Pundit Tomi Lahren allowed back on Facebook page - with one condition

DALLAS – Commentator Tomi Lahren won a small victory Monday as a Dallas County judge ordered Glenn Beck and his conservative media firm TheBlaze to let her post to her Facebook page, where she has 4.3 million followers.

But there was a caveat: The young conservative pundit can’t criticize Beck or TheBlaze – and they can’t insult her either, according to a temporary restraining order from Civil District Court Judge Martin Hoffman. Hoffman didn’t rule on who actually has legal control over the Facebook page or whether Lahren is freed from her employment contract – set to expire Sept. 30 – and can seek another job.

Lahren, 24, has sued Beck and TheBlaze, based in Irving, claiming that they wrongfully fired her after she said on “The View” that she supported abortion rights and that it would be hypocritical to support both limited government and government interference in abortion.

At the hearing, Lahren’s attorney, Brian Lauten, argued that Beck and TheBlaze ordered Lahren not to post on Facebook, even though she still technically had access to post on it. Lauten said Beck’s motive in restricting Lahren was to hurt her career. She would be freed from the contract in six months regardless of the lawsuit’s outcome, but if she went silent on Facebook for that time frame, she’d be irrelevant in the political commentary world, Lauten said.

“In six months, nobody will have heard of you,” Lauten said. “When Glenn Beck’s done with you in six months, nobody will have remembered you. That’s wrong.”

But Eliot Burriss, a lawyer representing Beck and TheBlaze, argued that Lahren was still able to post on Facebook and was never restricted from it. He said the company owned the page, which it created for Lahren, and all the content on it, and would not agree to be removed from its administration.

TheBlaze also denied Lahren’s claims that she had been fired, saying that she was still being paid.

Earlier Monday, Beck and TheBlaze alleged that Lahren had been in trouble at work long before she went on “The View.” For months prior to Lahren’s March 20 appearance on “The View,” she “embarrassed the company and many of its staff and other personalities because her statements were uninformed and inconsistent,” said the company’s filing Monday.

Also Monday, Lahren’s lawyer submitted a filing asking that Lahren be freed from her employment contract, be allowed to compete with TheBlaze and Beck, and be free to talk about anything she wants, including “misconduct” by TheBlaze and Beck, “which should be exposed for what it is.”

The company disputed Lahren’s claims, saying that at the time of her “View” appearance, Blaze bosses had already decided not to extend Lahren’s contract because she was rude to crew members, clashed with co-workers, used offensive language on air, refused to work with a staff makeup artist and advertisers complained about her, the firm’s filing says.

Many employees have overheard Lahren complaining about TheBlaze, saying that she will sue TheBlaze and “that she could own TheBlaze when she is done,” the filing says.

Her comments on “The View” were “simply the latest in a series of events” that prompted managers to not want to extend Lahren’s contract, says the filing.

Though the company said in its filing that it respects its employees’ freedom of expression, Lahren had flip-flopped on abortion, saying as recently as December that abortion rights advocates were “straight-up baby killers.”

Lahren’s statements on “The View” represented not just a flip flop, TheBlaze filing says, but she “also effectively called many of TheBlaze’s employees, viewers and readers hypocrites.”

That was offensive, and hurt TheBlaze’s “reputation and goodwill” with its viewers, the company’s filing says.

TheBlaze requested that the judge find the employment contract still in effect, that Lahren remains employed by TheBlaze and that TheBlaze is the lawful owner of the Facebook page. TheBlaze also wants the judge to prohibit Lahren from making any public appearances or statements without prior Blaze approval.

The company claims that Lahren has damaged TheBlaze in “an amount that is not presently ascertainable,” and seeks for her to pay its attorneys fees and monetary damages.

TheBlaze alleges that Lahren has broken her nondisclosure agreement, which prohibited drawing any publicity to the business of TheBlaze, Beck or his associates. The company also alleges that Lahren broke her contract by disclosing – without company approval – in an interview with The Ringer that she was paid $40,000 per year for her wardrobe allowance.

Lahren’s lawyer says she never signed the nondisclosure agreement.

Lahren has argued that she has been effectively fired since she was locked out of the office and her work email account, and her show was canceled. TheBlaze said she just needed to change her work email password, like everyone else, on a routine basis.

TheBlaze says it has always owned Lahren’s Facebook page, but allowed her to contribute and edit its content. TheBlaze attached screenshots to its filing that show TheBlaze listed as the page’s owner, five staffers with “admin” access, and six employees including Lahren listed as “editors” to the page.

TheBlaze says it owns all the intellectual property and content posted to the Facebook page, “which was created, marketed and posted using TheBlaze staff, equipment, and property (at significant expense).”

Lauten, Lahren’s lawyer, argued that TheBlaze should not be allowed access to post to the Facebook page. He said Lahren would be open to removing the videos and content that is owned by TheBlaze that was posted there.

Lahren’s “Facebook page is her personal page,” Lauten’s new filing says, and Lahren never provided her “extremely valuable ownership and property rights in either her name or likeness to anyone including” TheBlaze and Beck.

Lahren’s suit alleges that the controversy surrounding her abortion comments on “The View ”TV show was “a public smear campaign” orchestrated to “inflate Beck’s profile, from what has become a mediocre following, all at (Lahren’s) expense.”

The judge set a hearing date in two weeks during which witnesses will be called.