Far northwest facet Ald. Jim Gardiner, 45, agreed to pay greater than $157,000 to settle a federal lawsuit introduced by six Northwest Side residents who accused the alderman of violating their First Amendment rights when he blocked them and deleted their feedback on his official authorities social media account.
The lawsuit, filed in June 2021, alleged that Gardiner “routinely hides or deletes feedback that criticize him or his insurance policies” on the Facebook web page tied to his elected workplace and accused the alderman of banning at the least 4 folks from the web page.
In a September 2023 ruling, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman dominated that Gardiner ought to have recognized that the actions “conflicted with the First Amendment” and ordered Gardiner to cease blocking customers and proscribing feedback . His determination additionally required a trial to find out damages.
In the settlement reached final week, Gardiner didn’t admit wrongdoing however agreed to pay the six plaintiffs $157,500, an quantity that the plaintiffs’ legal professional, Adele Nicholas, mentioned may very well be the most important for any case associated to the administration of a public official’s social media.
“Social media websites like Facebook present the general public with a robust device to petition their elected officers and make their voices heard,” Nicholas mentioned in an announcement. “Elected officers can not selectively ban individuals who disagree with them.”
Each of the plaintiffs – Peter Barash, Pete Czosnyka, Steve Held, Dominick Maino, James Suh and Adam Vavrick – will obtain $4,000 from the settlement, whereas $133,500 can be used to pay legal professional’s charges and prices, based on a duplicate of the settlement.
The settlement got here after the U.S. Supreme Court, in an unrelated case, rejected the authorized framework Johnson Coleman used to concern his 2023 ruling. The excessive courtroom’s determination restored a lot of the progress made within the Gardiner case.
It is unclear how a lot can be paid by Gardiner and the way a lot can be paid by metropolis taxpayers. Neither Gardiner nor the Johnson administration responded to questions on how a lot the town can pay, and Nicholas mentioned she additionally did not know.
Gardiner mentioned Monday that his employees has sought recommendation from Steve Berlin, govt director of the town’s Ethics Board, relating to his social media maneuvers.
“My workplace was suggested to dam as a result of doxxing and nature of the harassing feedback from some followers,” Gardiner wrote in an announcement. “Doxxing” refers back to the follow of sharing one other individual’s personal data on-line with malicious intent.
In January 2019 the board shared an advisory opinion that feedback can’t be deleted and customers can’t be blocked on elected officers’ pages as a result of First Amendment, however added that such regulation of social media “is an space of fluid regulation” and that council must be consulted earlier than councilors act.
According to the lawsuit, Gardiner deleted feedback made by Czosnyka, one of many plaintiffs, accusing the alderman of harassing ladies and voters, however that the alderman didn’t delete comparable feedback made by others about Czosnyka.
Gardiner’s former staffer, Tanya King, testified in a deposition that Gardiner finally blocked Czosnyka as a result of “private grudge points” and had described Czosnyka as a “rat” who he would “eradicate,” based on the courtroom paperwork filed by the plaintiffs. King additionally testified that Gardiner selectively cherry-picked proof and unnoticed context when he consulted the town’s Ethics Board about Czosnyka’s block.
The alderman later posted on his official Facebook web page a now-deleted video wherein Gardiner stood exterior Czosnyka’s home and referred to Czosnyka as one in every of his “greatest followers.” The act was described by King as an tried “focusing on” that exposed the place Czosnyka lived, based on the paperwork.
Gardiner advised the Tribune on Monday that the allegation that he selectively shared data with the Ethics Council is “patently false.”
The alderman additionally deleted a touch upon Vavrick’s Facebook web page that criticized Gardiner’s vote in opposition to an ordinance banning Chicago police from cooperating with immigrants and regulation enforcement. The remark was made in a Holocaust Remembrance Day put up shared by Gardiner, and Vavrick, who the lawsuit recognized as a descendant of Holocaust survivors, accused Gardiner of hypocrisy. Among different deletions, Gardiner additionally withheld a remark from Barash inviting the alderman to host “Ward Nights” open to voters.
Many of the feedback Gardiner deleted or blocked from folks have been vital, however all have been “completely applicable,” Nicholas advised the Tribune on Monday.
“The First Amendment protects everybody, together with folks the federal government would slightly not hear from,” Nicholas mentioned.
In October 2023, the Ethics Board fined Gardiner $20,000 for 10 violations of the town’s ethics code when he hatched a plan to concern citations to “the house of a constituent who had been publicly vital of the alderman.” The man was Czosnyka, who managed to win a $675 advantageous for extreme weeding.
