ST. LOUIS (CN) — An Eighth Circuit panel on Monday found in favor of a St. Louis resident who said her free speech was violated when the former Board of Aldermen President blocked her on Twitter following a critical tweet.
At issue is a Twitter account opened by former board president Lewis Reed, who blocked Sarah Felts after she made a post on the social media platform criticizing Reed's support for closing a St. Louis jail.
“Reed’s choice to block Felts on a government account was unilateral, unreviewable, and not subject to other policies,” U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in the 9-page opinion. “He created municipal policy in his area of the city’s business. Because of the unique power of the President of the Board of Aldermen, Reed exercised final policymaking authority when he blocked Felts.”
The board's current president, Megan Green, had argued that Reed opened the account without any city resources and only blocked Sarah Felts because she used a term that Reed deemed inappropriate. The argument fell flat with the Eighth Circuit’s three-judge panel.
Neither attorneys for Felts nor the city immediately responded to a request for comment.
Felts filed a lawsuit in 2020 in the Eastern District of Missouri, claiming the block violated her First and Fourteenth Amendment rights because the account was the official account of the office of the president of the Board of Aldermen.
Felts was awarded $1 in damages following a bench trial, prompting Green's appeal to the Eighth Circuit.
In a September hearing, city attorneys argued that the decision should be reversed because Reed was not the final decisionmaker for the city of St. Louis and that his unilateral decision to block Felts was not a policy decision by the city.
But the appeals panel, in affirming the federal court’s decision, noted the vast powers the board president has — including having the final authority regarding communication on behalf of the Office of President of the Board of Aldermen for the city of St. Louis, that the president did not answer to anyone within the structure of the city of St. Louis government, and that the president was free to ignore the city’s social media policies.
“When Reed blocked Felts on Twitter, he executed a final municipal policy in his area of the City’s business, the office of the President of the Board of Aldermen,” Benton wrote, while noting that Reed had blocked at least five other individuals who criticized him as an elected official.
Benton added, “Reed’s decision to block Felts was a deliberate choice of a guiding principle and procedure to silence online critics ... Reed made a deliberate choice to block Felts among various alternatives — ignoring the tweet, muting her account, replying from the account, replying from a pseudonymous ‘burner’ account, or replying from a personal account not administered under color of law as an official governmental account.”
U.S. Circuit Judges James B. Loken, a George H. W. Bush appointee, and Roger L. Wollman, a Ronald Reagan appointee, joined Benton on the panel.
Green was sworn in as the board’s president in November 2022, following Reed's resignation after he pleaded guilty in an unrelated bribery scandal. He is currently serving three years and nine months in a federal prison.
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