Case Explained: ELIZABETH SCHULTE v. KENNETH J. LENERS and TOWN OF CEDAR LAKE, WISCONSIN

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Filed: 2026-08-05 The Seventh Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to Town Chairman Kenneth Leners, holding that it was clearly established law in September 2022 that a government official violates the First Amendment by engaging in viewpoint discrimination within a public forum on an official municipal website. The court applied the standard for qualified immunity, which shields officials only if their conduct did not violate a federal right that was “clearly established” such that every reasonable official would have understood it to be unlawful. The court reasoned that the Town’s comment section functioned as a public forum open to private speech because the Town had no policy regulating who could comment or what they could say, and it allowed members of the public to discuss municipal affairs freely. Citing *Shurtleff v. Boston*, the court determined that the lack of editorial control meant the comments were private speech, not government speech, thereby prohibiting Leners from deleting comments based on their critical viewpoint regarding recreational vehicles. The court rejected Leners’s arguments that online comment sections are unique forums or that the Town was engaging in its own speech, noting that Supreme Court precedent and decisions from other circuits had already established that websites are protected public forums subject to traditional free speech analysis. Consequently, Leners could not claim ignorance of the law, as it was well-settled that viewpoint discrimination in such a context is unconstitutional. The practical consequence is that the appeal by the Town of Cedar Lake is dismissed because municipalities cannot claim qualified immunity, and the case against Leners proceeds to trial on the merits of the First Amendment violation claim. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.