From Berge v. School Committee, decided yesterday by the First Circuit, in an opinion by Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson, joined by Judges David Barron and Lara Montecalvo (though there's a lot more going on in the opinion as well):
On a motion to dismiss a case, does qualified immunity protect public officials who baselessly threatened a citizen-journalist with legal action if he did not remove a video on a matter of public concern that he made and posted on Facebook without breaking any law? We answer no …. {[A]s a heads-up for the legal neophytes out there, qualified immunity gives officials cover when they decide close questions in reasonable (even if ultimately wrong) ways—sparing them from money-damages liability unless they violated a statutory or constitutional right that was clearly established at the time (much more on all that soon).} …
Inge Berge is a citizen-journalist living in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Back in early March 2022, he went to the city's school superintendent's office—which is open to the public (during specified hours, we presume). He wanted to buy tickets to his daughter's sold-out school play. And he wanted to hear from officials why the school's COVID-19 rules still capped the number of play-goers when the state had already lifted its COVID-19 mandates by then.
Visibly filming as he went along (he kept his camera out for all to see), Berge made sure to also tell everyone he met that he was recording. And no sign banned or restricted filming in the building's publicly accessible areas either.
Talking to executive secretary Stephanie Delisi, Berge said, "I'm filming this. I'm doing a story on it. If that's okay with you." "No, no I don't want to be filmed," Delisi answered back. Berge kept openly filming. Delisi then walked into superintendent Ben Lummis's office.
