ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) - A Georgia mortgage company gets a second chance to sue U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene for accusing the firm of firing an executive whose police officer stepson was arrested for shooting a Black man.
A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit under Georgia’s anti-SLAPP statute, which offers a streamlined path for halting lawsuits based upon public participation in matters of general concern. But the Georgia Court of Appeals reinstated the case, ruling the trial court failed to conduct a proper analysis of the plaintiff’s chances of success.
Equity Prime Mortgage sued Greene and her campaign committee over comments the controversial Republican congresswoman made after Melissa Rolfe was fired from her job as human resources director. Rolfe was dismissed on June 18, 2020, the same day her stepson Garrett was indicted for fatally shooting Rayshard Brooks.
After the firing, Greene posted social media comments including a defense of the police officer and a statement that “Melissa’s employer caved to the mob and wrongfully fired her! The war on our police officers and their families must end.” Tucker Carlson later mentioned Rolfe’s firing, saying she was “fired from her job today at a place called Equity Prime Mortgage . . . we told you she was fired with no explanation, obviously because they disapproved of who her stepson was.”
EPM said it was “bombarded” with thousands of website hits, ”furious messages” and threats and issued a news release saying Rolfe was fired because she had violated company policy and created “a hostile working environment.” In August 2020, EPM sent a letter to Greene demanding that she retract her statements and issue a public apology.
The company said Rolfe was reprimanded for an inappropriate joke about taking “rectal temps” a month after being hired and was called in for a meeting with the chief executive the day before her stepson shot Brooks, where she was confronted with other alleged incidents of workplace misbehavior including a comment about the size of an employee’s breasts.
After the shooting, Rolfe took a leave of absence and EPM said a “flood of employees” came forward to describe other misconduct.
Greene moved to dismiss the case under the anti-SLAPP law (for “strategic lawsuits against public participation”). The trial court applied a two-part test, ruling that the civil unrest and police response in 2020 were matters of intense public concern and that EPM had failed to demonstrate a probability of success because Greene’s statements were opinion.
The appeals court agreed that Greene’s comments met the test of addressing a matter of public concern, rejecting EPM’s argument they involved only private employment decisions. But the court remanded the case, ordering the trial judge to conduct a hearing to determine whether EPM had presented facts that could support a favorable judgment.
“It is only if EPM fails to make this showing or if Greene can then produce evidence defeating EPM’s claims as a matter of law, that Greene’s motion should be granted,” the appeals court concluded.