Lower Court Holding
Decision of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals
Plaintiffs filed suit for declaratory relief seeking to invalidate newly enacted California Civil Code sections 1746-1746.5, which impose restrictions and a labeling requirement on the sale or rental of “violent video games” to minors, on the grounds that the act violates rights guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiffs are associations of companies that create, publish, distribute, sell, and/or rent video games, including games that would be potentially regulated under the California statutory scheme at issue. We hold that the act, as a presumptively invalid content-based restriction on speech, is subject to strict scrutiny and not the “variable obscenity”…
