Judge Tosses Catholic HS Teens' Suit Against Kathy Griffin

It was a photo that sparked a thousand - or maybe a hundred million - social media posts: A teenage student from Covington Catholic High school in Kentucky and a Native American man, the teen wearing a red "MAGA" hat and an expression that some likened to a smirk.

The student was part of a group of students who were visiting Washington, D.C., on January 18 of last year. The two individuals on the photo - student Nicholas Sandmann and Nathan Phillips, a Nation of Omaha elder - had no quarrel with each other, each being at the Lincoln Memorial for a different event. Philips was there for an Indigenous Peoples March, and Sandmann and his schoolmates were there for an anti-abortion demonstration.

Indeed, media reports indicated that it was a third group - Black Hebrew Israelites - whose shouts had inadvertently drawn them together. Phillips approached the ruckus with a drum that he played as an invitation for peace; the students said that they began performing school cheers to drown out the shouts of the Black Hebrew Israelites, which some media outlets described as having been slurs directed at the students.

Philips said later that he was trying to move away from the crowd, but that Sandmann blocked his path; according to media reports, Sandmann's side of the story was that he was staring at Phillips and standing in his path "to let him know he wouldn't be baited into an altercation," as CNN put it.

Though the so-called "incident" came to little more than a Native American man playing a ceremonial drum and a high schooler standing in front of him with a fixed, smiling expression, videos and stills of the moment proved enough, in America's highly polarized political environment, to set off a firestorm that involved multiple lawsuits against media companies that published coverage of the story.

Those lawsuits also came to involve Kathy Griffin, who - in the wake of the encounter, and with photos circulating widely of the smiling, MAGA-hat wearing teen giving the Native American elder a look that some saw as that of a privileged white man - took to social media for the names of the teens involved.

One federal suit leveled at Griffin claimed that she tweeted:

"Name these kids. I want NAMES. Shame them. If you think these fuckers wouldn't dox you in a heartbeat, think again."

The suit also claimed that Griffin posted:

"Should let this fine Catholic School [CCH] know how you feel about their students' behavior toward the Vietnam veteran, Native American #NathanPhillips."

Courthouse News Service reported that the suit, filed last fall, claimed that Griffin had sent out a:

..."call to action" to encourage "harmful criminal and civil behavior" toward them.

The suit relied on an untested legal claim: The notion that even though Griffin had not been in the state of Kentucky or directly contacted anyone in that state, her social media posts constituted incitement of people living in Kentucky to "dox" the teens, or publicly identify them.

But, The Hollywood Reporter said in a news item, the judge in case found that claim did not hold water.

Wrote the judge:

"It is a mere fortuity that plaintiffs are residents of Kentucky as it relates to their claims... Plaintiffs are the defendant's only connection to Kentucky for purposes of their claims, and [precedent] makes clear that that is insufficient to allow her to be sued here."

Media reports indicated that Griffin may be involved in other suits connected with comments about that encounter. Suits relating to coverage of the encounter have been numerous, including several brought by the Sandmann family. One of those actions - a $250 million suit against the Washington Post - was dismissed last summer. CNN was also named in another suit brought by the Sandmann family, a suit that sought $275 million; that suit was settled earlier this year. Multiple media outlets reported on that settlement, but no sum was disclosed.