When Integrity First for America filed a complaint against the organizers of the Charlottesville “rally,” the organization was reviving an older legal tactic for dealing with a newly relevant problem. Led by Roberta Kaplan and Karen Dunn, and representing victims of violence in Charlottesville, IFA argued that the white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizers of the event conspired to promote racially and religiously motivated violence, resulting in injuries and death—a claim amply supported by publicly available evidence.
Kaplan and Dunn’s first hurdle was defeating the assorted defendants’ efforts to get the case dismissed. Fighting a motion to dismiss a complaint requires convincing the judge that the plaintiff’s legal claims are plausible; trial’s when counsel has to convince a judge or jury that a plaintiff’s right.
This week, plaintiffs won this threshold battle. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia issued a 62-page ruling green-lighting plaintiffs’ claims under, among other laws, the Klu Klux Klan Act.
Plaintiffs have, for the most part, adequately alleged that Defendants formed a conspiracy to hurt black and Jewish individuals, and their supporters, because of their race at the August 11th and 12th events.
Judge Norman Moon pointedly rejected defendants’ efforts to stage a First Amendment free speech defense: “[T]he First Amendment does not protect violence.”
Dunn, also a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, offered the following statement:
In America, it is not lawful to target individuals or groups for violence based on their race, ethnicity or religion. The Court has now made perfectly clear in a way Defendants will be unable to ignore or gloss over: the First Amendment does not protect violence or threats to do violence. Today’s decision vindicates our courageous plaintiffs who have put their faith in our American system of justice – we hope it is the first of many important victories for them.
Dunn and Kaplan, founding partner of Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, anticipate going to trial next summer.