From Judge Kent Wetherell's decision yesterday in Kassenoff v. Harvey (N.D. Fla.) (for a news article with more background on the case, see here):
Plaintiff [Allan Kassenoff] is a lawyer from New York. Defendant [Robbie Harvey] is a "social media influencer" from Pensacola, Florida, with millions of followers on TikTok and other social media platforms.
Plaintiff and his then-wife, Catherine Kassenoff, were involved a contentious divorce and child custody proceeding in a New York court, starting in 2019. During the case, the court awarded sole temporary custody of the Kassenoffs' three children to Plaintiff and restricted (and ultimately suspended) Ms. Kassenoff's right to visit the children.
On May 27, 2023, a few weeks after losing her visitation rights, Ms. Kassenoff posted on Facebook that she would be "ending [her] own life" by medically assisted suicide in Switzerland because she had a terminal health condition and she could "no longer endure the abuse and terror" inflicted on her by Plaintiff. {Plaintiff alleges that Ms. Kassenoff lied about having a terminal health condition to make her story more sympathetic.} She asserted that the court system failed to protect her and her children by "favor[ing] the monied party," and she provided a link to a public Dropbox containing the children's mental health records, some of the court documents from the Kassenoffs' matrimonial proceeding, and old videos of Plaintiff and the children. She also encouraged her followers to share those documents everywhere and to "organize [themselves], use the facts of [her] case … and make change."
On May 31, 2023, four days after Ms. Kassenoff's Facebook post, Defendant began posting videos on social media about Plaintiff. In the videos, Defendant depicted Plaintiff as an abusive spouse and father who took advantage of the New York court system by "pa[ying] off" court-appointed officials during the matrimonial proceeding. The videos have received approximately 39 million views, 5 million likes, and 150,000 comments.
In a series of videos from June 7 to June 9, 2023, Defendant encouraged his followers to "bombard" Plaintiff's law firm, Greenberg Traurig (Greenberg), and its clients with emails, phone calls, voicemails, and social media attacks "demanding" Plaintiff's termination. Greenberg received "many, many emails … as a result of [Defendant's] incitement," including one stating "[t]he emails, the calls, they won't stop until you do the right thing and FIRE HIM …. FIRE KASSENOFF OR WE WILL NOT STOP."
On June 9, 2023, as a result of these actions, the CEO of Greenberg informed Plaintiff that the firm had no choice but to sever ties with him. Plaintiff was told that he had to voluntarily resign or he would be fired, and two days later, Plaintiff "forcibly resigned" from the firm.
Plaintiff sued for defamation and related torts, in a 110-page complaint; the court rejected this on various grounds, including that:
