A Georgia judge can order you to stop posting about your spouse and your divorce on social media, and the Court of Appeals has upheld exactly that order.
The Leading Case
In Lacy v. Lacy, 320 Ga. App. 739 (2013), the trial court restrained and enjoined divorcing parents “from posting matters about each other or their current litigation on Facebook or other social networking sites.” The record showed both parents had made disparaging comments about each other on Facebook while discussing the divorce.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, and noted candidly that it had “not found any authority specifically addressing the issue of restricting parents’ behavior on social networking websites during a divorce and child custody proceeding.” It reasoned instead from OCGA 9-11-65, which lets a court in a divorce or custody case make prohibitive orders on terms it deems just, and from Maloof v. Maloof, 231 Ga. 811 (1974), allowing a court to bar derogatory remarks about a parent in front of the children.
There Is a Limit
In Baskin v. Hale, 337 Ga. App. 420 (2016), a superior court entered a permanent injunction, on its own motion, barring the parties and their lawyers from publicly criticizing the court and the litigation for ten years. The Court of Appeals vacated it. A restriction on speech carries a heavy presumption against its validity, and the trial court had pointed to no evidence of harm and made no attempt to tailor the order narrowly.
The court drew the line plainly: it recognized “the authority granted to trial courts to restrict a parent’s communications and postings on social media during the pendency of a divorce,” but would not allow a decade-long ban on criticizing the court.
So a narrow order about your spouse and your case will likely hold. A broad, open-ended one is vulnerable.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!