In Melton v. City of Forrest City, Arkansas, (8th Cir., Aug. 13, 2025), the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a district court should have sent factual questions to a jury instead of granting summary judgment in a retaliation suit by a fireman who was dismissed because of the firestorm caused by a controversial posting on his personal Facebook page. The fire chief had received complaints about the posting from city council members and members of the public. The court said in part:
Steven Melton is a pro-life, evangelical Christian. In June 2020, he reposted a black-and-white image on Facebook that depicted a silhouette of a baby in the womb with a rope around its neck. His intent was to convey that he was “anti-abortion.”...
Others did not view the image the same way. Two weeks after he posted it, a retired fire-department supervisor complained to Melton that he thought it looked like a noose around the neck of a black child. It upset him because the caption of the image, “I can’t breathe!,” was associated with the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death. Melton agreed to delete it immediately....
The problem is that there was no showing that Melton’s post had an impact on the fire department itself. No current firefighter complained or confronted him about it. Nor did any co-worker or supervisor refuse to work with him. Granting summary judgment based on such “vague and conclusory” concerns, without more, runs the risk of constitutionalizing a heckler’s veto.
ADF issued a press release announcing the decision.
