United States Fourth Circuit

In a state tort lawsuit brought by plaintiffs arising from defendants' protest against gays in the military near plaintiffs' son's funeral who had died in the Iraq war, district court's award of $8 million in compensatory damages and $2.1 million in punitive damages against defendant-Baptist Church is reversed as the judgment attaches tort liability to constitutionally protected speech, and thus, the district court erred in declining to award defendants judgment as a matter of law.

Appellate Information

• Argued 12/02/2008
• Decided 09/24/2009
• Published 09/24/2009

Judges

• Before KING, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Fourth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• ARGUED:Margie Jean Phelps, Topeka, Kansas, for Appellants. Sean E. Summers, Barley & Snyder, LLC, York, Pennsylvania, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:Craig T. Trebilcock, Shumaker Williams, PC, York, Pennsylvania, for Appellee. J. Joshua Wheeler, The Thomas Jefferson Center For The Protection Of Free Expression, Charlottesville, Virginia, for The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, Amicus Supporting Appellants. Joel Kleinman, David Schur, Ranga Sourirajan, Dickstein Shapiro, L.L.P., Washington, D.C., for American Civil Liberties Union and American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland; Steven R. Shapiro, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, New York, for American Civil Liberties Union; Deborah A. Jeon, ACLU Foundation of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland, for American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Amici Supporting Appellants. Jeffrey I. Shulman, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C., Amicus Supporting Appellee.