ACLU pays costs of dismissed lawsuit against Clemons

BY JENNIFER CABRERA

The Florida House of Representatives has received a check for $2410.85 from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation of Florida, Inc., as ordered on July 12, 2021, by Judge Mark Walker in Peter Morgan Attwood’s case against State Representative Chuck Clemons.

Attwood, represented by the ACLU, sued Clemons in March of 2018 for blocking him from Clemons’ campaign’s Facebook and Twitter accounts. Just 3 weeks before the case was scheduled for a bench trial on June 7, 2021, Attwood requested voluntary dismissal with prejudice. Clemons’ attorneys argued in a May 24 filing that a judgment on the merits would best serve the public interest because the threat of such a lawsuit in the future would have a “chilling effect” on legislators’ abilities to manage their social media pages. 

In that response, Clemons’ attorneys presented evidence that the lawsuit was filed to inflict political harm and specifically to harm Clemons’ re-election prospects in 2020. Attwood was introduced to his lawyer by Gainesville City Commissioner Adrian Hayes-Santos, and Hayes-Santos also connected Attwood with Andrew Caplan, who was a Gainesville Sun reporter at the time, on the day Attwood filed his lawsuit. In an exhibit attached to the response, a screenshot showed a message from Hayes-Santos to Attwood saying, “No problem, and thank you for bringing the lawsuit. It’s not an easy thing to put yourself in the middle of.”

The response from Clemons’ attorneys also provided emails showing that Attwood privately expressed a desire to “humiliate” Clemons “before this election.” Also, following Clemons’ deposition in the case, Attwood’s attorney, Eric Lindstrom, leaked information from the deposition, in violation of court-ordered confidentiality obligations, to a friend, Jeremiah Tattersall, who is also a frequent Clemons critic. Later, Katy Burnett, who managed the campaign of Clemons’ opponent in the 2018 general election, posted information about the deposition on Facebook, and minutes later, Tattersall posted a comment disclosing additional information from the deposition. All of these disclosures happened around the time that vote-by-mail ballots were being distributed for the general election, which was expected to involve a higher than usual number of votes by mail because of the pandemic.

After Clemons was re-elected in November 2020, Attwood appeared to lose interest in pursuing the case and offered to settle, although he had previously said he wanted the case to be a test case. Clemons declined the settlement, explaining that he wanted a “ruling on the merits” of the case. Less than two hours later, Attwood’s lawyer filed a public records request for information about the costs of defending the lawsuit, and that information was posted on Twitter by Tattersall and covered in various media outlets. 

Attwood’s motion to dismiss with prejudice acknowledged that the dismissal would be the same as “if the case had been adjudicated in [Clemons’s] favor after a trial.” Clemons’ attorneys argued that if the lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, the Court should also determine that Clemons was the prevailing party and award him costs. Judge Walker ordered further briefings on the issue and awarded $2410.85 in costs for transcriptionists, stenographers, and videographers for depositions to Clemons. Walker, however, ruled that the case was not frivolous and that Clemons was not entitled to attorney’s fees. Since it is an issue that is relevant to House members’ First Amendment rights, the Florida House of Representatives paid the bills for the lawsuit of at least $185,000, and the reimbursement check went to the House.

Clemons said, “I feel this case was a politically motivated hatchet job from the beginning. This check is a small victory, but a court verdict would have been better. The First Amendment is for everyone, including elected officials managing their personal accounts.”