A new ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit revived a case that claimed a county sheriff violated free-speech rights by deleting comments and banning a user from a public Facebook page it created and maintained.

And now attorney JT Morris, who represents Deanna Robinson, the plaintiff in the case, said the ruling could have wide implications as public officials increasingly use social media to engage with their constituents. Morris said the ruling will help guide public officials on how to use social media without running afoul of the First Amendment's prohibition on government officials suppressing speech.

“We're certainly looking forward to going back to the district court, so Mrs. Robinson can further protect her First Amendment rights,” said Morris, an attorney at JT Morris Law in Austin.

The Fifth Circuit's April 15 ruling in Robinson v. Hunt County explained that the Hunt County Sheriff's Office and its sheriff, Randy Meeks, maintain a Facebook page that says it welcomes “positive” comments about the law enforcement agency.

A post in January 2017 said that just after a police officer was killed, the office received “anti-police calls” and people wrote comments degrading or insulting officers on the Facebook page. The post said the page would remove any user's post with foul language, hate speech or inappropriate comments and then ban the author from the page.

Robinson and other Facebook users commented critically about the policy that they said censored protected speech. Robinson wrote that degrading or insulting officers was legal, and courts have ruled such speech is protected. The sheriff's office had no right to delete inappropriate comments and ban people from commenting on the “tax payer funded” Facebook page, she wrote. She also made offensive remarks about the office and the deceased officer, the opinion noted.

Robinson alleged in her lawsuit that deleting her comment and banning her from the page was viewpoint discrimination, retaliation for protected speech, and a prior restraint on speech. She also argued she didn't get due process before her comment was deleted and she was banned.

In the trial court, a judge denied Robinson a preliminary injunction and later dismissed her complaint for failing to state a claim, which she appealed to the Fifth Circuit. The court affirmed the trial court's decision to dismiss claims against the individuals that Robinson sued, but it reinstated the case against Hunt County.

The court agreed with Robinson's contention that deleting her comment and banning her from the page constituted viewpoint discrimination.

“Official censorship based on a state actor's subjective judgment that the content of protected speech is offensive or inappropriate is viewpoint discrimination,” the opinion said, noting the court was assuming in its ruling that the sheriff's office's Facebook page was a public forum and subject to First Amendment protection.

Meeks, the sheriff, was acting as a final policy maker over the Facebook page, acting for the county, ruled the court. The policy was the force behind Robinson's constitutional rights being violated.

The court reinstated all of Robinson's constitutional claims against Hunt County, and her request for declaratory relief. It remanded the case to the trial court to reconsider Robinson's request for a preliminary injunction to force the defendant to reinstate her deleted comment and unban her from the sheriff's page.

Thomas P. Brandt, director of Fanning Harper Martinson Brandt & Kutchin in Dallas, who represents Hunt County, said he's pleased the court dismissed Robinson's claims against the sheriff and individual employees, but he's concerned that the court found the sheriff acted as a policymaker for Hunt County.

“I'm not aware of any cases out there that suggest that a sheriff can be considered the final policymaker for the county with respect to a Facebook page,” said Brandt. “It would mean any sheriff in any county who sets up a Facebook page would then be essentially determined to be a final policymaker of the county itself, and that would expand liability under Sec. 1983 beyond anything that we've seen previously.”

Read the Fifth Circuit's opinion here.