A longtime critic of San Francisco’s progressive politics got the official go-ahead this week to move forward with her lawsuit against lefty Supervisor Dean Preston, who she’s suing for blocking her on Twitter four years ago.
Conservative journalist Susan Dyer Reynolds is moving forward with her lawsuit, which she filed in December 2022, despite Preston unblocking her more than a year ago — and then leaving the platform entirely.
For much of the two decades she’s spent as owner, writer, and now ‘editor emeritus’ at the Marina Times, Reynolds has had harsh words for San Francisco’s political class, including Preston, a supervisor for District 5. She’s currently editorial director of The Voice of San Francisco, where earlier this month she referred to the supervisor as the city’s “Democratic Socialist kingpin.”
In court filings, Reynolds’ lawyers argue that the block represented a violation of her constitutional right to free speech and prevented her from accessing a “designated public forum,” since the supervisor used his Twitter account to debate legislation and policies with other elected officials as well as with members of the public.
After a lower court rejected Preston’s request to have the case thrown out last year, he appealed the decision to the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Earlier this month, the appeals court agreed with the lower court that he can’t be held liable for monetary damages. The case will now proceed in federal district court, unless the parties come to an agreement.
In an interview with Gazetteer, Jesse Franklin-Murdock, a lawyer representing Reynolds, defended continuing the suit despite Preston leaving the platform formerly known as Twitter, arguing that what his client wants is simple.
“If we were to win, what we would get would be an injunction saying it was a violation of First Amendment rights back then, and you are ordered not to do it again,” he said, referring to the block.
At the moment, there’s no risk of that happening again. Preston unblocked Reynolds a few weeks after she filed the lawsuit and then departed the platform entirely in October 2023, a month after its new owner, Elon Musk, called for Preston to be fired in a separate incident.
Preston, a former tenant rights lawyer who identifies himself as a democratic socialist (minus the kingpin), was elected in 2020 to represent District 5, which includes the Tenderloin, Fillmore, Western Addition, Hayes Valley, Lower Pacific Heights, and Japantown.
The supervisor said in an e-mailed statement that the 9th Circuit ruling is a “clear victory” for him. “Reynolds will now either dismiss what’s left of her frivolous case, or the district court will do that for her,” he said. “Her case is effectively over at this point.”
Franklin-Murdock disagreed with that characterization. “They wanted the entire case dismissed, which did not happen,” he said.
The conflict stems from Preston’s June 8, 2020, tweet about defunding the police and prison abolition. On the same day, Reynolds posted a response asking Preston if he had a child.
“If so, suppose that child was kidnapped, raped, and killed like Polly Klaas,” Reynolds tweeted, referring to the 12-year old girl who in 1993 was taken from her mother’s home in Petaluma and murdered. “Would you want the police to respond to your call? Would you want your child’s killer in prison?”
Preston responded by calling the tweets a threat to his family, which Reynolds called “a patently absurd reading.”
There are hints Reynolds’ case may settle.
Jen Kwart, a spokeswoman for the City Attorney’s office, which is representing Preston, said the two sides are meeting and conferring, but that her office “won’t comment on those conversations.” Franklin-Murdock said Reynolds is “very much open to discussing resolution in good faith.”
If not, the case will return to the district court with new ground rules, which were laid out in a March decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. In another case between a city manager in Port Huron and a resident, the Supreme Court decided that public officials may be held liable for blocking citizens on social media only if they have the authority to speak on behalf of the state, and are doing that. The ruling set a new standard that will be used in Reynolds’ case.
Tara Steeley, Preston’s lawyer from the San Francisco City Attorney’s office, maintains the supervisor is insulated by the legal doctrine of “qualified immunity,” which shields government agents from liability unless the alleged violation was one of “clearly established law.”
The doctrine was created to allow government workers to make critical decisions without having to fear financial ruin from lawsuits, and is most controversially used by police officers in cases alleging police brutality. It has also been used to defend government whistle-blowers seeking to expose corruption.
Qualified immunity is “designed to give public officials breathing room when there's open legal questions,” Steeley told the appeals court at a March hearing. The recent Supreme Court ruling has made the standard for when officials can be held liable “a moving target,” she argued.
Franklin-Murdock told Gazetteer he expects Preston’s qualified immunity claim to be “hotly contested” under the new precedent.
“I think qualified immunity is perhaps something that whether you're on the left or the right, there's a lot of room to critique it,” Franklin-Murdock said, highlighting cases of alleged police brutality and excessive force. “It is often a very powerful shield that causes plaintiffs in these cases to lose. And in this case, I think it’s overly protective.”
