance and insurance companies and law enforcement. Arkansas’s Automatic License Plate Reader System Act prohibits use of automatic license plate reader systems and permits any person claiming harm from a violation to seek damages from the violator. Vigilant and its affiliates sued, arguing that “use of [automatic license plate reader] systems to collect and create information” and dissemination of the information constitutes speech and that the Act impermissibly restricts this speech based on content—license-plate data—and on the identity of the speaker, because it exempts some entities, such as law enforcement agencies. The district court dismissed, ruling that state officials were immune from suit under the Eleventh Amendment. The Eighth Circuit affirmed on the ground that the plaintiffs lack standing, so there is no Article III case or controversy. State officials do not have authority to enforce the Act, so they do not cause injury; the Act provides for enforcement only through private actions for damages.
Court Description: Colloton, Author, with Murphy and Kelly, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Arkansas Automatic License Plate Reader System Act. In this action plaintiffs, manufacturers of systems which record and disseminate license plate information, challenged the Act as a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of speech; assuming the plaintiffs could demonstrate the injury-in-fact element of standing, they still lacked standing to sue the governor and the attorney general because the injury they complain of is not fairly traceable to either defendant since they do not have authority to enforce the Act because the Act provides for enforcement only through private actions for damages; for the same reasons it is not likely that plaintiffs' injury would be redressed by a favorable decision; because the defendants do not enforce the Act, a declaratory judgment would not meet the requirements of redressability.
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