A San Diego judge signaled this week she is not eager to muzzle a local influencer’s online commentary, issuing a tentative ruling that mostly protects her right to slam One America News Network while keeping a narrow focus on what happened in the company parking lot.
Yesterday, the San Diego Superior Court issued a tentative ruling that largely shields influencer Chelsea Goss’s online criticism of OANN as protected speech and limits the case to a sliver of alleged on-site trespass. The early decision frames the fight around whether Goss’s videos are political commentary or cross the legal line into harassment of OANN employees.
Superior Court Judge Chandra Reid tentatively granted key portions of Goss’s special motion to strike, finding the record so far does not show a credible threat of violence against Herring Networks, Inc. or its workers. Reid declined to throw out claims tied to alleged trespass into secured employee areas and to social media posts showing that conduct, and said she plans to issue a final ruling next week, according to the Times of San Diego.
Case background
The feud stems from videos Goss recorded outside OANN’s San Diego headquarters in which she accused the network and its staff of protecting former Rep. Matt Gaetz. Petitioner Herring Networks, Inc. claims Goss trespassed on private property and harassed employees, and it is asking the court for a permanent restraining order that would bar her from posting about employees and force her to take down earlier posts. Goss’s lawyers responded with a special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP law, arguing the petition targets speech on a public issue instead of true threats or violence. The filings and case details are laid out in the court record for case No. 26CU007658C, including the respondent’s motion and related exhibits, according to Voice of San Diego.
A temporary restraining order issued in February limits how close Goss can get to Charles Herring and the Herring Networks workplace, including a 100-yard stay-away from the OANN lot, but the court scaled back an earlier, broader request that would have blocked her from criticizing the company online. A hearing on whether to convert any limits into a permanent injunction is still on the calendar, and the tentative ruling keeps both sides working on a tight deadline, according to the Times of San Diego.
Legal implications
The legal crux is where California’s anti-SLAPP procedure collides with workplace-violence petitions under Code of Civil Procedure §527.8, which lets employers seek fast-track protection when staff face unlawful violence or a credible threat. Anti-SLAPP motions are designed to quickly test whether a case targets protected speech and should be tossed or trimmed. Section 527.8, on the other hand, demands proof of harassment, unlawful violence or a credible threat before the court steps in. That tension is what Reid picked apart in her tentative ruling. See Code Civ. Proc. §425.16 and CCP §527.8 for the governing law.
Goss’s motion characterizes her brief trips into the parking lot as a political protest and argues that Herring’s petition amounts to an improper prior restraint on speech. In a declaration attached to the filing, she says she left when told to go and that there was no violence. The motion walks step by step through the encounters and urges the court to strike all or part of the petition on First Amendment grounds, pointing the judge to the respondent’s papers and sworn declarations that are in the public case file, according to Voice of San Diego.
Reid’s tentative ruling keeps the case very much alive. Her final order next week is expected to spell out exactly which limits on Goss’s conduct and posts, if any, will remain in place, and whether a full-blown hearing on a permanent injunction will proceed. Lawyers on both sides are now honing arguments around a tight question that reaches well beyond this parking lot dispute: how far workplace-protection law can go when it brushes up against heated political speech in public spaces.
