Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
The Indiana Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in June for a case involving the state’s two civil lawsuits against TikTok, including allegations that the social media company violated Indiana’s Deceptive Consumer Sales Act.
The hearing is scheduled June 24 at 10 a.m. at the Supreme Court Courtroom.
According to the court, the state filed two civil suits in Allen Superior Court against TikTok, alleging violations of state law.
On TikTok’s motion, the trial court dismissed both cases for lack of specific personal jurisdiction and for the state’s failure to state a claim.
In September, the Indiana Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s dismissal of two amended complaints filed by the state against TikTok that alleged the California company had engaged in deceptive acts.
TikTok has petitioned the Indiana Supreme Court to accept jurisdiction over its appeal.
In its opinion, the appellate court stated it had little trouble concluding that Indiana’s judiciary has specific personal jurisdiction over TikTok, Inc., with the company’s contacts within Indiana well beyond the “minimum” needed to satisfy due process.
The court also noted that TikTok reported $46 million in Indiana-based income in tax year 2021.
“TikTok has millions of end-users of its app within Indiana. Its engagement with those end-users is neither passive nor fleeting—TikTok uses the internet, to which its app is connected, to knowingly and repeatedly transmit data to and from each of those millions of Indiana end-users each and every hour of each and every day,” the appellate court pointed out in its ruling.
In its opinion, the appellate court referenced the state’s amended complaints, where the state alleged that, in order to induce end-users in Indiana to download or access its app, TikTok misrepresented or falsely represented various information on which end-users within Indiana were likely to rely when deciding whether to download or access the app.
The case is State of Indiana v. TikTok Inc., ByteDance Ltd., ByteDance Inc., and TikTok Pte. Ltd., 23A-PL-3110 and 23A-PL-3111.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.