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The Indiana Court of Appeals will travel to Crawfordsville later this month and hear oral arguments in a case involving four Indiana cities that have sued Netflix, accusing the company and several other streaming service providers of failing to obtain franchises.
Arguments, which will be held April 29 at Wabash College, begin at 11:15 a.m. and can be watched online.
According to court documents, in August 2020, the cities of Fishers, Indianapolis, Evansville, and Valparaiso sued Netflix, DirectTV, Dish Network, Disney, and Hulu for allegedly failing to obtain franchises under the Video Service Franchises Act.
The Indiana Video Service Franchises Act requires entities that provide video service in Indiana to obtain a franchise authorizing the construction of a video service system.
None of the streaming services in the complaint had obtained a franchise from the Indiana Utilities Regulatory Commission, meaning they haven’t paid fees to the four cities which are “units” under the VSF Act.
While the lawsuit was pending, the Indiana General Assembly amended the franchises law to exempt video streaming providers from the act’s franchise requirement.
Based on that amendment, the streaming service providers filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which Marion Superior Court granted.
The cities appealed, arguing the amendment is unconstitutional for three reasons:
- The amendment had no connection to the other provisions of H.E.A. 1454, in which it was passed
- It’s a special law regarding fees
- It’s a special law where a general law can be made applicable
The case is City of Fishers, et al. v. Netflix, Inc., et al., 24A-PL-01657, originating from case number 49D01-2008-PL-026436.
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