From today's Oregon Court of Appeals decision in Cider Riot, LLC v. Patriot Prayer USA, LLC, in an opinion by Chief Judge Erin Lagesen, joined by Judge Jacqueline Kamins and Megan Jacquot:
Plaintiff Cider Riot, LLC, is a brewery and bar in Northeast Portland. Plaintiff Goldman-Armstrong is its owner and operator. This tort case arises, for the most part, out of a 2019 clash between patrons of Cider Riot, who are associated with Antifa, and, among others, defendants Gibson, Kramer, Ponte, Willis, and Lewis, all of whom are associated with a group or movement known as Patriot Prayer.
Defendant Patriot Prayer USA, LLC, is a limited liability company owned entirely by Gibson. It has no members other than him. Those who identify with Patriot Prayer hold starkly divergent views from those who identify with Antifa. Those divergent views have generated immense hostility, which has led to confrontations, which has resulted in violence between those holding opposing views.
The clash at the heart of this case began as a heated exchange of political viewpoints between defendants, who were on public property adjacent to the brewery and bar, and plaintiffs' patrons, many of whom were sitting in the bar's outdoor seating area. Ultimately, the verbal dispute escalated into some physical confrontations. This resulted in injuries to some of plaintiffs' patrons and, plaintiffs allege, a range of economic and noneconomic losses. Several days after the incident, Gibson urged people to report Cider Riot to the OLCC. Other individuals made online comments disclosing the names and addresses of plaintiffs' business partners.
For their involvement in that clash, encouraging complaints to the OLCC, and identifying plaintiffs' business partners, plaintiffs seek to hold all defendants liable for four torts: negligence, trespass, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and intentional interferences with economic relations….
The Court of Appeals held that some of the claims against Gibson should be thrown out, at the "anti-SLAPP motion" stage (a means for claims arising out of constitutionally protected activities to be promptly dismissed), but others—based on Gibson's allegedly personally egging someone on to fight a bar patron—could continue. I focus here on the claims against Gibson because the other individual defendants' defenses were rejected as untimely, and thus weren't substantively discussed by the court.
