The New York Sun covered HLLI’s civil lawsuit against anti-Israel activists who blockaded the entrance to O’Hare International Airport on April 15, 2024.
Now, a lawsuit filed Monday by a public interest law firm called the Hamilton Lincoln Law Institute, says it is seeking justice for its client and “thousands of others” who were “falsely imprisoned in their cars or otherwise displaced by the blockade.”…The plaintiff in the case, Christopher Manhart, was “trapped in his car on the ramp to I-190 for over an hour with no way to maneuver out of the brutal, standstill traffic,” the lawsuit claims. It says he ultimately missed his flight and had to spend hours changing his travel plans, and though he was able to travel eventually, he missed “an important work dinner and networking function.”Mr. Manhart is seeking to hold the anti-Israel protesters accountable for “their illegal and tortious conspiracy to falsely imprison unsuspecting motorists” and creating a public nuisance that interfered with his and others’ “right to freely travel.”The lawsuit argues that while the First Amendment protects the rights of protesters to “speak loudly,” “be rude,” and “shock audiences,” they don’t have the right to “use force to block expressways full of bystanders trapped on the roads to create a massive public nuisance.”
Read more at the Sun.