Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and other attorneys for Black Lives Matter District of Columbia (BLMDC) suffered a July 4 setback when a federal judge overruled one of their key arguments in the alleged June 2020 “brutal attack” against demonstrators who were protesting the murder of George Floyd.
“BLMDC’s claims under the D.C. First Amendment Assemblies Act and for negligence per se do not arise directly under the Constitution and do not require BLMDC to plead a constitutional violation as an element, meaning they are not claims brought for a violation of the Constitution under the Westfall Act,” U.S. District Judge Dabney L. Friedrich of the District of Columbia wrote Thursday in a memorandum opinion. “For all these reasons, the Court overrules BLMDC’s objection to certification.”