Some excerpts from Judge Jacqueline Becerra (S.D. Fla.) today in Khorashi v. Beer; the analysis strikes me as correct:
This is a state-law tort action arising out of an online "doxing" incident that preceded Plaintiff's termination from her prior employer, Chartwell Law Offices LLP ("Chartwell"). Defendant Gadi Beer helped launch Chartwell in 2002 and served in senior leadership roles before leaving the firm in early 2023. Plaintiff alleges, upon information and belief, that he retained an equity interest in the firm and remained in regular contact with its founding partners. Defendant Beth Beer, Gadi Beer's wife, is a licensed attorney who served as a Regional Director in the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights during the relevant period.
Plaintiff, a Muslim woman of Pakistani origin, was employed as an associate attorney in Chartwell's Miami office from 2018 until her termination on February 29, 2024. Throughout her employment, Plaintiff maintained a public Instagram account, "thatlawyermomlife," using her real name and the same profile picture that appeared on Chartwell's website, but her Instagram page did not include any reference to Chartwell or her place of employment.
After the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Plaintiff began posting prolifically in support of the Palestinian cause. She alleges she was "well-aware" that her posts "could be misconstrued by some people as antisemitism" and therefore consciously avoided negative references to Jews or Judaism, directing her criticism instead at Israel's government, the IDF, and Zionism. Her account was known to coworkers, some of whom followed and engaged with her content.
Beginning in late November 2023, Plaintiff alleges that an account using the handle "Beth Margot" attacked nearly every one of her posts about Gaza. The comments became "increasingly obsessive, vile and hateful," so Plaintiff blocked the account. Plaintiff later determined that "Beth Margot" was a pseudonym used by Defendant Beth Beer.
On January 11, 2024, the firm's two founding partners, General Counsel, and HR Director met with Plaintiff, telling her that the firm had been monitoring her posts after unidentified individuals expressed "concerns" that some could be perceived as antisemitic. In this meeting, Plaintiff was counseled to be "mindful" and "positive" going forward. During a second meeting about eight days later, firm leadership raised similar concerns. Plaintiff contends, however, that at no time was she told any post violated firm policy, asked to remove any post, or directed to stop posting entirely. Plaintiff also notes she posted more than fifty additional times between January 19 and February 29, 2024, but "Chartwell did not find issues with her content during that time frame."
On February 18, 2024, Plaintiff was "doxed" on an Instagram page called "Jew Hate Database" ("Jewhatedb"), which Plaintiff alleges is operated by the organization StopAntisemitism.org. The Jewhatedb Instagram post displayed an altered version of one of Plaintiff's Instagram posts: the page claimed to have "fixed it" by crossing out the pronoun "they" and substituting the word "Jews." The image did not state Plaintiff's name or employer, but it displayed her Instagram account handle, on which Plaintiff's real name was disclosed. The post generated dozens of hostile comments, speculation about where she worked, and demands that her employer fire her.
Plaintiff alleges, upon information and belief, that Defendants "conspired to submit Plaintiff's Instagram post to the Jewhatedb Instagram page and had advance notice" of the February 18 post, and that their "simultaneous appearances in the comments section … immediately following the posting" on Jewhatedb served "the sole and improper purpose of providing the critical missing information that was required to launch the doxing attack: Plaintiff's real name and a link to her firm profile." As to the comments themselves, Plaintiff alleges the following sequence:
- A commenter urged others to "find out who this person is and have her fired … she's a lawyer, should be easy to find her."
- Defendant Beth Beer, posting as "Beth Margot," responded that Plaintiff "works at Chartwell Law Offices" and posted a link to Plaintiff's firm profile, which included her work email, telephone number, and the Miami office's contact information.
- She also commented: "I wonder how her Jewish clients would feel about her public posts. This one is innocuous compared to her regular posts. It's disgraceful."
- Defendant Gadi Beer reposted the link to Chartwell Law that "Beth Margot" had originally posted.
Plaintiff alleges the reference to her Jewish clients rested on "non-public and highly confidential information … that only [Beth Beer] and her husband possessed." After another commenter stated he "[f]ound her in a second" using the link, Gadi Beer re-posted the same link to Plaintiff's Chartwell profile.
Ten days later, on February 28, 2024, Plaintiff was doxed a second time by StopAntisemitism.org's X account, which has more than 237,000 followers and which identified Plaintiff by name and by her position at Chartwell. That afternoon, Plaintiff received dozens of threatening emails, voicemails, and calls at work, and Chartwell began receiving "an overwhelming number" of communications demanding her termination.
The next morning, February 29, 2024, one of the firm's founding partners, its General Counsel, and its HR Manager informed Plaintiff she was being terminated "because the doxing incident on February 28 had resulted in widespread criticism and hostility towards Chartwell Law on its own social media pages," had damaged the firm's reputation and client relationships, and had made some Jewish employees fearful of working with her. Plaintiff alleges that Chartwell "itself referred to" the February 28 doxing incident as "the climactic triggering event" that resulted in her termination. The Amended Complaint does not allege that Defendants authored, contributed to, or had advance knowledge of the February 28 StopAntisemitism.org post, nor that Chartwell viewed Defendants' February 18 comments…
