From DWJ v. CLB, decided today by the Michigan Court of Appeals, in a nonprecedential opinion by Judges Anica Leticia, Christopher Murray & Sima Patel (as the public record below reveals, the plaintiff is Inkster City Attorney David W. Jones, and the defendant is Charles Blackwell):
Petitioner, the city attorney for the city of Inkster, obtained an ex parte personal protection order [PPO] against respondent, who moved to have it terminated on the ground that all the complained of conduct was constitutionally protected speech. The trial court denied the motion, holding that respondent's repeated conduct of showering petitioner with offensive commentary, while sometimes displaying critical caricatures of petitioner, both in-person and electronically, constituted stalking. The court also held that respondent's communications were not constitutionally protected expression because they violated petitioner's "right to be left alone." … We reverse….
Respondent is a private citizen who has often engaged petitioner, a city attorney, through e-mail and at public meetings, to express his opinion of petitioner's job performance through insulting utterances and displays of petitioner's face in unflattering and embarrassing settings. Petitioner testified that respondent first contacted him by e-mail at his work address in January 2020 after petitioner denied one of respondent's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Thereafter, respondent filed many additional FOIA requests and lawsuits. According to respondent, petitioner "began a pattern of appearing at the public meetings and ridiculing myself, ridiculingmyclients, depictingme, alongwith elected officials in defamatoryand pornographic" ways.
Petitioner sought the protective order after respondent appeared at a city council meeting with a poster depicting petitioner's wife disparaging him to the mayor, while their heads were resting on pillows. Petitioner alleged that respondent then called him a "chump" when petitioner walked near him, and that he thought that respondent was armed because he had informed officials that he would exercise his permit to carry a concealed weapon during public meetings and then appeared with a small tote bag on his body….
We conclude, as a matter of law, that, in light of the obvious focus of the speech at issue on matters of public interest relating to local politics, and of petitioner's statutorily recognized status as a public officer, petitioner was a public figure for present purposes.
