CINCINNATI (CN) — Kathy Griffin's tweets to her 2 million Twitter followers, some of which called for the firing of a CEO following an altercation with promgoers, created the requisite contacts in the state of Tennessee to establish jurisdiction for tort claims, the Sixth Circuit ruled Tuesday.
Samuel Johnson became "online famous" at the behest of Griffin after the comedian shared a video of the Nashville resident and several high school boys — one of whom wore a red dress — engaged in a verbal confrontation at a restaurant.
Johnson, who at the time was CEO of VisuWell, now known as Hatch, was accused of using homophobic language and was doxxed — had private and identifying information made public — and fired the same day Griffin sent her tweets.
Samuel and his wife Jill Johnson sued Griffin in federal court for interference with his employment and infliction of emotional distress, but a federal judge dismissed the case in March 2023.
"There are no allegations in the complaint that Griffin's tweets were directed at Tennessee readers, as opposed to the residents of other states, or that Griffin posted her tweets hoping to reach Tennessee specifically as opposed to her 2 million Twitter followers generally," U.S. District Judge William Campbell Jr. said in his opinion.
The Trump appointee found insufficient contacts between the California-based comedian and the Volunteer State to establish jurisdiction, but Johnson persuaded the appeals court otherwise during arguments in mid-October.
Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a George W. Bush appointee, cited the 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case Calder v. Jones as the quintessential example of the application of personal jurisdiction to tort claims.
In Calder, a California actress sued journalists based in Florida after the publication of a libelous article and the nation's high court allowed the case to go forward because of the targeted nature of the writers' conduct, which had severe consequences where the actress lived and worked.
"Griffin intended that the 'brunt of the harm' would befall Johnson in Tennessee when she urged her followers to pressure VisuWell, a Tennessee-based company, to fire him and urged VisuWell to remove him from the board," Sutton wrote in his opinion.
"Griffin's repeated emphasis of Johnson's residence in Franklin and the company's home base in Nashville hammers that home," he continued. "She 'undoubtedly knew' that the 'focal point' of her tweets concerned Tennessee."
Griffin argued a previous Sixth Circuit case involving her activity on Twitter, now called X, Blessing v. Chandrasekhar, compelled a different result, but the panel disagreed.
In Blessing, Griffin tweeted about Nicholas Sandmann and a group of Kentucky students involved in a confrontation with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the Washington Monument.
According to Sutton, however, the students failed to establish jurisdiction in that case because Griffin tweeted about Washington, D.C. and never reached out directly to followers in Kentucky.
"Unlike Griffin's tweets that affected Kentucky after its students returned home," he said, "her contacts with VisuWell went beyond targeting the Johnsons to affecting 'the state' and indeed its 'economy.' While Griffin's tweets in Blessing arose from conduct in Washington, these tweets drew on a Tennessee source — the boyfriend's video — to attack a Tennessee resident for his conduct in Tennessee."
Sutton emphasized the targeted nature of Griffin's conduct achieved through "tagging" VisuWell in her tweets, which he said not only established a direct line of communication with the company, but also "facilitated her speech by simplifying the process of allowing her followers to chime in about Johnson's conduct."
U.S. Circuit Judge R. Guy Cole Jr., a Bill Clinton appointee, wrote a concurring opinion and devoted much of his writing to the application of personal jurisdiction in the social media age.
He emphasized his agreement with the majority opinion that Griffin "purposefully availed" herself of acting in Tennessee when she tagged VisuWell, but posited a hypothetical as well.
"Excluding the VisuWell tag is only a minor, nine-character deviation from the original tweet," Cole said, "but — without the tag — the tweet would no longer be a direct communication with VisuWell by Twitter's specifications.
"Whether Griffin intended to create contacts with the forum state would be much less clear when analyzing the edited tweet," he concluded.
U.S. Circuit Judge Amul Thapar, a Trump appointee, rounded out the panel.
Attorney Todd McMurtry of the Ft. Mitchell, Kentucky firm Hemmer, Wessels and McMurtry PLLC, who argued on behalf of Johnson earlier this month, was understandably happy with the outcome.
“We are pleased with the court’s decision," he told Courthouse News. "I expect it will help reduce the corrosive effects of social media cancellations. If so-called influencers must think twice before posting for fear of being sued outside of California or New York, I expect they will put a brake on their thumbs.”
Attorneys for Griffin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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