Supreme Court drops Facebook’s appeal of investor case in Cambridge Analytica scandal

The Supreme Court on Friday overruled Facebook’s appeal in a securities lawsuit against the social media giant, suggesting the court should not have heard the case.

The unsigned, one sentence sentence contained no explanation and said the case was “dismissed as imprudently granted.”

That means Facebook will face a class-action lawsuit over allegations it misled investors about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which stemmed from the company’s use of data from tens of millions of unwitting Facebook users to support the 2016 presidential campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Donald Trump.

The lawsuit concerns a securities filing that Facebook issued in 2016, acknowledging that improper third-party use of its data could harm the business. The filing framed that risk as hypothetical, and shareholders claim it falsely led them to believe no such incident had occurred.

After an intermediate appeals court allowed the case to proceed, the Supreme Court agreed in June to hear the case and held oral arguments earlier this month.

At the arguments, the judges seemed divided on whether to support Facebook’s appeal as they peppered both sides with hypotheticals ranging from meteor strikes to Molotov cocktails.

“The plaintiff’s claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves when this case is tried by the district court. We are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s decision not to clarify this part of the law, says Meta spokesperson Andy Stone in a statement.

Friday’s decision marked the Supreme Court’s first opinion day of its annual term, which began last month. It came earlier than the last two terms of office, when the first opinions were issued in December or January.

The Supreme Court rarely dismisses a case as carelessly granted. The court did so last semester ia high-profile case involving emergency abortions in Idaho as well as one case previous term regarding attorney-client privilege.

Updated at 11:28 AM EST

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