Resident declines appeal of Battie defamation lawsuit ruling

With the passing of the Dec. 16 deadline to appeal the dismissal of her defamation lawsuit, Sarasota resident Kelly Franklin has dropped her defamation case against City Commissioner Kyle Battie.

On Sept. 13, 12th Judicial Circuit Court Judge Stephen Walker dismissed with prejudice Franklin’s five-count amended complaint against Battie, stemming from a Jan. 16, 2024 City Commission meeting in which Battie presented a printout of a racially charged social media post allegedly attributed to Franklin.

Franklin countered that the post was a hoax perpetrated by an unknown party that combined portions of two different posts, and that Battie was aware it was a hoax but proceeded to present it anyway without proper due diligence.

Walker’s September ruling was consistent with his prior dispensation of the case — which occurred on June 12 — that under Florida statute, an elected board member acting in an official capacity is shielded from litigation regarding utterances during a meeting,

Wrote Walker in his ruling, “The law is clear: absolute immunity of an official operates to relieve him from the necessity of being subjected to trial of an action based on his privileged conduct, notwithstanding that a complaint for libel which is filed against him may allege, as a conclusion, that he is without such immunity or was acting beyond the scope of his duty or office.”

On the same day of Walker’s judgment on Franklin’s amendment complaint, Battie's attorney, Brian Goodrich, served a proposal for settlement with a 30-day limit for Franklin to accept or reject. If rejected and the defendant, in this case Battie, obtains a judgment of no liability or the judgment obtained by the plaintiff is at least 25% percent less than the offer, then the defendant is entitled to fees.

According to Goodrich, the final judgment in Battie’s favor triggered a potential entitlement to attorneys’ fees from the date the proposal for settlement was issued. Goodrich then filed a motion for fees with a hearing scheduled for February.

Goodrich said Franklin’s attorney, Richard Harrison, inquired whether Battie would waive entitlement to legal fees if Franklin agreed to not appeal, which he did. Later, Harrison contacted Goodrich and said Franklin was not appealing independent of Battie’s decision to pursue fees.

In an email dated Dec. 10, Franklin informed Harrison of her decision not to pursue an appeal of Walker’s ruling, in the process calling Goodrich’s legal fees action “extortionist” and characterizing her decision to drop the case as pragmatic.

“Brian Goodrich's extortionist maneuver for legal fees effectively derailed any hope of positive outcome here,” Franklin wrote in her letter. “Kyle and his representatives continue to conflate liability with responsibility and will not accept the latter for fear of consequences from the former. … I have decided not to appeal, but my decision has everything to do with pragmatism about the state and time I'm living in and nothing to do with Brian Goodrich's outrageous salt-in-the-wounds fee claim.”

Goodrich countered that filing a lawsuit is a ‘hostile act” that carries consequences.

“Ms. Franklin chose to sue Commissioner Battie on a claim that was doomed from the start. She caused the city to spend money defending her baseless lawsuit,” Goodrich told the Observer. “Ms. Franklin could have avoided a potential fee claim against her by accepting Commissioner Battie’s proposal for settlement issued in this case. She chose not to, and the city incurred additional expenses as a result.

“Pursuing recovery of attorneys’ fees in this case would not be extortionist. It is provided for under Florida law.” 

Although the legal fees hearing remains, the expiration of the appeal period effectively ends the nearly year-long odyssey rooted in Franklin’s very public opposition to the permit for outdoor seating on the sidewalk outside Corona Cigar Co., located within a brief walk from City Hall at the corner of North Lemon Avenue and First Street. 

The printout of the alleged social media post was a photo of Corona’s ribbon cutting featuring Battie and co-owner Tanya Borysiewicz, who is bi-racial, with the caption “Gorillas in the midst of being gorillas is on my mind.” Franklin called the printout an amateurish composite of two different posts — one from the ribbon cutting and one from her 2022 African photo safari featuring dozens of photos of gorillas in the wild in which the caption was applied.

“There is a difference between liability and responsibility,” Franklin told the Observer. "Absolute immunity has shielded Kyle Battie from liability, but his responsibility to me and the community remains.”