In Yahoo! Inc. v. La Ligue Contre Le Racisme et L’Antisemitisme, the Ninth Circuit held that US courts have no personal jurisdiction over two French groups which obtained a judgment in France prohibiting Yahoo from holding auctions of Nazi memorabilia under French law.
Law.com: On Appeal, Anti-Nazi Groups Topple Yahoo
Susan Crawford: Ninth Circuit Gets It Wrong in Yahoo!
Although the Grokster opinion was clearly right, yesterday’s Yahoo! decision [pdf] is weak as a matter of both law and policy.
We have declaratory judgment proceedings to avoid the situation where someone who is acting like they want to enforce their rights can constrain the activities of someone else.The court can issue a declaration saying “yes, these rights should be enforced,” or “no, these rights shouldn’t be enforced,” without waiting for the threatening actor to actually ask for their rights to be enforced.
