Guy Sues Jagex For Muting Him, Gets Shot Down Twice

Now here’s a thing I didn’t know was happening.

Back in spring of 2019, a gentleman by the name of Amro Elansari was muted while playing Runescape, that MMO that’s been around forever thanks to the folks over at Jagex. He appealed his muting, Jagex said “no”, so he took them to court.

He cared so much about this that he was willing to go to court over it.

His case, such as it was, was that Jagex was discriminating against him, and in the process, violated his right to free speech and due process. It was almost immediately thrown out of court by District Judge Mark Kearney, who said this:
 

"The First Amendment and its constitutional free speech guarantees restrict government actors, not private entities. Defendants, who are not alleged to be state actors, are not subject to constitutional free speech guarantees. The Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause 'appl[ies] to and restrict[s] only the Federal Government and not private persons,' and does not act against a private company."

You think that’d be the end of it, right? But no, it wasn’t. Turns out Amro Elansari was way more upset about this than one might reasonably think, and decided to appeal to a higher power: specifically, to the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. And they also shot him down. Repeating the claim made by the District Judge, as well as adding this:

"Next, citing Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Elansari maintains that the District Court should have identified and considered a claim of public accommodations discrimination in Elansari's complaint. Elansari insists that defendant Jagex should be liable for 'unequal treatment' because Elansari's account was 'muted … compared to all other players who were not muted… Title II prohibits 'discrimination … on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin.' Even generously construing Elansari's complaint to raise a claim of public accommodations discrimination and assuming that Elansari can bring such a claim in this context, at no point either in the District Court or on appeal has Elansari alleged losing access to Jagex's online game to due discrimination based on any grounds protected by Title II."

So that wraps that up then. But then again, apparently this same man has 10 different lawsuits going around, including trying to sue Tinder, so, maybe he’s less in it to win it and more for the thrill of the game.

In which case… good for you, my dude.