Federal judge inclined to side with USPS over seized Black Lives Matter merch

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge said he was leaning towards granting summary judgment to the U.S Postal Service in a squabble with an Oakland, California small business owner who claims his parcels containing pro-Black face masks and other apparel were illegally seized and opened during the height of police brutality protests in 2020.

Rene Quinonez, owner of Movement Ink, a justice-based screen printing company, said in his 2022 complaint that following the police killings of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd in 2020, political organizers began to hire him to print as many face masks with political messages — such as “Stop killing Black people” — as possible to give to demonstrators.

Quinonez says that his deliveries were intercepted by law enforcement without further details. He filed a Freedom of Information Act request and learned that officers thought the packages contained drugs and had searched them. Quinonez said he lost out on future economic benefits because of the seizure, as many of his partners backed out of deals and became suspicious of his company after the packages were seized.

The Postal Service argued that there was no proof that the packages were opened. At a hearing Wednesday afternoon, Senior U.S. District Judge William Orrick, a Barack Obama appointee, agreed, and heavily implied he was going to grant summary judgment to the Postal Service.

“The key fact is there’s no evidence that the packages were opened,” Orrick said, before adding that there was also no evidence that no future economic relationship was harmed based on the seizure.

“There's no contract, there's no deposition testimony which would support the plaintiff's claim,” Orrick said.

Jaba Tsitsuashvili, counsel for Quinonez, said that his client was depending on the mask orders for future economic partnerships.

“California courts are unequivocal in saying that you don’t need to show the existence of a contract in order to make this showing. The mere opportunity to bid for a future contract suffices to meet the probability of the future economic benefit problem of this tort, Your Honor,” Tsitsuashvili said.

Orrick pushed back, asking Tsitsuashvili what evidence was on the record besides Quinonez’s personal beliefs, which he said do not constitute evidence. Tsitsuashvili answered that that question was not appropriate to answer at this point.

“In order to find, at the summary judgment stage, that there could be no probability of any future economic benefit between these parties who were already engaged in economic relationships, Your Honor would have to find that Mr. Quinonez’s credibility is not credible. That's a credibility determination that would need to be made at trial,” Tsitsuashvili said.

Tsitsuashvili continued, arguing that there didn’t need to be “smoking gun” testimony to show that Quinonez suffered actual disruption. He noted that Movement for Black Lives cut off its relationship with Movement Ink after the seizure of the packages.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Keough, representing the government, said that Orrick’s interpretation of the facts was true and that there was no evidence the packages were ever opened. He added that Quinonez could not testify that Movement for Black Lives terminated the business relationship over the package seizure.

"Mr. Quinonez will never be competent to testify as to the beliefs and intentions of Movement for Black Lives. All we have is the unequivocal testimony of Movement for Black Lives. As Your Honor points out, it is the only testimony in the record before the court in deciding this motion. Movement for Black Lives is clear: they had no intention to engage in future orders,” Keough said.

Orrick took the matter under submission.