Price v. City of N.Y.
15 Civ. 5871 (KPF) (S.D.N.Y. Jun. 25, 2018)
that becomes final from six months to one
year after it is accepted, provided the court
does not decide, on the prosecutor's
motion, to restore the case to its calendar in
the interest of justice." (citation omitted)).
An ACD precludes any claim for malicious
prosecution because, under New York law,
it is not a "favorable termination" of the
criminal proceedings. See Fulton, 289 F.3d
at 196; Hollender v. Trump Vill. Co-op,
Inc., 58 N.Y.2d 420, 425-26 (1983). But
Plaintiff alleges that her criminal charge
remained pending for almost six years after
her initial appearance in criminal court.
This suggests that the final disposition was
not an ACD. The City Defendants did not
address this issue in their motion, and the
Court need not resolve it at this point. The
parties may nevertheless wish to explore
this issue in discovery.
2. First Amendment Claims Against Brooks,
Obe, Pierre-Louis, and the City of New York
The Court next considers Plaintiff's First
Amendment claims, beginning with the
individual-capacity claims asserted against Brooks
and Obe, the operators of the City's
@NYCagainstabuse and @NYPD28Pct Twitter
accounts (the "official accounts" or "official
Twitter accounts"), respectively.
24
23
In this case, the City Defendants do not dispute
that Brooks and Obe acted under color of law
when moderating the official Twitter accounts and
ultimately blocking Plaintiff from viewing or
otherwise interacting with them. To the contrary,
as set forth below in more detail, the City
Defendants explicitly argue that Brooks and Obe
were engaged in "government speech." (Def. Br.
9-12). The Court therefore concludes that Brooks
and Obe were "state actors" for the purposes of
establishing liability under § 1983. *23
feeds and from interacting with them under her
own account — in response to Plaintiff's tweets
that were critical of the City's handling of
domestic violence cases, including her own case.
After careful consideration, the Court concludes
that Plaintiff has adequately pleaded facts showing
that Brooks and Obe violated her First
Amendment rights.
Before delving too deeply into its First
Amendment analysis, the Court pauses to
acknowledge
the
comprehensive
analysis
undertaken by Judge Buchwald in Knight First
Amendment Institute at Columbia University v.
Trump, — F. Supp. 3d —, No. 17 Civ. 5205
(NRB), 2018 WL 2327290 (S.D.N.Y. May 23,
2018). The Trump decision arose in the context of
cross-motions for summary judgment; it thus
necessarily implicated a different factual record
and different legal standards than the instant case.
Nonetheless, the analysis offers a useful primer.
Judge Buchwald first considered whether the
individual plaintiffs in that case, who had been
blocked from the President's Twitter account
because of the political views each had expressed,
had engaged in political speech, and concluded
quickly that they had. 2018 WL 2327290, at *13.
She then considered whether forum analysis
applied to the President's Twitter account,
prefacing the analysis as follows:
We can therefore reject, at the outset, any
contention that the @realDonaldTrump
account as a whole is the
*24
The issue in this case is whether Brooks and Obe
violated Plaintiff's First Amendment rights by
blocking her on Twitter — thereby preventing her
from viewing two of the City's official Twitter
11
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