ACLU Loses Appeal in Police-Ouster Case : Litigation: Ruling, which held that a verbal attack can violate a person’s rights, is attacked as damaging to free speech.

In a ruling attacked by civil rights lawyers as damaging to freedom of speech, a state court of appeals upheld a $46,000 award against a former ACLU attorney who tried to eject a Newport Beach police officer from a public debate on police abuse.

In an opinion released Tuesday, three judges of the 4th District Court of Appeal affirmed the 1987 verdict of an Orange County Superior Court jury, which decided in favor of Officer Richard T. Long and against ACLU attorney Rees Lloyd.

But in a 2-1 decision, the appeals court also overturned a $4,600 verdict against civil rights activist Linda Valentino, holding that she did not do enough to be held liable for the attempt to expel Long from the meeting at Newport Harbor High School on Oct. 11, 1980.

Both sides said they would appeal the issues they lost.

Attorney Meir Westreich, who represented Valentino, said that if the decision against Lloyd stands, it will set a dangerous precedent for free-speech rights.

“It will be the first time in the United States that a court has upheld the right of a public official to get civil damages simply for the way he was spoken to,” Westreich said. “There is no other case I know of that says a police officer can recover damages for someone else’s protected free speech.”

Lloyd’s attorney, Hugh R. Manes, put it more simply.

“It stinks,” he said. “It’s ridiculous. It’s preposterous. First Amendment rights were just trampled on by the court.”

Long’s lawyer, Jeffrey M. Epstein, said the decision affords deserved protection to government employees who suffer a violation of their civil rights while on duty.

Long, who is now a sergeant in charge of the Newport Beach Police Department’s homicide detail, was secretly tape-recording the meeting and taking notes on what was said. He contended that as a community relations officer, he had a right to attend and learn the ACLU’s opinion of his department’s activities.

During the meeting, Valentino asked Long to comment on the discussion, thereby revealing his presence. Lloyd demanded that Long identify himself and asked him to step outside, threatening to slap him when he hesitated.

Long rose and told the audience he was there because he had a legitimate interest in knowing the public’s concerns about his department so that the problems could be remedied. Then he left the meeting and later filed a civil suit against Lloyd, Valentino and the ACLU.

Long contended that his treatment amounted to discrimination based on his occupation and that he was publicly humiliated. Valentino, a longtime crusader against police spying, and Lloyd, an ACLU staff attorney, were panelists in the debate.

The appeals court said that Lloyd was liable where Valentino was not because he “went considerably father” by prompting Long to leave the meeting. Speech alone, the court held, can indeed violate someone’s civil rights.

“If the speech is meant to, and does, offend the law, utterance of the words themselves may be protected; but the speaker is subject to the consequences,” Associate Justice Thomas F. Crosby wrote.

“Lloyd indisputably caused the ejection of Officer Long in contravention of the Unruh Civil Rights Act. That he accomplished this by words alone is immaterial,” Crosby wrote. “The words . . . amount to conduct designed to accomplish a direct violation of the law and not primarily a means of conveying an idea or point of view.”

Long accepted a $35,000 settlement from the ACLU in September, marking the first time that anyone has collected money from the organization for a violation of civil rights. Valentino and Lloyd appealed the jury’s verdict against them.

Valentino, 36, executive director of the Los Angeles Trial Lawyers Assn., said she was pleased that she had been exonerated but said she would rather have been cleared on the grounds that citizens have the right to confront a police officer who is spying on them.

Long, 35, said he is disappointed that Valentino was cleared. He said he believes that she participated in a plot to “create an incident” to make it look like Newport Beach police engaged in illicit spying on private citizens. He said he did nothing wrong.

While the court made no specific finding on Long’s conduct, the justices condemned police spying on private citizens who are not suspected of any wrongdoing and police infiltration of political groups, and said they share the ACLU’s “revulsion of such abuses of the executive power.”

“While Long spoke of a laudable purpose, improved police-community relations, the fact is he took copious notes and used a clandestine tape recorder,” the justices said.

At the same time, however, police officers may not be discriminated against based on their occupation, the court said. The defense argument that Long may not sue for violation of his civil rights is “as reprehensible as the police abuses decried above,” the court said.

Writing a separate decision, Presiding Justice Harmon G. Scoville agreed that speech alone may violate the Unruh Civil Rights Act, but he said he would have upheld the judgment against Valentino as well because she played a key role in ejecting Long.