MONTGOMERY, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - An Alabama personal injury lawyer must face claims he interfered with the employment of an attorney at a different firm who never meant for his George Floyd-inspired Facebook post to be linked to his former employer.
The Alabama Supreme Court ruled May 9 to let tortious interference claims against Larry King of King Simmons in Birmingham proceed, possibly to a trial. Claims against the firm itself will be ended, the court decided, but a fact-finder could determine King himself is liable for plaintiff Daniel Flickinger's alleged injuries.
Flickinger had posted his personal beliefs on his personal Facebook page, which did not contain information about his job at Wainwright, Pope & McMeekin. But someone created a Facebook account with Flickinger's name with a profile photo taken from the firm's site and re-posted what he was saying on his personal account.
A June 2020 post referred to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The post read: "Things I think about: If I were a seven-time felon, with my most recent prison stint stemming from robbing and holding a pregnant woman at gunpoint in her home, would I choose to die in a fentanyl and methamphetamine numbed strangulation if it meant being worshipped in a nationwide funeral and my family receiving millions of dollars? Purely hypothetical."
It was posted on the fake account, and King shared it with Flickinger's supervising attorney, Lonnie Wainwright, who called Flickinger to discuss.
Flickinger says shortly afterward he received a “cryptic tweet” from the King law firm’s Twitter account @KingSimmonsPC with a “large eyes emoji” along with one of his Facebook posts. At a meeting with WPM partners the next day, they admitted they “did not understand social media” but one asked Flickinger “how could you do this to us?”
At the end of the meeting, Flickinger was told to resign, and he said the partners told him the King firm had the “ability and willingness to control the distribution of the false and defamatory images favorably for WPM.”
Flickinger alleged King Simmons made the counterfeit profile and spread his personal posts on a 1,500-member private Facebook group in which members excoriated him for being a racist who “condones running down protesters” and is “ugly inside and out.”
Flickinger said he later discovered a post on the King Simmons law firm Twitter feed from May describing a “white guy that got fired by his law firm” who refused to wear a mask in a “ghetto store.” “What a turd…” the post said.
The King Simmons Twitter page also tweeted after Flickinger resigned, "We represent a lot of hurt workers across Alabama, & spar w/lots of great defense lawyers. Those @ [WPM] (2 of whom I've know for well over 34 years) are as diligent, fair, upright, honest, & ethical as are found anywhere. Felt like saying it. #RESPECT."
Defamation claims were dismissed during the case's first trip to the state Supreme Court but tortious interference claims weren't. In the trial court, Flickinger hoped to subpoena King's cell phone records but was denied.
The trial judge dismissed claims against both the firm and King, but the state Supreme Court reversed as to King. Even though it was WPM's decision to offer resignation, a judge or jury could still find that King's actions were substantial factors.
Viewed in the light most favorable to Flickinger, the facts show King's sharing of the post with Flickinger's boss set off a chain of events that led to his resignation. It didn't matter that another attorney at another firm sent the post to Flickinger's boss 30 minutes after King did, because it appears King had sent that lawyer the post, too.
And King can't hide behind sending "truthful" information, because the court already held the post on a fake profile wasn't truthful.
"(T)here are genuine issues of material fact as to both the causation element of Flickinger's tortious-interference claim and King's justification defense," Justice Chris McKool wrote.
"We of course express no opinion on the ultimate merits of Flickinger's claim; that is a question for a jury to resolve."