contract-law
Can one rightfully sue Stack Overflow for a suspension?
<p>If someone gets suspended or banned from stackoverflow in a way where it can be shown that no violation of the terms of service were broken, is that sufficient grounds for a lawsuit?</p>
<p>SO could be a financial source of income etc., and it might be considered false advertising on their part, but maybe not.</p>

<p>If you have a contract with another party, you can in principle sue them for damages if they breach the contract. Since you mentioned Stackoverflow, we would look at that contract, <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service">here</a>. There is a bunch of stuff you can't do, and a bunch of stuff you can do. One thing that you will note is that their liability is highly limited (big print §9 Limitation of Liability). Also note in §4:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Stack Overflow reserves the right to refuse, suspend or terminate your
access to the public Network if it determines, in its sole discretion,
that you have in any way violated these Public Network Terms or are
otherwise ineligible to access or use the Network or Services. If your
actions are determined by us to violate these Public Network Terms,
Stack Overflow may, in its sole discretion, try to remediate that
violation by working with you individually, but is under no obligation
to do so, and if any such remediation efforts are unsuccessful (in
Stack Overflow’s sole discretion), then Stack Overflow may revoke your
rights to the Network.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So they get to ban you, if they decided that your actions warrant. If you try to sue them, they will win because of this clause.</p>

<p>You might want to ask <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/333965/firing-mods-and-forced-relicensing-is-stack-exchange-still-interested-in-cooper">Monica Cellio</a> about how well suing SE for dropping a person from a role went.</p>
<p>You can only sue another person or entity for breach of contract (with a prospect of winning) if:</p>
<ol>
<li>You had a contract with that entity</li>
<li>It promised you something of value</li>
<li>The terms of the contract were violated so that you did not get the benefit to which you were entitled by those terms</li>
</ol>
<p>SE or SO may contribute to one's professional reputation, but the operators never promise that it will, nor that any given person will be able to continue to participate. I do not see a plausible basis for a suit here.</p>

<p>(In a US context, but broadly applicable in most places that have similar legal structures in place): In order to &quot;have a case&quot; (technically, one can sue without &quot;having a case&quot; but there are other issues with this, and based on &quot;rightfully sue&quot; I assume this isn't what you mean), one must be able to show (or believe they can show*) four things:</p>
<ol>
<li>That there existed a legal duty from the defendant (the person or entity sued, i.e. StackOverflow, in this example)</li>
<li>That the defendant breached the above duty</li>
<li>That the plaintiff (i.e. you, the suing party) actually suffered an &quot;injury&quot;*</li>
<li>The that above injury was caused by the above breached duty</li>
</ol>
<p>Or more informally: 1) They had to do/not do something, 2) They failed to do or not do so, 3) You, the suer, got hurt, in some way 4) The thing that they did or did not do is the reason you got hurt.</p>
<p>In this example,</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There is no inherent duty to allow access to StackOverflow**, just because they grant one a license to use their system. Edit: In the case of showing job profiles, if the job profile is still displayed, that may or may not satisfy the contractual duty (if the contract or its advertising mentions explicitly linking one's stackexchange activities to the advertisement); it depends on the contract for the posted job/employment ad.</p>
</li>
<li><p>If there is not duty, there is no breach of said duty. Additionally, the rules can be changed to put one's action in violation retroactively.</p>
</li>
<li><p>An actual injury has to be shown*. One would have to show how stack overflow is a source of financial income.</p>
</li>
<li><p>False advertising is specific to consumers. (Assuming a normal user of the site, this would not apply, because a normal user is not buying a product or service from stack overflow).</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>*Some jurisdictions may have exceptions or modifications to this rule, but in the US, the Supreme Court has ruled that, no injury means no case (e.g. see 2020's Transunion, LLC v. Ramirez). With regards to &quot;an employer not choosing you because your StackOverflow profile was suspended or deleted&quot;, I believe one would have to prove on the balance of probabilities, that one would have been hired by a specific employer but for the suspension/deletion.</p>
<p>**Promissory estoppel may or may not apply to promises made, incurring a duty, but probably not in this case, for multiple reasons, including the fact that in the TOS, there is a &quot;change at any time&quot; clause, where StackOverflow reserves the right to change the terms in the future(as such it cannot be seen as a promise of eternal access), as well as specifically disclaims any promise of eternal access in a later section.</p>

<h2>No</h2>
<p><strong>Forum</strong></p>
<p>You are limited by <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service">contract</a> (clause 10(b)) to either binding arbitration or a suit in a small claims court in your jurisdiction.</p>
<p>If you choose the small claims path this would normally preclude you from seeking any sort of injunctive relief - like restoring your access - (since small claims courts typically lack that power) and limit your damages to the small claims maximum value (but see below).</p>
<p>If you choose arbitration, you are technically not suing, however, that just begs the question.</p>
<p><strong>Damages</strong></p>
<p>Your damages are limited to $100 (clause 9) and only for direct damages. The damages you are seeking (&quot;financial source of income&quot;) are what are known as consequental damages and these are excluded totally.</p>
<p>Note that this clause is hedged with &quot;TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW&quot;, however, most common law jurisdictions allow limitations of liability unless the terms are unconscionable - these clearly aren't with respect to the Public Network. Similarly, even in jurisdictions where the lower bar of unfair is used, this exclusion for an unpaid service provided only for individuals is not obviously unfair.</p>
<p><strong>Breach</strong></p>
<p>From clause 4:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Stack Overflow reserves the right to refuse, suspend or terminate your access to the public Network if it determines, in its sole discretion, that you have in any way violated these Public Network Terms or are otherwise ineligible to access or use the Network or Services.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The power to determine if you have breached the terms lies solely with Stack Overflow. &quot;<a href="https://incorporated.zone/sole-discretion/#Sole_discretion_definition" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sole discretion</a>&quot; is a term of art which is no obligation on SO to act reasonably. Indeed, they may act arbitrarily - that is, they do not have to treat you the same as anyone else nor do they have to offer you procedural fairness/natural justice/due process. It also removes any obligation on SO to act in good faith.</p>
<p>However, they may not act in bad faith - that is, they cannot act maliciously.</p>
<p>So, unless they are deliberately persecuting a user, then if they decide you broke the rules then <em>you broke the rules</em>.</p>
