U.S. Court of Appeals upholds dismissal of referee’s lawsuit against KSR, Matt Jones
A court of appeals upheld the 2019 decision of a Kentucky judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed against Kentucky Sports Radio by a college basketball referee who said he was harassed and threatened after comments made on the show.
After John Higgins refereed a 2017 Elite Eight game between the University of Kentucky and North Carolina, many UK fans criticized the calls he made. KSR discussed Higgins and his calls on founder and host Matt Jones’ show and on its website.
In the days after the game, fans found that Higgins owned a Nebraska roofing business and began leaving bad reviews for the business, making harassing calls and even threatening Higgins and his family. In his 2017 lawsuit against KSR, Higgins accused the radio show of egging the harassing fans on and encouraging them to use his personal information.
Higgins appealed U.S. District Judge Joseph M. Hood’s dismissal of the case last summer.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit filed its decision Thursday, saying that while “Americans take college sports seriously, sometimes too seriously,” KSR was working within its First Amendment rights when staffers commented on the referee’s calls.
“Devoted sports fans are not known for their evenhandedness in judging referees,” the appeals court said in the opinion. The opinion goes on to say that Higgins was probably not unfamiliar with how critical fans can be, though it asserted that the case involving Kentucky’s fans was “extraordinary all the same.”
The opinion also says that Higgins’ business suffered a loss because of Kentucky fans’ “campaign” against the referee, but that ultimately KSR did not act outside of its rights.
“But the First Amendment safeguards the radio station’s right to comment on Higgins’ performance and the fans’ reaction to it and that is so even if the station and its hosts might have exercised their First Amendment rights more responsibly,” the opinion said. “We affirm the district court’s dismissal of his claims.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2020 at 12:44 PM.
