Defendant had 100K X followers, and as a result O’Leary “was flooded with unwanted communications.”
From Judge Beth Bloom’s order today granting default judgment in O’Leary v. Armstrong:
Defendant posted on X Plaintiff’s private cell phone number and encouraged the public to harass Plaintiff, stating “[h]ave you ever wanted to call a real life murderer?! You can NOW! @kevinoleartyv is waiting for your call.”
Following the post, Plaintiff began receiving communications from strangers who had obtained his number directly from Defendant’s post. On March 20, 2025 at 11:32 a.m., Defendant stated he “was forced to delete the murderer @kevinolearytv’s phone number by X. I was in X jail for 12 hours.” As of March 19, 2025, the post had been viewed over 18,000 times.
{To state a claim for public disclosure of private facts under Florida law, “a plaintiff must allege (1) the publication, (2) of private facts, (3) that are offensive, and (4) are not of public concern.”} By posting Plaintiff’s private phone number to a social media platform on which Defendant had one million followers, Defendant published Plaintiff’s private facts. The fact was offensive because, as a result, Plaintiff “was flooded with unwanted communications[.]” Although Plaintiff is a public figure, his personal contact information is not of legitimate public concern. Therefore, Plaintiff’s well-pleaded factual allegations are sufficient [under the disclosure tort -EV].
{The Complaint states that Defendant “currently has one million followers” on “his former X/Twitter account,” but also states “[t]oday” Defendant “has about 100,000 followers on X/Twitter[.] It is therefore unclear whether Defendant posted Plaintiff’s phone number to an account that had approximately one million followers or 100,000 followers. Regardless, by publicly posting Plaintiff’s phone number on X, leading to the post garnering 18,000 views, Defendant’s actions made it “substantially certain” that Plaintiff’s phone number would become public.}
Note that some other court decisions (see also here) had generally concluded that the disclosure tort didn’t apply to phone numbers and similar information, and was limited to embarrassing or highly personal information such as sexual, medical, or financial information might be. The matter thus doesn’t seem to be settled, but this new decision struck me as an interesting contribution. (Query whether the better legal theory here might be that publicizing a personal phone number with specific instructions to call someone might be better seen as fitting within a different privacy tort, intrusion upon seclusion.)
The court also granted O’Leary default judgment as to his defamation claims, stemming from the “murderer” accusations. According to the court, this all seems to have stemmed from a fatal accident involving O’Leary’s wife:
The following facts are deemed admitted by Defendant [because the defendant failed to defend the case -EV]. On August 24, 2019, while Plaintiff’s wife, Linda O’Leary (“Ms. O’Leary”), was driving the O’Learys’ boat, they collided with another vessel, resulting in the death of two people. Ms. O’Leary was not impaired, and at the time of the incident, she was a highly experienced boater operating the vessel cautiously and with due care and attention. The collision occurred with a completely unlit vessel, operating in violation of basic safety standards on a moonless night—making it virtually invisible.
Following the collision, Ms. O’Leary was charged with a regulatory offense: careless operation of a vessel under the Small Vessel Regulations of the Canada Shipping Act. She was not charged with impaired driving or any other alcohol-related offense. Plaintiff was not charged with any crime or infraction arising from the accident. After a 13-day trial in which a Canadian court heard extensive testimony, Ms. O’Leary was acquitted of the regulatory charge. The publicly available evidence made clear that Plaintiff was not operating the boat, was never charged, and that Ms. O’Leary was acquitted of 2 all charges….
On March 17, 2025 at 8:49 a.m., Defendant published a post on his X2 account, stating “[y]ou guys think I’m kidding about all this stuff and all these claims. There is a reason my life is actually in danger. Kevin O’Leary has already verifiably murdered one couple in Toronto.”
For more on the proceedings involving Ms. O’Leary’s boat crash, see this Canadian Press story.
Click here to read Original story on Reason
Define public figure. Has the court and legislative system not made PFRs public figures of notoriety by the registry and thus endangered them, their lives, and their immediate families? I could argue (with some help) in court this is one outcome of the registry (despite the fact the court could say the PFR has lost some of their own safety in the name of maintaining alleged public safety of others). Is it the govt’s thinking in acting to protect the public that some must be made less safe while keeping the rest of the public safer? Does that not violate the Equal Protection Clause or is it another court made exception accepted by the masses?