Today’s In Plain English is going to be a short one, but you’ll understand why when you see that the gist of it is about six sentences long. It comes to us from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and involves everyone’s favorite developer of RuneScape: Jagex. Along with their parent company Shanghai Fukong, Jagex last week was sued in Pennsylvania court by one Amro Elansari, who is alleging that Jagex muted him without reason. The lawsuit goes on to claim that the UK developer refused to provide an explanation and denied Elansari’s request for an appeal. Elansari’s suit alleges violations of due process, free speech, and human rights.
Elansari was granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, fancy legal speak for nulling filing fees, however the court took some umbrage with his claims. Judge Kearney noted that Elansari’s claims of constitutional violations were implausible, adding that the first amendment and its constitutional free speech guarantees do not restrict private entities. More so, the fifth amendment due process clause also does not apply to private companies.
As such, Elansari’s lawsuit has been dismissed just five days after being filed. Elansari cannot make any further constitutional or federal claims however if he decides to bring the lawsuit back on state charges in state court, he absolutely may do so.
As always, MMO Fallout is hosting the relevant dockets at our expense at the Google Drive. As the lawsuit was filed pro se, MMO Fallout has removed some personal contact details from the documents for the sake of the plaintiff.