Goyette v. City of Minneapolis

Background

The individual plaintiffs are journalists, photographers, and other members of the press. The Communications Workers of America represents news media workers. They alleged that state law-enforcement defendants engaged in a pattern of threatening, harassing, assaulting, arresting, and otherwise interfering with journalists covering protests after George Floyd’s death and during later protests connected to the trial of Derek Chauvin and the death of Daunte Wright.

The plaintiffs’ allegations included the use of projectiles, pepper spray, tear gas, batons, arrests, detentions, threats, and interference with cameras and other recording equipment. They also alleged that officers ordered journalists to disperse even though curfew orders exempted the press, and that officers continued to target journalists after they identified themselves or complied with dispersal orders.

The court had previously issued a temporary restraining order. Plaintiffs moved to convert that order into a preliminary injunction. The court held an evidentiary hearing and heard testimony from two plaintiff photojournalists and two state officials.

Legal standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65, a preliminary injunction is temporary relief intended to preserve the parties’ positions until the court decides the underlying case. The court considered four factors: plaintiffs’ likelihood of success, the threat of irreparable harm, the balance of harms, and the public interest.

First Amendment claim

The court concluded that plaintiffs had a fair chance of succeeding on their claim that state defendants retaliated against journalists for exercising First Amendment rights. The court found that recording, observing, and reporting on protests and government conduct were protected news-gathering activities.

The court also found that the alleged treatment— including threats, physical force, projectiles, pepper spray, detention, and interference with recording equipment—could chill a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to report. Evidence that officers specifically singled out identifiable journalists, ordered them to leave, used force against them, and interfered with their work supported an inference that the actions were motivated at least in part by the journalists’ protected activity.

The court rejected the state defendants’ argument that journalists lost First Amendment protection whenever they failed to comply with a dispersal order. It reasoned that some journalists were outside the scope of dispersal orders, some orders did not lawfully apply to the press, and the state defendants had not shown that restricting press access to traditionally open public places was essential and narrowly tailored to serve a sufficiently important interest.

Fourth Amendment claim

The court also found that plaintiffs had demonstrated a likelihood of success on their Fourth Amendment claim. A seizure under the Fourth Amendment includes restraining a person’s liberty through physical force or an officer’s show of authority. The court determined that the record showed repeated unreasonable restraints on journalists’ movement, including threats, arrests, detention, projectiles, pepper spray, tear gas, batons, and commands that continued after journalists had identified themselves or moved as directed.

Other preliminary-injunction factors

The court found a sufficiently immediate threat of irreparable harm because plaintiffs intended to continue covering protests, similar conduct had occurred repeatedly, and the alleged harm had stopped only after the temporary restraining order issued. It found that the balance of harms favored plaintiffs because the injunction protected constitutional rights while preserving the state defendants’ ability to maintain order, arrest people when there was probable cause to believe they committed crimes, respond to imminent threats, and use crowd-control measures that incidentally affected journalists after lawful dispersal orders.

The court also found that the public interest favored protecting journalists’ ability to inform the public about events of public importance, while recognizing the public interest in controlling unrest and protecting safety.

Order and scope

The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. It enjoined Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington, Minnesota State Patrol Colonel Matthew Langer, their agents, employees, and representatives, and other persons acting in concert with them who had actual notice of the order, from:

- Arresting, threatening to arrest, or using physical force against a person whom they know or reasonably should know is a journalist, unless they have probable cause to believe the person committed a crime; - Using chemical agents against an identifiable journalist, unless the journalist presents an imminent threat of violence, bodily harm, or property damage; or - Seizing or intentionally damaging the journalist’s photographic, audio-recording, or video-recording equipment or press passes, or ordering the journalist to stop photographing, recording, or observing a protest, unless the person is lawfully seized consistently with the order.

The order states that journalists covered by it need not disperse after a dispersal order and cannot be arrested merely for failing to disperse, but they remain subject to other laws. It allows lawful arrests and requires a written property list and prompt efforts to obtain court authorization when property seized during a lawful arrest is needed as evidence. It identifies press credentials, badges, distinctive clothing, and other visual indicators as examples of evidence that someone is a journalist, while stating that no single indicator is required.

The court expanded the order’s distribution requirement to all state-defendant employees, officers, and agents with relevant supervisory or command authority, and to other persons the state defendants reasonably believed were acting in concert with them. The court did not decide in advance whether any particular nonparty would be bound by the order. It denied the state defendants’ proposed changes concerning dispersal orders and journalists’ identification. Plaintiffs were not required to post security, and the order stated that it would expire when final judgment resolved all plaintiffs’ claims unless the court ordered otherwise.

Judge Wright signed the order. The supplied case metadata identifies a different judge, so the signed opinion controls this summary.