Lawyer Silenced by Court in Halal Fraud Suit Claims Unlawful Prior Restraint

The Dearborn, Michigan-based attorney who was ordered to remove statements from his Facebook® page opposing a proposed class-action settlement in a case raising allegations that a McDonald’s Corp. franchisee purported to sell halal chicken when some of the products were not prepared according to Islamic law has filed a motion to vacate the order and to extend the period for filing objections or opting-out. Ahmed v. McDonald’s Corp., No. 11-014559 (Mich. Cir. Ct., Wayne Cty., motion filed February 22, 2013). Represented by advocacy group Public Citizen, Majed Moughni claims that the court’s order “was a prior restraint forbidden by the First Amendment.” Additional information about the proposed settlement and Moughni’s criticism of it appear in issues 468 and 471 of this Update.

According to the brief accompanying the motion, Moughni, his wife and
children have eaten at McDonald’s and are thus members of the class. The
brief further contends, “Giving Moughni only a few days’ notice, the Court
convened an emergency hearing; then, without hearing from Moughni,
issued a prior restraint of unparalleled breadth, barring Moughni from making
any public statements about an entire subject matter, even statements that
were entirely truthful and not at all misleading. It further compelled him to
place speech with which he fervently disagreed on his own web page; and
it forbade him from dissemination, circulation or publication of any opt-out
form or objection during the crucial ten-day period before the deadline for
members of the class to decide whether to opt out or object. On a literal
reading of the injunction, Moughni was barred even from speaking to his own
wife and children about the settlement, and even from submitting an objection
to the settlement on his own behalf.”

According to Moughni, the injunction not only constituted impermissible
prior restraint, it also violated the strict rule against compelled speech. He
argues that the plaintiff failed to show falsity or actual malice in what was
posted on his Facebook® page. And he notes that no case law supports
enjoining “a member of a class from urging other members of the class to
oppose a settlement or a class action.” He reminds the court that he “was
not speaking as a lawyer representing clients, or representing the class, but
as a member of the class appealing to fellow members of the class. In those
circumstances, plaintiff must meet the ordinary standards for relief against
core, noncommercial speech that enjoys the highest level of [protection] under the constitution.”