Gulf Coast gun owner Chris Smith seeks to dismiss Sam Parker’s lawsuit
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A judge is set to decide whether a marketing ploy by Gulf Coast Gun and Outdoors owner Chris Smith using the name and likeness of Santa Rosa County Commission Chairman Sam Parker is protected political speech or simply a publicity stunt that violates Parker’s rights.
Parker filed suit against Smith in December, claiming that his name and likeness were used and published without authorization. Since April 2020, the lawsuit alleges, Smith has used Parker’s name and likeness as part of a “Taxes Are Theft” sales promotion in which Gulf Coast Gun and Outdoors covered its customers’ sales tax on purchases at the store.
Judge J. Scott Duncan presided over a hearing Tuesday on a motion by Smith’s attorney, Anthony Sabatini, to dismiss the lawsuit. After hearing arguments from Sabatini and Erick Mead, Parker’s legal counsel, Duncan said he would rule on the motion within the next few weeks.
Parker’s lawsuit alleges that ads run by Smith using Parker’s name and/or likeness were “consistently derogatory” and appeared on social media platforms Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
She claims that Smith’s use of the name and likeness violates state statute 540.08, which states: “No person shall publish, print, display, or otherwise publicly use in trade or for any commercial or advertising purpose the name, portrait, photograph, or other likeness of any natural person without the express written or oral consent of such person to such use.”
The ads in question are produced at Smith’s Gulf Coast Gun and Outdoors in Milton.
At Tuesday’s hearing and in the main part of his motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Sabatini argued that Smith’s use of a cutout of Sam Parker with his gun shop as a backdrop was not a ploy to sell guns.
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The gun store offers a familiar place from which its customer can make important political comments, “exactly the kind of expression that is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” Sabatini said.
His messages were “almost identical” to what members of the community would say on Facebook, “without the background,” Sabatini said. What Smith was communicating, he argued, was not guns for sale, but his own anger over the tax rate.
Smith has highlighted issues such as the use of county tax money, derogatory comments made by Parker as a public official and political corruption in county government, Sabatini argued in his motion. His “satirical use of (Parker’s) name cannot in any way be interpreted as an associated or direct advertisement for his product.”
“His statements are clearly satirical and a means of entertainment, as well as humorous political commentary on (Parker’s) actions and statements as a public official,” the motion states. “Statements on public issues are at the top of the First Amendment’s hierarchy of values and are entitled to special protections.”
Mead has argued in his own submissions and stated at the hearing of the application that the law is clear regarding the unauthorized use of the name and image of a public figure.
“If it touches on advertising purposes, it is a criminal offense,” he told Duncan. “And that is what we have here.”
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Sarcasm and other forms of humorous comments are fine “as long as they are not part of a sales pitch to sell weapons,” Mead told the judge on Tuesday.
“The bottom line is that it is used for commercial purposes,” he said.
The lawsuit filed by Smith alleges that the gun shop owner’s use of Parker’s name and likeness diminished the value of Parker’s “moderate public service” as a politician and businessman.
The lawsuit seeks at least $30,000 in compensation for any loss or damage, including punitive damages and “an amount that would have been equivalent to a reasonable royalty fee.”
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