Project Veritas just won a victory in court that stops a restraining order that was placed on them back in September after they were sued by a Michigan teachers union.
ATF Michigan, the teacher’s union in question, tried to prevent Project Veritas from releasing footage that it had gathered from an operative working as an intern in a Detroit chapter.
First, the background:
POLITICO – A Wayne County circuit judge in September blocked Project Veritas, a group run by provocateur James O’Keefe, from disclosing videos of other information it obtained in an undercover operation carried out against the American Federation of Teachers chapter in Detroit.
AFT Michigan alleged that Project Veritas operative Marisa Jorge used the name Marissa Perez and posed as a University of Michigan student to gain access to the chapter as an intern. The group claimed Jorge “unlawfully accessed and transmitted proprietary and confidential information and engaged in unlawful and unauthorized surveillance of” employees.
AFT Michigan had sought an injunction citing a strong likelihood of success with respect to violations of the Michigan Uniform Trade Secrets Act, the Michigan Eavesdropping Act and Jorge’s breach of fiduciary duty, all of which failed to hold up in court.
This restraining order has been in effect since September, but is no longer thanks to a District Court judge who overruled the circuit judge:
U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker ruled that the AFT failed to meet the proper criteria for issuance of a preliminary injunction.
Parker said not one of the 221 documents the chapter produced fell within the “trade secret” description as defined by MUTSA. She also said the chapter lacked evidence that Jorge did anything to violate the state’s eavesdropping act.
The court did concede that AFT Michigan had a likelihood to succeed on the merits of its breach of duty of loyalty claim, though. But it also found that a preliminary injunction would raise First Amendment concerns, cautioning that the course of action would “most certainly … infringe upon Defendants’ First Amendment right.”
The court reasoned that AFT Michigan “will not suffer irreparable harm because there is no factual support that Defendants violated either the MUTSA or the Eavesdropping Act. Moreover, there is no certainty that what could be published could harm Plaintiff.”
“As to the harm to Defendants, imposing an injunction would be a severe infringement on Defendants’ First Amendment right,” the court added. “Although the Court finds that Plaintiff will likely prevail on the merits of its breach of duty of loyalty claim, based on U.S. Supreme Court and Sixth Circuit precedent, the Court nonetheless finds that Plaintiff’s commercial interests are not greater than the protections guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
By the way, the judge in question here, Linda Carter, is not wonder woman. That would be Lynda Carter. (Sorry, but I had to make a lame wonder woman joke.)
Actually Linda Carter has only been a district court judge in Michigan for two years as she was “nominated by President Barack Obama to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan on July 25, 2013 and confirmed by the United States Senate on March 12, 2014.”
Many times those judges appointed by Obama are activist judges, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. That should tell you something about the case against Veritas thus far.