Interesting First Amendment Case - The Mark v. Weintraub

I heard about this case on Ken White's podcast. I was not previously familiar with it and did not see it referenced on another thread. It really has some interesting facts that do not seem to have obvious partisan valence.

According to Ken's analysis, and I trust him, the fact that the hotel obtained a prior restraint prejudgment injunction against the LS preventing him from saying anything false or defamatory about the hotel is a plain violation of the First Amendment.

I just find it a maddening application of the First Amendment, and agree with Ken that the kid should be called a "little s%$t".

I am not endorsing this version of the facts. It was just the first I found it was not behind a pay wall

A luxury New York City hotel is suing a Manhattan teenager, alleging 19-year-old Theodore Weintraub began defaming the establishment and claiming it was run by Holocaust deniers after staff refused to serve the underage customer alcohol.

The issues began in August of 2021, when Mr. Weintraub, the son of a prominent New York cardiologist, allegedly repeatedly attempted to buy alcohol at The Mark, a luxury property with customers like hip-hop star Drake and actor Angelina Jolie.

The teen proceeded to lob increasingly hostile protests at the hotel, according to the lawsuit, encouraging picketing outside with inflammatory signs like “The Mark Denies the Holocaust,” “The Mark Spreads Disease,” and “The Mark Supports Epstein,” a reference to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of running a child sex ring.

“The notion that we deny the Holocaust is a spurious attempt to damage our reputation and relationships,” Etienne Haro, the hotel’s general manager, wrote in an affidavit, saying The Mark’s brand “can be damaged, as here, by a single person loudly complaining about our business integrity.”


NYC hotel sues teen for alleged smear campaign after declining to serve him alcohol

 

Apparently an injunction is much more defensible after judgment. In terms of a judgment for damages, he may personally be judgment proof even though he comes from a wealthy family. Even if he has a trust interest, it is probably is subject to spendthrift protection

 

That's fair, but it's not First Amendment law

 

Not really. Just more reason to endorse the wpb solution, i.e. hired goons

 

The issue is prior restraint. Obviously if he's on their premises, that's trespassing. They don't even need to prove that he's defaming them. But if he's on public property, that's another matter.

It's a balance. We don't prohibit prior restraint because we think that every utterance of such speech is positive or even defensible. Plainly this is not. We prohibit prior restraint because we don't want to give the government, absent certain highly compelling circumstances such as national security, to be able to rule on what someone can say before they say it. We set the model to where you're accountable after you say it, but the government can't prevent you beforehand. Obviously it can lead to negative results like this one.

But on balance, as a society, we don't want to give the government the right to prohibit what you can say before you say it.

I will say that in this podcast episode, I was a bit surprised to hear Ken talk about the fact that he thinks there are First Amendment issues with judges limiting what Trump can say while he's indicted. I've always understood that judges have near plenary power to control their proceedings in the interests of justice as they determine, and have a ton of discretion in that regard. Obviously this is a case like no other, but I was surprised that he did not even articulate that standard.

I have never doubted a judge's ability to restrict what you can say in the courtroom or during proceedings that they are presiding over. I guess it could be a First Amendment issue. But just like your liberty can be restricted after you've been indicted but before convicted upon certain showings, I would imagine that you give up your free speech rights in terms of commenting on proceedings in a way that the judge terms prejudicial. But what do I know

 

In Trump’s case, he is plainly trying to foment violence against witnesses and the system, intimidate and/or taint the jury pool