Injunction will bar contact impacting ‘protected free speech’ Judge Doughty also issued injunction in Missouri lawsuit
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. won a preliminary injunction against the White House and other federal defendants in his suit alleging government censorship of his statements against vaccines on social media.
The injunction, however, will be stayed until the US Supreme Court rules in a related case brought by Missouri and Louisiana.
An injunction is warranted because Kennedy showed he is likely to succeed on the merits of his claims, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the US District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said Wednesday.
The White House defendants, the Surgeon General defendants, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defendants, the Federal Bureau of Investigation defendants, and the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency defendants likely violated the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, Doughty said.
Kennedy’s class action complaint, brought with health care professional Connie Sampognaro and Kennedy’s nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense, alleges that the federal government, beginning in early 2020, began a campaign to induce Facebook, Google (YouTube), and X, formerly known as Twitter, to censor constitutionally protected speech.
Specifically, Kennedy said, the government suppressed “facts and opinions about the COVID vaccines that might lead people to become ‘hesitant’ about COVID vaccine mandates.”
Kennedy has sufficiently shown that these defendants “jointly participated in the actions of the social media” platforms “by “‘insinuating’ themselves into the social-media companies’ private affairs and blurring the line between public and private action,” Doughty said.
And Kennedy and his co-plaintiffs “demonstrated a likely ‘injury from the impending action, that the injury is imminent, and that money damages would not fully repair the harm,’” he said, citing a 1986 Fifth Circuit ruling.
Doughty also granted an injunction in the Missouri case in July 2023, which is now before the Supreme Court. The high court on Oct. 20, 2023, granted a writ of certiorari and stayed the preliminary injunction until the court issues a ruling.
The Missouri case was consolidated with the Kennedy case in the Western District of Louisiana in July 2023. The Supreme Court deniedKennedy’s motion to intervene on Dec. 11, 2023.
The injunction bars the named federal defendants from taking “actions, formal or informal, directly or indirectly, to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress or reduce, including through altering their algorithms, posted social-media content containing protected free speech.”
Doughty denied the injunction as to the US Department of State defendants, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases defendants, the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of the Treasury, the US Election Assistance Commission, and the US Department of Commerce, along with their directors and/or employees.
Welborn & Hargett represents Kennedy.
The case is Kennedy v. Biden, 2024 BL 49179, W.D. La., No. 23-cv-00381, 2/14/24.