Miami Fourth Estate, Inc. v. Village of Key Biscayne

Case Number: 1:25-cv-22838

Court: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

Client: Miami Fourth Estate, Inc. (Key Biscayne Independent)

Background: Since late 2020, the Key Biscayne Independent, a publication based in the Florida island community of Key Biscayne, has published stories on a range of local matters of public concern, such as a local gymnastics coach’s criminal charges for sexual abuse and budget issues related to a multimillion-dollar construction project. Many of the Independent’s stories included information from employees of the Village of Key Biscayne.

But in November 2024, Key Biscayne enacted a “gag” policy that prohibits its staff from communicating with the news media “in any manner” in virtually all circumstances without permission from top officials. The policy states that an employee could be subject to disciplinary action if he or she speaks to media entities without prior approval.

Since the gag policy was enacted, the Independent has struggled to obtain timely information from public employees who were previously willing to speak with its reporters on some of the most important stories in Key Biscayne. On the Independent’s behalf, attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Shullman Fugate filed this lawsuit challenging the policy, alleging that it stifles the free flow of information to the public and violates the First Amendment rights of the public and press, as well as Key Biscayne employees.

The lawsuit asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to find the law unconstitutional and to block the Village of Key Biscayne from enforcing it.

Quote: “[Key Biscayne’s] gag order goes to an unprecedented level of information manipulation for this community,” Tony Winton, the Independent’s editor-in-chief, wrote in an editorial about the lawsuit. “A blanket restriction on Village employees that they cannot speak to reporters unless their words have ‘approval’ is beyond the pale in any community that places facts over spin. It is a restriction that limits fact gathering on matters both mundane and massive.”

Related: Last year, a First Amendment lawsuit brought by journalist Brittany Hailer, with free legal support from Reporters Committee attorneys and the Yale Law School Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, forced a Pennsylvania county to revise jail policies that barred its employees and contractors from speaking with the news media about matters of public concern without permission. Read more about the historic settlement here.

Filings:

2025-06-24: Complaint