Tomi Lahren sues Glenn Beck and The Blaze
To escape non-compete agreement and regain control of her Facebook page.
Former Blaze employee Tomi Lahren has filed a lawsuit against Glenn Beck and The Blaze for wrongful termination and access to her Facebook page after he fired her over pro-choice views she expressed on The View:
“I can’t sit here and be a hypocrite and say I’m for limited government but I think the government should decide what women do with their bodies.”
The Blaze suspended Lehran a few days later before terminating her employment. The document says that Lehran “did not want to file this lawsuit, but the conduct of Defendants and their refusal to resolve this matter without court intervention” forced her hand.
The Dallas Morning News reported:
According to Lahren’s lawsuit, filed Friday in Dallas County, The Blaze cancelled Lahren’s show after she made the controversial abortion statements last month on The View. But The Blaze wanted to keep paying Lahren, the suit says, “presumably hoping they could find an exit strategy to sanitize their unlawful conduct” in breaking Lahren’s two-year employment contract, which was to continue through Sept. 30.
The hubbub surrounding Lahren’s comments was “a public smear campaign” orchestrated to “inflate Beck’s profile, from what has become a mediocre following, all at [Lahren’s] expense,” the suit alleges.
The suit also says that The Blaze won’t allow Lahren access to her Facebook page, where she has 4.2 million followers, which has “irreparably harmed” Lahren.
Lahren insists in the lawsuit that her expressing “her First Amendment rights and her personal opinions about a woman’s right to choose is not a ‘for cause’ ground to support either a suspension or a de-facto termination” of her employment.”
The money claims will go through arbitration due to an arbitration agreement in the contract. But Lehran wants the court to allow her to compete elsewhere and take back her Facebook page, according to her lawyer Brian Lauten:
He said the company has already breached the contract “100 times over;” for example, the firm hasn’t fulfilled its promise to produce 230 one-hour episodes of Lahren’s show per year. He said Lahren wants to be free of her contract so she can go back to posting online and look for another job.
“She’s like an eagle that feels like its had its wings clipped,” Lauten said. “She’s ready to pursue her career and reconnect w her millions of followers.”
The suit asks a judge to grant Lahren a temporary restraining order, which would protect her right to speak freely as well as block The Blaze from destroying any evidence related to the fiasco. She’s asking for attorneys’ fees and costs, “as well as all other relief … which she may show herself justly entitled.”
The Blaze released this statement:
“It is puzzling that an employee who remains under contract (and is still being paid) has sued us for being fired, especially when we continue to comply fully with the terms of our agreement with her.”
The company said that there will not be a separate statement from Beck.
Lahren also states that Beck and her co-workers knew about her pro-choice views and no one “took issue with it.”
But after her appearance, Beck and The Blaze received a lot of criticism for Lehran’s comments. Beck even retweeted one video that showed Lehran calling abortion murder:
Beck also suggested on Twitter that Lahren’s claim of being a libertarian clashed with her support of President Donald Trump’s executive orders and health care proposal, adding “#intellectualhonesty”.
Tomi Lahren Lawsuit Against The Blaze and Glenn Beck by Legal Insurrection on Scribd
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Comments
Women don’t do things with “their bodies”. They do things with their bodies and somebody else’s body.
The unborn are entitled to equal protection.
She has no First Amendment rights at a private sector job. Only in government.
Seems like she didn’t think about the room for Kasons of her actions and words – and ended up kicking herself in the a$$. they do say we are our own worst enemies.
Her claim appears not to rest on the First Amendment. It is a simple contract dispute for wrongful termination. She claims she was terminated in violation of the provisions of her contract. The Court must decide whether the Suspension Termination Clause (below) or applicable law give The Blaze sufficient reason to terminate her.
The Blaze seems to think it has not terminated her, because it is still paying her.
Where does that leave everyone?
I’m not a Beck fan or a follower of Lahren. She is certainly entitled to her opinions. I believe the big issue was calling Pro Lifers hypocrites. It’s a shame to waste youth on the young.
It’s a nice piece of drafting, though it shows some real weaknesses in the causes pled.
Lauten sounds like a son-of-a-bitch. It is not normal for an attorney to be as personal and insulting as he chose to be in reciting “facts” in an original petition.
A Level III discovery plan is unusual, and in my neck of the woods, it has to be argued before a judge before they’ll grant it.
There is no hypocrisy. There are two parties to the constitutional contract: the People and our Posterity. Even without legal protection, which was overridden by social liberals based on their twilight faith and Pro-Choice quasi-religious/moral philosophy, there is the fact that human life evolves from conception, not delivered by “Stork” (i.e. viability) at a time when it is deemed “worthy”.
The choice comes first. Then conception. Then abortion.
Women have an unalienable Right to choose.
Selective-child policy, combined with immigration reform (e.g. refugee crises, illegal immigration, excessive immigration), is the domain of bigots (i.e. sanctimonious hypocrites), mystics, and trans-humans.
Abortion is a more nuanced issue than people make it out to be, and concerns about how a government would enforce a ban with limited exceptions are entirely reasonable. And anyway, do Beck and Lahren really have to have the same political opinions? Honestly, I’m not even sure Glenn Beck agrees with himself half the time. Not sure why they couldn’t just agree to disagree, at least until the end of her contract.
Axe her. She wasn’t that good to start with but I’m not interested in watching pro choice people spout their dogma. I can see that on every other news network.
I think it’s pretty simple. Just let her go. Agree to stop paying her. Give her back her Facebook page. What use does Beck have with her Facebook page.? By now everyone knows she isn’t on it.
I just don’t get the anger from Beck. He wants to keep her off the air destroying her career. She got paid to give her opinion and now she gets fired for doing that?