City Abandons 'Losing Cause' Seeking Fees From Streamers in Kan.

A Kansas municipality chose not to continue litigation seeking franchise fees from Hulu and Netflix in light of a new state law. Kansas enacted a law last month exempting streaming TV services from paying franchise fees to local governments (see 2304140045). Fort Scott, Kansas, was appealing a lower court dismissing its lawsuit that seeks franchise fees from streaming services for the past three years and prospectively. The city decided to dismiss its appeal at the Kansas Appeals Court (case 22-125784-A) due to the new law, Fort Scott counsel Michael Fleming of Kapke Willerth told us Friday. The city could have maintained a claim to recoup past fees because the state law is prospective, but Fleming didn’t think the court would agree, he emailed: “Even if they had, there was nothing preventing the legislature from correcting their mistake next legislative session. No sense putting more and more time into a losing cause.”