The parent didn't say the scraping was "illegal", but that it violated ToS.
These are entirely different things. The upshot of the proceedings is that while the courts ruled there wasn't sufficient for an injunction to stop the scraping, it was nonetheless still injurious to the plaintiff and had breached their User Agreement -- thus allowing LinkedIn to compel hiQ towards a settlement.
From Wikipedia:
The 9th Circuit ruled that hiQ had the right to do web scraping.[1][2][3] However, the Supreme Court, based on its Van Buren v. United States decision,[4] vacated the decision and remanded the case for further review in June 2021. In a second ruling in April 2022 the Ninth Circuit affirmed its decision.[5][6] In November 2022 the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that hiQ had breached LinkedIn's User Agreement and a settlement agreement was reached between the two parties.[7]
These are entirely different things. The upshot of the proceedings is that while the courts ruled there wasn't sufficient for an injunction to stop the scraping, it was nonetheless still injurious to the plaintiff and had breached their User Agreement -- thus allowing LinkedIn to compel hiQ towards a settlement.
From Wikipedia: