Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios scored legal victories on Monday as a federal appellate court ruled that his racial discrimination lawsuits against Comcast and Charter Communications will proceed.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, Calif., overturned a lower court’s decision to dismiss Allen’s claim against Comcast. The same three-judge panel also affirmed a lower court’s decision to deny Charter’s motion to dismiss Allen’s suit.
The rulings state that Allen has made a plausible case for racial discrimination being a factor in the separate decisions by Comcast and Charter to not carry any of Entertainment Studios’ suite of cable channels. Allen filed suit against Comcast in 2015 and against Charter in early 2016.
Allen’s suits are rooted in a post-Civil War law designed to help protect newly freed slaves from discrimination in pursuing business deals and contracts. Monday’s rulings do not address the merits of Entertainment Studios’ claims against the cable giants, only that there are enough plausible allegations in the suits to allow the litigation to continue through the courts. The appellate panel also ruled that the First Amendment claims exerted by Comcast and Charter as protecting their programming decisions were not sufficient to dismiss the cases outright.
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