Court Allows FSC Challenge to Tennessee Age-Verification Law to Proceed

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A federal judge has cleared the way for a legal challenge to Tennessee’s adult website age-verification law, rejecting the state attorney general’s request to dismiss the case.

The Protect Tennessee Minors Act (PTMA), Tennessee’s age-verification law for adult websites, was enacted in 2024, before the Supreme Court’s pivotal decision in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. In November 2024, the Free Speech Coalition and co-plaintiffs MelRose Michaels, sex education platform O.school, sexual wellness retailer Adam & Eve and adult fan platform JustFor.Fans filed a lawsuit challenging the law. A Tennessee district court initially blocked the measure, but the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals later lifted that preliminary injunction, allowing the law to take effect.

After the Supreme Court issued its June 2025 ruling in FSC v. Paxton, FSC representatives said they would return to court to establish what they described as “sensible limits” for age-verification laws and challenge provisions they believe go beyond those limits.

In an amended complaint, FSC and its co-plaintiffs argued that the PTMA violates the First Amendment by placing a content-based burden on protected speech that would not survive even the “intermediate scrutiny” standard established by the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs also argued that the law is unconstitutionally vague under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause and that treating website operators as publishers of content created by other providers conflicts with Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act.

The amended complaint recognized that the Supreme Court’s Paxton decision had changed the legal framework surrounding age-verification laws, but argued that Tennessee had gone beyond the limits established by that ruling.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti responded with a motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue him and had failed to provide “sufficient facts to state a plausible claim.”

On Tuesday, Chief Judge Sheryl H. Lipman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee denied Skrmetti’s motion, allowing the lawsuit to proceed.

Jeff Sandman, counsel for the FSC in the case, praised Lipman’s “thorough, thoughtful, and reasoned decision.”

“We are excited to vigorously pursue our claims as the case enters its next phase,” he said.

FSC board chair Jeffrey Douglas described the decision as “an important winning step in these early stages of the litigation.” He said the court’s finding that the plaintiffs have “standing” was particularly significant because standing is a basic requirement for bringing a federal lawsuit. Douglas also pointed to the court’s decision to allow the plaintiffs to proceed with their constitutional challenges, including claims that the law’s definitions are vague, that retaining age-verification records for seven years raises privacy concerns, that hourly reverification is overly burdensome, that the law is overbroad and underinclusive, and that it is preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

“None of our claims were dismissed by the court!”

Tuesday’s ruling also notes that although the Constitution recognizes “a valid governmental interest” in addressing obscenity, asserting that interest does not automatically override constitutional protections.

Lipman did not decide whether the PTMA ultimately violates the First Amendment or is unconstitutional. She did, however, find that FSC and the other plaintiffs have standing and have presented a plausible claim. Among the provisions at issue is the requirement that users have their ages verified again every 60 minutes, which Lipman said could be argued to create an increased burden for adults seeking access to sexual content.

Lipman also found it “plausible” that some of the terminology used in the law is vague enough that a person of ordinary intelligence might not be able to determine what conduct is prohibited under the PTMA.

“Plaintiffs plausibly allege that the PTMA as amended may substantially burden more speech than necessary,” Lipman writes.

One potential source of ambiguity is the law’s definition of a covered website as one where a “substantial portion” of the material is harmful to minors. As with several other state age-verification laws, the PTMA defines a “substantial portion” as one-third or more of a website’s total data, but does not spell out precisely how that measurement should be applied.

Lipman noted that the language could leave Tennessee with an “excessively subjective” standard for determining what qualifies as a “substantial portion.” She did not determine whether that ambiguity makes the law unconstitutional, but agreed that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that the terms were unconstitutionally vague.

If the court eventually determines that the “substantial portion” or “one third” provision is unconstitutionally vague, the decision could have implications beyond Tennessee because similar language appears in age-verification laws adopted in other states.

Lipman also found plausible the plaintiffs’ argument that the PTMA could be preempted by Section 230 protections.

The judge further ruled that “intermediate scrutiny” is the appropriate standard of review for the case. FSC had argued that the stricter “strict scrutiny” standard should apply, while Tennessee argued for intermediate scrutiny. Although the ruling allows the lawsuit to continue, applying intermediate scrutiny rather than strict scrutiny could make it more difficult for the plaintiffs to establish that the law violates the First Amendment.