Fane Lozman, a former Marine officer and now a successful financial trader, could be resting on his laurels. After all, he was hailed as a hero to floating home owners five years ago after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in his favor in a suit he brought after the city of Riviera Beach, Florida, seized and destroyed his 60-foot-long, two-story-tall floating home at the city dock, claiming it was a boat and subject to maritime law. The Supreme Court saw it differently. “It was one of those cases where a picture was worth a thousand words,” Chief Justice John Roberts said later. “If you look at a picture of the thing in the water, it looks like a house that got swept into the ocean, rather than a boat that got swept away.”
Now, according to this story in USA Today, Lozman is back for more, once more before the Supreme Court, once more fighting the city of Riviera Beach. This time he’s seeking damages against the city because he was thrown out of a city council meeting and arrested. At issue is the First Amendment question of whether the government can overcome a citizen’s free speech rights when it claims to have probable cause to make an arrest.
Lozman now has powerful allies on his side, including The First Amendment Foundation and the Stanford Law School Supreme Court clinic, which cites a history of police “enforcing minor laws” to block protests. The case is scheduled for January. Stay tuned.
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