Full Opinion

USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 1 of 16 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 26-10369 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ DR. JEFF ISAACS, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated, GREENFLIGHT VENTURE CORPORATION, Plaintiffs-Appellants, versus GOOGLE LLC, Defendant-Appellee. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 9:24-cv-80395-KMM ____________________ Before LUCK, LAGOA, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 2 of 16 2 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 This appeal arises from an antitrust dispute in which Green- flight Venture Corp. and Dr. Jeff Isaacs allege that Google LLC re- taliated against Dr. Isaacs for his extensive litigation history against non-party Apple Inc. by diminishing the visibility of his website, OkCaller, on Google. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs appeal the district court’s grant of Google’s motion to dismiss their second amended complaint and denial of Dr. Isaacs’s subsequent Rule 59(e) motion to alter or amend judgment, as well as Greenflight’s corresponding motion to join Dr. Isaacs’s Rule 59(e) motion. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs present various theories for reversing the district court’s decisions. After careful review, we affirm the district court. I. Dr. Isaacs initiated this case in April 2024 by filing a pro se lawsuit against Google predicated on a sole count of patent in- fringement. The original complaint alleged that Dr. Isaacs founded OkCaller.com, a website which employed “reverse phone search technology” that enabled individuals who receive a text message or phone call to look up the name of an anonymous caller. Dkt. 1 at ¶¶ 1, 6. The complaint additionally alleged that Google had en- tered into a partnership with Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight—of which Dr. Isaacs served as CEO—as evidenced by their “[r]egular com- munications.” Id. at ¶ 24. In addition to creating OkCaller, Dr. Isaacs developed a coronavirus tracking app called “Coronavirus Reporter” in early 2020. Id. ¶ 11. After non-party Apple Inc. rejected the app, USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 3 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 3 Dr. Isaacs “became a lead witness in Apple antitrust matters con- cerning App censorship.” Id. Dr. Isaacs alleges that on the same day he submitted a closing brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in an unrelated lawsuit involving Apple, Google ab- ruptly terminated their so-called partnership. Dr. Isaacs suspected that this termination was in retaliation for his litigation against Ap- ple. After this event, which Dr. Isaacs asserts occurred around Thanksgiving 2022, OkCaller “was effectively shut down by Google with no warning or explanation, and for no good reason, but for [Google]’s anti-competitive and/or retaliatory motives.” Id. at ¶¶ 20, 50–51. After Google moved to dismiss Dr. Isaacs’s complaint, he amended it. The amended complaint rested on similar allegations, added Greenflight as a plaintiff, and asserted three antitrust counts and two state law counts—in addition to the original patent in- fringement count—on behalf of both Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight. The state law counts and two of the antitrust counts were styled as class action claims. Thereafter, the district court: (1) dismissed the patent infringement count as asserted by Dr. Isaacs because Green- flight, not Dr. Isaacs, held the alleged patent at issue; (2) dismissed the class action counts as asserted by Dr. Isaacs on the ground that a pro se plaintiff may not bring class action counts under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure; and, (3) reasoning that Greenflight suffi- ciently represented Dr. Isaacs’ interests, severed and stayed the re- maining non-class-action-antitrust count as asserted by Dr. Isaacs pending final resolution of Greenflight’s counts against Google. USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 4 of 16 4 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 Google moved to dismiss the amended complaint, which the district court granted in part. The district court permitted Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight one final opportunity to amend their complaint, and on December 17, 2024, they filed a second amended complaint. The second amended complaint—which is the operative complaint—contained five counts: four counts under sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1–2; and one count under California’s Unfair Competition Law, Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200. Google moved to dismiss the operative complaint, argu- ing that each count failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court agreed with Google. Construing the operative complaint as asserting counts on behalf of Greenflight, represented by counsel, and Dr. Isaacs, proceeding pro se, the dis- trict court dismissed all of Greenflight’s counts with prejudice and ordered Dr. Isaacs to show cause “why his pro se claim(s) should not be dismissed for the same reasons Greenflight’s (identical) an- titrust [counts] were dismissed.” Dkt. 65 at 20. It later dismissed Dr. Isaacs’s counts as well. Following the dismissal of the operative complaint with prejudice, Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight sought a hearing to address Google’s reply to the motion to dismiss, or for the court to recon- sider its dismissal. The district court denied this motion. Then, Dr. Isaacs moved pro se for reconsideration of the op- erative complaint’s dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Proce- USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 5 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 5 dure 59(e). Twenty days later, Greenflight moved to join and sup- port Dr. Isaacs’s Rule 59(e) motion. The district court denied both motions. This appeal followed. II. We review the district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim de novo. Swinford v. Santos, 121 F.4th 179, 186 (11th Cir. 2024). We likewise review issues of antitrust standing de novo. Sunbeam Television Corp. v. Neilsen Media Rsch., Inc., 711 F.3d 1264, 1270 (11th Cir. 2013). Moreover, we review the district court’s denial of a motion for reconsideration for abuse of discre- tion. Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 740 (11th Cir. 2010). III. Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight assert eleven grounds for reversal. We need not consider all the issues raised so long as there exists any ground in the record to support affirmance of the district court’s decision. See Blackman v. United Cap. Invs., Inc., 12 F.3d 1030, 1033 (11th Cir. 1994); Lucas v. W.W. Grainger, Inc., 257 F.3d 1249, 1256 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting Jaffke v. Dunham, 352 U.S. 280, 281 (1957)). Accordingly, we discuss each dispositive issue below. A. Dr. Isaacs and Greenflight argue that the district court erred in granting Google’s motion to dismiss the operative complaint for failure to state a claim. We conclude it did not. USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 6 of 16 6 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 1. Apart from plausibly pleading an antitrust injury, a private plaintiff raising an antitrust injury must establish antitrust standing. Mun. Utils. Bd. of Albertville v. Ala. Power Co., 934 F.2d 1493, 1498–99 (11th Cir. 1991). Antitrust standing requires a plaintiff to establish (1) that it has suffered an antitrust injury, “which is to say injury of the type that the antitrust laws were intended to prevent and that flows from that which makes the defendants’ acts unlawful”; and (2) that “it is an efficient enforcer of the antitrust laws.” Fla. Seed Co. v. Monsanto Co., 105 F.3d 1372, 1374 (11th Cir. 1997). The second prong is analyzed through the “target area test,” which “requires that an antitrust plaintiff both ‘prove that he is within that sector of the economy endangered by a breakdown of competitive conditions in a particular industry’ and that he is ‘the target against which anticompetitive activity is directed.’” Id. (quoting Nat’l Indep. Theatre Exhibitors, Inc. v. Buena Vista Distrib. Co., 748 F.2d 602, 608 (11th Cir. 1984)). “Basically, a plaintiff must show that it is a customer or competitor in the relevant antitrust market.” Id. And “[w]hether or not the plaintiff is a customer or a competitor, in order to meet the second prong, the plaintiff must prove the existence of a competitor willing and able to enter the relevant market, but for the exclusionary conduct of the incumbent monopolist.” Sunbeam Television Corp., 711 F.3d at 1273. The operative complaint alleges Google maintains a monop- oly in the “general search engine services” market. Dkt. 61 at USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 7 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 7 ¶¶ 104–06. Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s antitrust standing is pred- icated on the allegation that OkCaller is a competitor to Google and that Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs are “consumers of Google[’s] [general search engine] platform through their provision of content like [Google webmaster tools].” Id. at ¶ 107 (citation modified). On these allegations, Appellants fail to satisfy the second prong for antitrust standing because they have not plausibly demonstrated that they are “efficient enforcer[s] of the antitrust laws.” Fla Seed Co., 105 F.3d at 1374. First, the operative complaint alleges that OkCaller operates as a “specialized search” website. Id. at ¶¶ 4–5, 13, 20, 68. Nowhere does it allege that OkCaller operates in the general search engine services market or plead direct com- petition between OkCaller and Google in that market. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs thus fail to show that OkCaller is a “competitor in the relevant antitrust market.” Fla. Seed Co., 105 F.3d at 1374. Sec- ond, the operative complaint alleges in conclusory fashion that “Google engages in anticompetitive conduct to monopolize inter- net search” and “has substantially foreclosed competition in gen- eral search . . . services.” Dkt. 61 at ¶¶ 8, 88. But it does not suffi- ciently allege how, exactly, Google is preventing OkCaller from competing in the general search engine services market. See Ash- croft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (“[A] complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). Third, a plaintiff, regardless of whether he is advancing a customer- or competitor-based antitrust injury, must USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 8 of 16 8 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 prove a willing-and-able competitor would have entered the rele- vant market had the monopolist not engaged in anticompetitive behavior. Sunbeam Television Corp., 711 F.3d at 1273. The operative complaint does not, however, identify, let alone plausibly allege, that a competitor was willing and able to enter the general search engine services market but for Google’s exclusionary conduct. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs attempt to circumvent this plead- ing deficiency by arguing that Google is a “multi-sided platform” as recognized by the Supreme Court in Ohio v. Am. Express Co., 585 U.S. 529 (2018). Doc. 25 at 14–15. The Court’s opinion in American Express Co. concerned credit-card networks, which the Court de- scribed as two-sided platforms because they “offer[] different prod- ucts or services to two different groups who both depend on the platform to intermediate between them.” 585 U.S. at 534. Credit- card networks extend credit to cardholders, “which allows them to make purchases without cash and to defer payment until later,” and allows merchants “to avoid the cost of processing transactions and offers them quick, guaranteed payment.” Id.; see also id. at 545 n.8 (“[C]redit-card companies are best understood as supplying only one product—transactions—which is jointly consumed by a cardholder and a merchant.”). The “key feature” of these transac- tion-based platforms “is that they cannot make a sale to one side of the platform without simultaneously making a sale to the other.” Id. at 535. Because transactions in credit-card networks “are jointly consumed by a cardholder . . . and a merchant,” and “[o]nly other two-sided platforms can compete with a two-sided platform for USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 9 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 9 transactions,” the Supreme Court considered both sides of the plat- form as a single market when evaluating the defendant’s alleged anticompetitive behavior. Id. at 545–47. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs analogize Google’s search ser- vices to the two-sided platform in American Express Co. They con- tend that when users click on Google results, “Google intermedi- ates a realtime digital handshake: the user’s browser is routed to the publisher’s server, the publisher receives the visit Google’s in- dex and ranking made possible, and Google monetizes the interac- tion through advertising, data, and platform engagement.” Doc. 25 at 15. This “digital handshake,” Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs theorize, “is therefore plausibly like a transaction.” Id. We disagree. First, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs acknowledge that “neither side pays a cash price at the moment of [a Google] search.” Id. The product supplied by credit-card networks in American Express Co. was the transaction itself, 585 U.S. at 545 n.8, and Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs fail to cite—and we have not identified—any Supreme Court or Eleventh Circuit decision extending the multi-sided plat- form theory to non-transactional platforms. And, more generally, the operative complaint fails to plausibly plead that Google searches equate to a jointly consumed exchange of the type at issue in American Express Co. Thus, the district court did not err in “not applying a non-transaction multi-sided framework.” Doc. 25 at 16. Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs alternatively argue that even if Google is not construed as a transactional platform in a traditional sense, the district court nevertheless failed to “analyze the pleaded USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 10 of 16 10 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 multi-sided platform on any terms.” Id. at 15–16. This argument also fails. Even assuming that Google could, in a broader sense, be considered a multi-sided transactional platform (which, again, case law does not support), the operative complaint does not identify OkCaller as a two-sided platform as required to constitute a com- petitor to a two-sided transactional platform. Am. Express Co., 585 U.S. at 546. Second, American Express Co. made clear that “[a] market should be treated as one sided when the impacts of indirect net- work effects and relative pricing in that market are minor.” 585 U.S. at 544. Neither the operative complaint nor Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s briefs reference the indirect network effects or relative pricing of Google’s alleged multi-sided platform, let alone the se- verity of those effects. We find persuasive American Express Co.’s discussion of why newspapers that sell advertisements operate as a one-sided market and find that reasoning applicable here. Such newspapers could be construed as a two-sided platform because “the value of an adver- tisement increases as more people read the newspaper.” Id. Yet this indirect network effect operates in only one direction: advertisers benefit from increased readership, but “newspaper readers are largely indifferent to the amount of advertising that a newspaper contains.” Id. In other words, the quantity and pricing of newspa- per advertisements has little bearing on readers’ demand for the newspaper. USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 11 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 11 The same reasoning applies here, albeit imperfectly. A web- site’s indexing and ranking on Google may affect its visibility and value, but that possibility does not, by itself, establish that users and websites constitute interdependent sides of a multi-sided market. Users accessing Google’s search services for free may care little about the indexing and ranking of particular website so long as the search results satisfy their information needs, and Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs have not persuaded us that general search services like Google “exhibit more pronounced indirect network effects and in- terconnected pricing and demand.” Am. Express Co., 585 U.S. at 545. For these reasons, Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s analogy to American Express Co. is unavailing, and they fail to establish antitrust standing. Accordingly, the district court did not err in dismissing Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s antitrust counts. The district court additionally did not err in dismissing Dr. Isaacs’s pro se antitrust counts because “[n]either an officer nor an employee of a corpora- tion has standing to bring an action in his own right for an antitrust violation causing injury to the corporation and its business.” Nat’l Indep. Theatre Exhibitors, Inc., 748 F.2d at 608. Because Dr. Isaacs is Greenflight’s CEO and his antitrust counts stem from the same un- derlying allegations as Greenflight’s antitrust counts—that Google deindexed OkCaller in retaliation for his prior litigation against Ap- ple—Dr. Isaacs lacked standing to assert his antitrust counts against Google. Id. USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 12 of 16 12 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 2. Having concluded that the district court properly dismissed Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s antitrust counts, we are left with the count arising under California’s Unfair Competition Law. The UCL prohibits “any unlawful, unfair or fraudulent business act or practice.” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200. Each prong of the UCL provides a distinct theory of liability. Cel-Tech Commc’ns, Inc. v. L.A. Cellular Tel. Co., 20 Cal. 4th 163, 180 (1999); Aryeh v. Canon Bus. Sols., Inc., 55 Cal. 4th 1185, 1196 (2013). Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs pre- sent various arguments as to why the district court erred in dismiss- ing the UCL count. We address each in turn. First, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs argue that the district court erred in dismissing the “unlawful” theory of liability. The “unlaw- ful” prong “borrows violations of other laws and treats these viola- tions, when committed pursuant to business activity, as unlawful practices independently actionable under [the UCL].” Farmers Ins. Exch. v. Superior Ct., 2 Cal. 4th 377, 383 (1992) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “To state a cause of action based on an unlawful business act or practice under the UCL, a plaintiff must allege facts sufficient to show a violation of some underlying law.” Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack, 223 Cal. App. 4th 1105, 1133 (2014). Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs contend that the “unlawful” prong is supported by allegations that Google violated the Sher- man Act and federal witness protection statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 1512. Yet, as discussed, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs cannot assert USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 13 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 13 violations of antitrust law here because they lack antitrust standing. And their reliance on section 1512 fares no better. The operative complaint vaguely alleges that “[Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs]’s le- gal counsel has determined that substantiated concerns exist that Google violated witness retaliation laws, such as Section 1512,” dkt. 61 at ¶ 37 (citation modified), and asserts in conclusory fashion that Google’s conduct “violates federal witness protection statutes, including [section 1512], and therefore is protected conduct under UCL,” id. at ¶ 136 (citation modified). But it does not identify the specific provision(s) in section 1512 that Google allegedly violated, let alone explain how Google allegedly violated section 1512. And, in any event, “we are not bound to accept as true a legal conclusion couched as a factual allegation.” Papasan v. Allain, 478 U.S. 265, 286 (1986); Ashcroft, 556 U.S. at 678 (noting that a pleading “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,’ but it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation” (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555)). The district court therefore did not err in dismissing the “unlawful” theory of liability. Turning to the “unfair” prong, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs ar- gue that the district court erred in dismissing this theory of liability because the California Supreme Court’s decision in Cel-Tech Com- munications, Inc. v. Los Angeles Cellular Telephone Co. establishes that this prong carries a broader scope of liability than the Sherman Act. Even assuming without deciding that their characterization of Cel- Tech is correct, Cel-Tech is expressly limited to injuries resulting from a “direct competitor’s ‘unfair’ act or practice.” 20 Cal. 4th at USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 14 of 16 14 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 186–87 & n.12 (emphasis added). As we have discussed, the opera- tive complaint does not allege that OkCaller and Google were di- rect competitors. In fact, the operative complaint acknowledges that Greenflight lacks any products that directly compete with Google. Rather, Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s theory is that “[b]y leveraging its dominance in the [general search engine services] market, Google has distorted competition in the[] downstream markets” Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs operate in. Dkt. 61 at ¶ 3 (cita- tion modified). Greenflight’s and Dr. Isaacs’s reliance on Cel-Tech is therefore unavailing. Lastly, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs challenge the district court’s dismissal of the “fraudulent” theory of liability. They argue that the operative complaint sufficiently pleads a “deception the- ory” because it asserts that “Google’s search product is presented to users, publishers, and developers as a reasonably neutral way to access the best organic information, while Google allegedly manip- ulates rankings to favor itself and strategic partners and disad- vantage independent specialized providers.” Doc. 25 at 44. Counts that “sound in fraud” must meet the pleading re- quirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). Omnipol, A.S. v. Multinational Def. Servs., LLC, 32 F.4th 1298, 1307 n.11 (11th Cir. 2022); see Kearns v. Ford Motor Co., 567 F.3d 1120, 1125, 1127 (9th Cir. 2009) (Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading requirement ap- plies to UCL claims grounded in fraud). Where it applies, Rule 9(b) “requires that fraud be pleaded with specificity” and that a com- plaint allege “the details of the defendant[’s] allegedly fraudulent USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 15 of 16 26-10369 Opinion of the Court 15 acts, when they occurred, and who engaged in them.” Cooper v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Fla., Inc., 19 F.3d 562, 568 (11th Cir. 1994); see Young v. Grand Canyon Univ., Inc., 57 F.4th 861, 873 (11th Cir. 2023) (“[A] plaintiff needs to plead the who, what, when, where, and how regarding a claim [] when Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard applies.”). The operative complaint falls woefully short of meeting Rule 9(b)’s standard. It contains one paragraph regarding Google’s alleged deception, where it asserts without basis that “Google’s ac- tions have misled and deceived consumers, publishers, and devel- oper competitors regrading the nature and operation of its search engine, including the manipulation of search rankings to favor its own products and those of its strategic partners while disadvantag- ing independent developers and specialized content providers, such as Plaintiffs.” Dkt. 61 at ¶ 135. These allegations do not suffice. They lack specific details about how Google allegedly misled or de- ceived consumers, publishers, and developers; who at Google mis- led or deceived them; or when these alleged acts occurred. On ap- peal, Greenflight and Dr. Isaacs effectively parrot these allegations yet offer no coherent argument or authority supporting reversal of the district court’s dismissal. We therefore cannot say that the dis- trict court erred in dismissing the “fraudulent” theory of liability as to Greenflight. More generally, because Dr. Isaacs adopts Greenflight’s ap- pellate brief without advancing additional arguments or authorities demonstrating that the district court erred in dismissing the UCL USCA11 Case: 26-10369 Document: 48-1 Date Filed: 11/13/2026 Page: 16 of 16 16 Opinion of the Court 26-10369 count, we likewise cannot say the district court erred in dismissing that count against Dr. Isaacs. B. Next, we consider whether the district court abused its dis- cretion in denying Dr. Isaacs’s motion for reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and Greenflight’s corre- sponding motion to join and support Dr. Isaacs’s Rule 59(e) mo- tion. Dr. Isaacs sought reconsideration of the district court’s dismis- sal of the operative complaint with prejudice based on a decision by a federal district court in California to deny Google’s motion to dismiss in a separate case not involving Dr. Isaacs, Greenflight, or OkCaller. Because we conclude that the district court correctly dis- missed the operative complaint, we cannot say the district court abused its discretion in declining to reconsider its decision. IV. For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court.