Public Interest Law Group Seeking Plaintiffs For Possible Lawsuit Against “Anti-Israel” Protesters Who Blocked Traffic
An attorney with Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute identified three possible claims: false imprisonment, public nuisance, and RICO.
A pubic interest law firm is calling for plaintiffs in a possible suit against “anti-Israel” protestors who obstructed traffic. The “[f]ree-market public-interest litigation firm” Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (HLLI) tweeted a call for plaintiffs “stuck in traffic” during the February 2024 “anti-Israel” protests in Northern Virginia and Washington, DC, which blocked traffic.
📢Were you stuck in traffic in DC on Feb. 1 due to protestors? pic.twitter.com/vw3oKgV2nQ
— Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute (@HamLincLaw) March 21, 2024
HLLI has tweeted the same call for potential plaintiffs since March 11 after HLLI attorney Ted Frank criticized a Reagan Airport tweet warning drivers to “[e]xpect delays around the airport” due to protestors “exercising first amendment rights in the roadway.”
“People have a First Amendment right to protest. But that doesn’t give these protestors the right to interfere with the rights of others to move freely without restraint or to create a harzard that potentially puts peoples’ lives at risk,” HLLI attorney Ned Hedley told Legal Insurrection.
Hedley outlined HLLI’s strategy for identifying individual defendants, who often conceal their identity at protests. Hedley told Legal Insurrection that HLLI could identify individual defendants through social media activity identifying them as organizers or leaders or through arrest records.
After filing suit against organizational defendants, HLLI could identify other individual defendants and organizations through materials obtained during discovery, the process by which opposing parties exchange relevant evidence before trial.
Hedley acknowledged that HLLI is pursuing a relatively novel legal angle but told Legal Insurrection that HLLI believes there are viable false imprisonment and public nuisance claims. Hedley also stated that a claim under RICO, which targets criminal enterprises, may be possible when groups supporting the protests encouraged criminal activities.
Pursuing these claims may compensate for the failure of law enforcement and prosecutors to rein in disruptive protests, according to Hedley.
“The response of law enforcement so far has not worked to deter this conduct,” Hedley told Legal Insurrection, pointing to a pro-Palestinian protest in San Francisco where protesters shut down a bridge for hours but only received community service and had to pay restitution.
“But perhaps a civil lawsuit with the threat of significant monetary damages and injunctive relief might be more effective at deterring this unlawful and dangerous conduct,” Hedley told Legal Insurrection.
Hedley told Legal Insurrection that injunctive relief barring similar conduct could be useful for defendants with few assets. For these judgment-proof defendants, violation of an injunction could lead to criminal contempt and jail time.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
It’s extremely frustrating that a civil suit has become the only means to address actions which are (in most states) patently illegal.
For example, the Michigan Vehicle Code states: “a person, without authority, shall not block, obstruct, impede, or otherwise interfere with the normal flow of vehicular, streetcar, or pedestrian traffic upon a public street or highway in this state, by means of a barricade, object, or device, or with his or her person”.
As such, one would think the primary law suit should be against the state and local govts who permitted the criminal activity. If they aren’t forced to feel the pain for their abuses of power and abrogations of responsibility they will continue to make such decisions.
Except that it’s well-established law that the executive branch has full discretion about when to enforce the law, and the courts cannot order them to enforce it. That’s not unique to immigration; there are many cases on the topic that have nothing to do with immigration. Hence the need for private action.
Unfortunately, Milhouse is correct. Upvoted.
I believe that anyone who blocks traffic on public highways to pursue their political agendas should be criminally prosecuted. This prevents ambulances, fire trucks, and other emergency vehicles from doing their job to save lives. The problem I see in the LI commentators here is selective enforcement. Most of the commentators here applaud and support the blocking of highways in France and other countries by farmers because of their protests against Green initiatives.. We’ve seen it time and again. They say this is a great idea and they support it. So now when the left does the very same thing that the right does, now it is wrong and should be condemned. It is hypocrisy on both sides.
fine point. I need to think about this dichotomy in my head. Thank you.
You’re correct, of course, but I think the support they get here is for their bringing their message forcefully to their governments’ attention, not for the exact methods they may be using to do so. I certainly believe they should always leave at least one lane open, not just for emergency vehicles but just for ordinary people who are going about their lawful business. And if they don’t, then I think not only should they be prosecuted, but it should be lawful for people to drive through them if possible. So if they’re not letting traffic through (I don’t know whether they are) then I think most people here would condemn that, while supporting their cause.
“Most of the commentators here applaud and support the blocking of highways in France and other countries by farmers because of their protests against Green initiatives.. We’ve seen it time and again. They say this is a great idea and they support it. So now when the left does the very same thing that the right does, now it is wrong and should be condemned. It is hypocrisy on both sides.”
I think you have this exactly backwards.
The left has, for over half a century, been using the tactic of blocking access, as well as false imprisonment.
When the right finally started doing it as well all of a sudden the police and politicians COULD do something.
Kill unarmed protesters, actually make arrests, seize bank accounts, imprison indefinitely without trial.
But only people on the right–leftists still block and imprison and destroy with impunity.
It’s galling, honestly, since these defendants would be sued for injunctive relief, the plaintiffs are doing a public service at private expense. Normally, that teleos is rightly outsourced to the State via the criminal justice system — fewer bad actors is a public good.
You are 100% correct, but that’s executive discretion for you, and we shouldn’t wish it otherwise, because allowing the judicial branch to second-guess the executive would be much worse. That way lies the disaster that is the Israeli legal system.
I don’t think I could hold myself back from running them over
Especially with my weak bladder
Do t mess with a woman with a weak bladder..
Badder Bladders Matter!
hate to say this, but the problem is finding a judge that doesn’t toss this out of court
can I contribute to this legal fund?
“Protesters” supporting people who coerce vs. convince to try to get what they want, themselves go with coercing vs. convincing people. Quelle suprise.
Well, civil society is more or less the agreement to allow other people space to get along with their thing. Just that gets us a long way from “solitary, nasty, brutish and short.”
It only works when everyone plays along. Rather than have a tragedy of the civil commons, we can respond together to maintain a civil space that works for all of us.
Of course, some people prefer “solitary, nasty, brutish, and short.” I’m not sure the rest of us are required to indulge them.
I think that it is insulting for any government official or official office to describe blocking a road as a First Amendment exercise.
1. I think the guy was being ironic.
2. They were exercising their first amendment rights. They were also breaking the law. They can do both things at the same time. The first amendment is not a license to do things that would otherwise be illegal. They had every right to express their vile opinions; they did not have the right to block the road while doing so.
You cannot exercise your rights by denying another theirs–because you have no right to deny others their rights.
“…viable false imprisonment…claims”
Been saying this since the George Floyd riots. Protesting in the road is one thing. Doing so to intentionally blockade and disrupt the movement/travel of people on the roads is false imprisonment, unlawful detention, and possibly kidnapping.