The legal team at the American Center for Law and Justice is reporting a win in a fight over an opinion expressed by a coffee shop patron, but also has issued a warning.
The fight was over the perception by the patron of what was going when, shortly after the assassination of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, he went into a coffee shop and “witnessed what he believed was a celebration of Kirk’s assassination playing out in front of him.”
“Our client witnessed something disturbing: another customer wearing a blood-spattered shirt reading ‘Problem Solved,’ and an employee’s reaction to it. On Facebook, he said what he saw, and he said what he thought it meant.”
For that, the coffee shop sued him, the ACLJ confirmed.
That now is ended, given the decision by the coffee shop to stop the case.
Erika Kirk mourns the assassination of her husband Charlie Kirk in an image she shared on social media on Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025
But the ACLJ warned that there’s more to it than just the local dispute.
“The Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment protects opinion and honest characterization of disclosed facts. As the court put it in Gertz v. Robert Welch, ‘there is no such thing as a false idea.’ And in Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co, the court made clear that a statement of opinion relating to matters of public concern which does not contain a provably false factual connotation is constitutionally protected,” the ACLJ said.
“That is exactly what happened here. [Blake] Buchanan told his readers precisely what he saw – the shirt, the exchange, the laughter – and then told them what he thought it meant. Readers were free to agree with him or not. What they were never entitled to do was sue him for it. Amelia Island Coffee never once claimed Buchanan invented the shirt story, the comment, or the laughter. Their entire objection was to his characterization of what those undisputed facts signified. Under decades of First Amendment law, that is not defamation – it’s the ordinary business of a free and opinionated citizenry,” the legal team revealed.
“This case matters far beyond a cup of coffee. It might be easy to read this story and think it’s a small, local dispute about a t-shirt and a Facebook post. It is not. Cases like this one are exactly how free speech dies in America – not with a single dramatic ruling, but one intimidated citizen at a time. … Every time a plaintiff backs down rather than defend a suit like this one, it becomes a little harder for the next one to be filed with confidence.”
Charlie Kirk
The dispute itself was a defamation complaint brought by Amelia Island Coffee against Buchanan. The corporation now has filed a notice of voluntary dismissal, essentially running away from its own case.
The genesis is the hate that raged across the country against Kirk, “one of the most influential conservative voices of his generation.”
He was assassinating Sept. 10, 20256 while appearing at Utah Valley University, and a suspect now is facing charges for the death.
“Kirk built Turning Point into the largest conservative youth movement in the country and was beloved by many. The nation’s grief and our grief were immediate and enormous. Flags were lowered to half-staff at the White House and federal buildings nationwide. Days later, more than 100,000 people packed a stadium in Glendale, Arizona, for a memorial service honoring his life and legacy,” the ACLJ said.
Buchanan had encountered the events at the coffee shop, and commented about them online, for which the shop was demanding compensation for damages that never were documented.
“Our argument: Buchanan disclosed every fact he personally witnessed – the shirt, the employee’s comment, the laughter – and then offered his own interpretation of what it meant. That is core protected opinion, not defamation, and Amelia Island Coffee never disputed a single underlying fact,” the ACLJ said.
Since the case sought damages for injury, that ACLJ moved in court to document actual injury.
“Now, rather than answer that motion on the merits, Amelia Island Coffee dismissed the case,” the legal team said.
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[ H/T WorldNetDaily ]
