Rengin Gundogdu v. LinkedIn Corporation

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Eleventh Circuit
____________________
No. 23-12706
Non-Argument Calendar
____________________
RENGIN GUNDOGDU,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
LINKEDIN CORPORATION,
Defendant-Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
D.C. Docket No. 0:23-cv-60804-WPD
____________________
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2 Opinion of the Court 23-12706
Before J ILL PRYOR , NEWSOM , and B RANCH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
In this employment discrimination and breach of contract
case, the district court granted defendant-appellee LinkedIn
Corporation’s motion to dismiss and denied plaintiff-appellant
Rengin Gundogdu’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
Gundogdu appeals, asserting that both decisions were error. On
appeal, however, Gundogdu principally addresses issues not raised
in this case, and offers no citations to the record or legal authority
in support of her claims. Thus, we conclude that she has forfeited
the relevant issues, and we affirm.
I. Background
This case is Gundogdu’s third attempt to plausibly allege
that LinkedIn violated her rights when it suspended her account
for allegedly violating its terms of service by posting content
opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine on her page. In March 2023, she
sued LinkedIn, alleging it had violated her First Amendment rights
and breached a contract with her. The district court dismissed the
action without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction,
failure to state a claim, and frivolousness. Later that same month,
Gundogdu filed an amended complaint, this time alleging breach
of contract and a claim for religious discrimination under Title VII.
The court again dismissed her claims without prejudice, this time
for failure to rectify many of the deficiencies it had identified in
dismissing the first complaint—as well as for failure to state a clam.
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23-12706 Opinion of the Court 3
Gundogdu filed this action in May of 2023, now alleging
(1) a violation of under Title VII and (2) breach of express
warranties and a contract with her. In the operative complaint,
Gundogdu sought damages and reinstatement of her LinkedIn
account (including during the pendency of this lawsuit).
Gundogdu alleged that she is an independent contractor
who runs a consulting company and looks for job opportunities
using LinkedIn. She used her personal LinkedIn account to keep
in touch with potential clients and previous coworkers, as well as
to receive news and look for job opportunities. She also has a
business account associated with her consulting business, which
she used to create brand awareness, attract new clients, and hire
employees for her clients. Gundogdu used both accounts to
promote her consulting business.
According to the complaint, LinkedIn suspended her
personal account in 2022 and then again in 2023, which also
deprived her of access to her business account. The suspension
happened, Gundogdu alleged, after she “express[ed] her religious
opinions that are conservative in nature” about her the COVID-19
vaccine. She wrote to LinkedIn support, and eventually her
account was restored in November 2022. But when Gundogdu
resumed sharing “her opinions based on her religious conservative
views,” her account was closed again for sharing “misleading
content” about the COVID-19 vaccines. Gundogdu alleged that
she was suspended for voicing her views, which are rooted in her
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4 Opinion of the Court 23-12706
religion. Gundogdu alleged she lost income as a result of the
suspension.
The complaint alleged (essentially) two claims. First,
Gundogdu alleged that, when LinkedIn suspended her account “for
expressing her religious conservative beliefs,” and “label[ed] her
posts ‘misinformation,’” it discriminated against her because of her
religion in violation of Title VII. To that end, Gundogdu alleged
that LinkedIn is an “employment agency” for purposes of Title VII
because it “provid[es] job-search [functionality] on its platform.”1
Second, Gundogdu alleged that LinkedIn’s User Agreement
constituted a contract with her, and that LinkedIn breached that
contract and an express warranty to her by “block[ing] her right to
be more productive and successful,” modifying “the meaning of
her expression by labeling it misinformation,” “misleadingly
promis[ing] freedom of expression [in] its User Agreement,” and
representing itself as a platform where she could freely share her
opinions and find job opportunities.
Gundogdu filed a motion for a preliminary injunction,
seeking reinstatement to LinkedIn during the pendency of the
1 See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(b) (providing that “[i]t shall be an unlawful
employment practice for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for
employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of
his race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, or to classify or refer for
employment any individual on the basis of his race, color, religion, sex, or
national origin”(emphasis added)).
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23-12706 Opinion of the Court 5
litigation. LinkedIn opposed the motion and moved to dismiss the
complaint.2
The district court granted the motion to dismiss. First, the
court concluded that the Title VII claim failed because LinkedIn is
not an employment agency within the meaning of Title VII.
“Though [Gundogdu] allege[d] that LinkedIn provided a platform
for her to look for job opportunities and promote her business,”
the court explained, “merely providing users with access to
employment opportunities” was not “a significant degree of
engagement in employment-related activities.” Second, even
assuming LinkedIn was an employment agency within the
meaning of Title VII, the district court concluded that Gundogdu’s
religious discrimination claim would fail because she “[did] not
specifically allege any facts suggesting that she relayed these
religious beliefs to LinkedIn”—meaning she could not show that
“LinkedIn failed or refused to refer her to any specific employment
opportunity because of her religious beliefs[.]” Third, the court
rejected Gundogdu’s claims for Breach of Express Warranty and
Contract. The district court explained that Gundogdu only
“vaguely allege[d] that LinkedIn breached its User Agreement,”
without “alleg[ing the] specific provisions of the User Agreement
which correspond to these alleged breaches.” To the extent that
2 In the motion to dismiss, LinkedIn moved (in the alternative) to transfer the
case to the Northern District of California under the User Agreement’s forum-
selection clause. Because the district court granted the motion to dismiss, it
did not reach the transfer request, and the forum-selection clause is not at issue
in this appeal.
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6 Opinion of the Court 23-12706
Gundogdu pointed to LinkedIn’s policy statement that it would not
modify the meaning of her expression, which she alleged it did by
labeling her posts as misinformation, the district court concluded
that the labels did not change or alter her posts. Finally, the court
concluded that Gundogdu had “fail[ed] to state a plausible claim
for breach of express warranty.” Gundogdu could not point to a
breached express warranty, the court explained, because “none of
the contractual provisions [she] cite[d] can reasonably be
interpreted as an express warranty.”
The court denied Gundogdu’s motion for a preliminary
injunction for the same reasons: “[b]ecause [Gundogdu’s
c]omplaint is dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim,
[she] cannot demonstrate a substantial likelihood of success on the
merits.” Gundogdu, proceeding pro se, timely appealed.
II. Discussion
On appeal, Gundogdu asserts that “this Court should
reverse the district court’s order and grant [her motion for a]
preliminary injunction with the relief requested.” But Gundogdu
fails to meaningfully support that request with argument and
citation of authority as to the claims actually raised and dismissed
in this case—Title VII religious discrimination, breach of contract,
and breach of warranty.
While we liberally construe the filings of pro se parties,
“issues not briefed on appeal by a pro se litigant are deemed
abandoned.” Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008)
(citation omitted); see also Campbell v. Air Jamaica Ltd., 760 F.3d 1165,
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1168-69 (11th Cir. 2014) (“even in the case of pro se litigants,” the
customary leniency towards pro se parties “does not give a court
license to serve as de facto counsel for a party, or to rewrite an
otherwise deficient pleading in order to sustain an action.”). An
appellant’s brief must include an argument containing “appellant’s
contentions and the reasons for them, with citations to the
authorities and parts of the record on which the appellant relies[.]”
Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A). Thus, “[w]e have long held that an
appellant abandons a claim when [s]he either makes only passing
references to it or raises it in a perfunctory manner without
supporting arguments and authority.” Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian
Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014). We generally do not
consider forfeited issues absent extraordinary circumstances.
United States v. Campbell, 26 F.4th 860, 872–73 (11th Cir. 2022) (en
banc), cert. denied, 143 S. Ct. 95 (2022).3
3 Such “extraordinary circumstances” include situations where
(1) the issue involves a pure question of law and refusal to
consider it would result in a miscarriage of justice; (2) the party
lacked an opportunity to raise the issue at the district court
level; (3) the interest of substantial justice is at stake; (4) the
proper resolution is beyond any doubt; or (5) the issue presents
significant questions of general impact or of great public
concern.
Campbell, 26 F.4th at 873. Gundogdu has not argued any such circumstances
exist, and we see none.
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8 Opinion of the Court 23-12706
Gundogdu’s brief offers no meaningful support for her
contentions, forfeiting the only issues relevant to this appeal. See
id. at 872 (“forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of
a right,” thus abandoning it). Her brief primarily discusses the First
Amendment, but there is no First Amendment claim alleged in her
operative complaint—that claim having been dismissed in a prior
action.4 Gundogdu also makes passing references to her Title VII
claim, and her assertion that LinkedIn is an “employment agency”
within the meaning of the statute. But she does not cite any
authority for that proposition, parse the text of Title VII, or even
point to what allegations in the complaint she relies on.5 The same
goes for her breach of contract and breach of warranty claims.6
And Gundogdu offers no response at all to the district court’s
conclusion that she failed to allege that she informed LinkedIn that
her posts, which stated opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine, were
religiously motivated. Finally, the only mentions of her bid for a
preliminary injunction come in her discussion of Article III
4 Gundogdu also discusses her standing to sue at some length. But her
standing is not in question, and her arguments to that end do not relate to the
district court’s bases for dismissing her complaint.
5 Gundogdu devotes a section of her brief to the state of the law in the Fifth
Circuit—but she never identifies what case she is referring to, explains why it
is persuasive here, or even ties the supposed authorities to the issues in this
case.
6 Gundogdu also appears to question the impartiality of the district judge
assigned to her case, though she fails to substantiate her accusations or explain
why reversal is warranted. Even assuming she properly raised this issue,
though she has not, we find no merit in it.
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23-12706 Opinion of the Court 9
standing (which, again, is not in question here) and in the
conclusion section of her brief—neither of which come with any
citations to the record or legal authority in support of an injunction.
Thus, Gundogdu has forfeited any argument that the district
court erred in dismissing her claims for Title VII religious
discrimination, breach of contract or warranty, as well as her bid
for a preliminary injunction.
III. Conclusion
Because Gundogdu has not supported her claims of error
with citations to the record or legal authority, she has abandoned
those claims, and we must affirm.
AFFIRMED.
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