Hon. Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers

Maria Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers (born February 1, 1965) is an American lawyer serving as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Education and Career

Rogers was born Maria Yvonne Gonzalez in 1965 in Houston, TX. She graduated from Princeton University in 1987 with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude. From 1987 to 1988, she worked as a legal researcher at a law firm in New Haven, Connecticut. She then attended the University of Texas School of Law, graduating in 1991 with a Juris Doctor.

From 1991 until 2003, Rogers worked as a litigator in private practice in San Francisco at the law firm of Cooley Godward LLP (now Cooley LLP). She was an equity partner at the firm from 1999 until 2001. Rogers was a member of the civil grand jury in Alameda County, California from 2005 until 2007, and served as foreperson from 2006 until 2007. Rogers served as a pro tem judge in Alameda County, California from 2007 until 2008. In 2008 she was appointed to the Alameda County Superior Court. 

Federal Judicial Service

On May 4, 2011, President Barack Obama nominated Rogers to a seat on the United States District Court for the Northern District of California that had been vacated by Judge Vaughn Walker. She received her commission on November 21, 2011. She is the first Latina to serve as a federal judge in the Northern District of California.

Notable Cases

• In 2012, Rogers dismissed a class action lawsuit with prejudice, upholding Apple’s defense that the “Illinois Brick doctrine” from the Supreme Court case Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois, 431 U.S. 720 (1977) applied, as only the developers of apps could be damaged by Apple’s policies, and consumers did not have statutory standing to bring suit on the developers’ behalf. The Court specifically noted that the 30% fee Apple collects is “a cost passed-on to consumers by independent software developers”. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed her decision, and the Court of Appeals was upheld by the Supreme Court in Apple Inc. v. Pepper.
• In December 2014, Rogers presided over a jury trial against Apple, in which plaintiffs claimed DRM on Apple iTunes violated antitrust laws. On December 16, 2014, the jury reached a verdict in favor of Apple.
• Rogers presided over the Epic Games v. Apple case. On August 24, 2020, Rogers issued an order granting a temporary restraining order for Epic’s Unreal Engine, finding that the termination of Epic’s developer account could result in the inability to “save all the projects by third-party developers relying on the engine that were shelved while support was unavailable.”, but she did not grant an order for Epic’s apps.