Qualified immunity; Harlow v. Fitzgerald; Pearson v. Callahan; District of Columbia v. Wesby; Phillips v. Roane Cnty.; Retaliatory arrest claim; Reichle v. Howards; Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach; Sandul v. Larion; Paige v. Coyner; Nieves v. Bartlett; Prior-restraint claim; Alexander v. United States; Southeast Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad; Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co.; Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan; Whether defendants-officers violated the First Amendment by deleting comments from the Facebook page; Packingham v. North Carolina; Morgan v. Bevin (ED KY); Davison v. Randall (4th Cir.); Right to speak anonymously; McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm’n; Talley v. California; Craig v. Harney; Nebraska Press Ass’n v. Stuart; Search & seizure & malicious prosecution claims; Newman v. Township of Hamburg; Johnson v. Moseley; Sykes v. Anderson; Knott v. Sullivan; Vakilian v. Shaw; Violation of the Privacy Protection Act (42 USC § 2000aa(a)); S.H.A.R.K. v. Metro Parks Serving Summit Cnty.; § 1983 claim for supervisory liability; Ashcroft v. Iqbal; McQueen v. Beecher Cmty. Sch.; Shehee v. Luttrell; Conspiracy; Hooks v. Hooks; Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly; Jackson v. City of Cleveland; Municipal liability; Courtright v. City of Battle Creek

The court remanded plaintiff-Novak’s First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim to the district court to determine whether defendants-officers had probable cause to arrest him under a state statute covering police disruptions, which would entitle them to qualified immunity. It also held that they were entitled to qualified immunity on some of his other claims, but not on others. Novak created a Facebook page that satirized the defendant-City of Parma’s Police Department. The Department obtained a search warrant for Facebook and learned his identity. It then searched his apartment and arrested him under a state statute for interfering with police functions. After he was acquitted, he filed this action. The district court dismissed some of his claims. The court first considered whether the officers who ran the investigation and obtained the search warrants, Riley and Connor, were entitled to qualified immunity. As to the retaliatory arrest claim, “[t]he Supreme Court held recently in Nieves that to bring a First Amendment retaliatory arrest claim, a plaintiff must generally show that there was no probable cause for the arrest.” Questions remained whether the officers had probable cause to arrest Novak under the Ohio statute. Whether the Facebook page was a protected parody was also a fact question. The court also remanded Novak’s prior restraint claim, finding that he plausibly alleged that “the officers’ created a prior restraint with a press release threatening” legal action and that “the letter and email to Facebook could be administrative orders that constituted a prior restraint.” But his claim that they violated the First Amendment by deleting comments from the Facebook page did not survive because there did not seem to be a consensus among courts as to how First Amendment protections apply to comments on social-media sites. Thus, the court held that they were entitled to qualified immunity on this issue. The lack of “clearly established law” also entitled them to qualified immunity on Novak’s claim that they violated his “right to speak anonymously” when they revealed his identity in the criminal investigation. His search-and-seizure and malicious-prosecution claims survived, as did his claim under the Privacy Protection Act. The liability claim against Riley as Connor’s supervisor also survived, as did his claim of conspiracy to shut down his Facebook page. The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over the municipal liability claims. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.