The California State Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, has rejected the following complaints filed by an outraged parent:

1. That the public library was illegally wasting public funds on computers which provide access to obscenity and matter harmful to minors.
2. That the public library was operating a public nuisance by knowingly allowing its computers to be used to access obscenity and matter harmful to minors.
3. That the public library was unsafe for minors because the computers provided minors with access to harmful matter.
4. That the public library should be liable for the current and all future emotional and psychological damage and damage to the nervous systems of minors for expecting and inviting minors to go to the library to use computers from which minors can download obscenity and pornography on the computers.

As the California justices noted, given the Mainstream Loudoun v Board of Trustees of Loudoun County Library decisions in 1998 that a library may not constitutionally block all computers to prevent the receipt of obscene material and other material deemed harmful to minors, this lawsuit, if successful, would place the libraries in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

The California Court held that the library was entitled to immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, thereby eliminating the state law cases. The Court also ruled that the federal law cause of action failed because the library neither held the children captive in the library (thereby giving rise to a situation in which the library would have owed the children a much stricter duty to protect them), nor did the library affirmatively place the children in danger (the library did not find the material and hand it to the child).