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ORDER PROHIBITING DEFENDANT HUSBAND FROM DISPARAGING PLAINTIFF WIFE TO THIRD PARTIES WAS AN UNCONSTITUTIONAL PRIOR RESTRAINT OF SPEECH; ORDER SHOULD BE MODIFIED TO PROHIBIT DISPARAGING PLAINTIFF TO PLAINTIFF’S PATIENTS (SECOND DEPT).

The Second Department, reversing (modifying) Supreme Court, determined the order issued in this divorce proceeding prohibiting defendant husband from discussing, demeaning or disparaging plaintiff wife to third parties was an unconstitutional prior restraint of speech. Plaintiff, a psychologist, wanted to prohibit defendant from talking to her patients. The Second Department held the order should be modified to limit the prohibition disparaging plaintiff to plaintiff’s patients:

The defendant correctly contends that the portion of the order granting that branch of the plaintiff’s motion which was for an order directing the defendant not to discuss, demean, or disparage the plaintiff to any third parties, including but not limited to the plaintiff’s patients, was an unconstitutional prior restraint on speech. A prior restraint on speech is a law, regulation or judicial order that suppresses speech on the basis of the speech’s content and in advance of its actual expression … . Any imposition of prior restraint, whatever the form, bears a “heavy presumption against its constitutional validity, and a party seeking to obtain such a restraint bears a correspondingly heavy burden of demonstrating justification for its imposition” … . An injunctive order issued in the area of First Amendment rights must be couched in the narrowest terms that will accomplish the pin-pointed objective permitted by constitutional mandate and the essential needs of the public order … . The order must be tailored as precisely as possible to the exact needs of the case … . Here, the Supreme Court’s prior restraint on speech was overbroad, and not tailored as precisely as possible to the exact needs of this case. The plaintiff, a psychologist, was concerned about damage to her professional reputation due to the defendant’s allegedly demeaning statements to her patients. The court’s objective can be achieved by modifying the order to provide only that the defendant shall not discuss, demean, or disparage the plaintiff to her patients … . Karantinidis v Karantinidis, 2020 NY Slip Op 05039, Second Dept 9-23-20

 

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