The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday agreed to take up a case brought by the National Rifle Association (NRA) against a New York official in which the longtime pro-Second Amendment group accuses the regulator of infringing on its free speech.
Maria Vullo, former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, urged banks and insurers to consider “reputational risks” in working with the NRA in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting in 2018, court filings show.
Both Ms. Vullo and former Democrat Gov. Andrew Cuomo were sued by the NRA, which accused the officials of carrying out actions that led it to suffer “tens of millions of dollars in damages” due to ”blacklisting” of the group. Its lawyers contended that the officials violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights.
The Supreme Court, in an unsigned order, agreed to take up the case on Friday. No other comment was provided.
The NRA was founded in New York in 1871 and was incorporated as a non-profit in the state. Its 2018 lawsuit, seeking unspecified monetary damages, accused Ms. Vullo of unlawfully retaliating against the NRA for its constitutionally protected gun rights advocacy by targeting the group with an “implicit censorship regime.”
At issue was whether Ms. Vullo wielded her regulatory power to coerce New York financial institutions into cutting ties with the NRA in violation of its free speech rights under the First Amendment, according to court papers.
Several years ago, Ms. Vullo fined Lloyd’s of London and two other insurers more than $13 million for offering an NRA-endorsed product called “Carry Guard” that her office found was in violation of New York insurance law. The product provided liability coverage for policyholders who caused injuries from gunfire, even in cases involving the wrongful use of a firearm. The insurers agreed to stop selling NRA-endorsed products that New York considered illegal.
A federal judge in 2021 dismissed all claims apart from multiple free speech claims against Ms. Vullo. The New York City-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 ruled that the cases also should have been dismissed, prompting the NRA’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
But, according to NRA court filings, the “Second Circuit’s opinion below gives state officials free rein to financially blacklist their political opponents—from gun-rights groups, to abortion-rights groups, to environmentalist groups, and beyond.”
The gun rights group also alleged in the court papers that Ms. Vullo held meetings and “made back-channel threat[s]” that banks and insurers should “cease providing services to the NRA.”
Ms. Vullo said in court papers that her statements encouraging financial institutions to examine their ties to pro-gun organizations in the wake of the Parkland shooting had not “crossed the line between permissible persuasion and unconstitutional coercion.”
She added that the Second Appeals Court “was right that the Complaint does not adequately allege that Respondent crossed the line between permissible persuasion and unconstitutional coercion when, in the wake of the Parkland shooting, she issued public statements to thousands of industry participants encouraging them to examine their ties to gun promotion organizations.”
Trevor Morrison, a lawyer representing Ms. Vullo, wrote in court papers that lower courts had found that she had qualified immunity from the NRA’s claims. He said that memos that were issued did not direct any state agency to take action.
The NRA’s request to the top court was also publicly backed by 20 Republican state attorneys general as well as the free speech group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
While the case doesn’t touch on the Second Amendment per se, it is one of several gun-related issues that the Supreme Court has decided to take up during the current term. The high court also agreed Friday to review a challenge to the federal government’s ban on “bump stocks,” which allow certain semi-automatic firearms to increase the rate of fire.
Previously, the court agreed to hear a case on the legality of a criminal federal ban on gun possession for individuals who violate domestic violence restraining orders.
The NRA has been engaged in an extensive legal fight with the state of New York separate from the Supreme Court case.
New York state’s Democratic attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit in 2020 seeking to dissolve the NRA, accusing it of diverting millions of dollars to fund luxuries for senior officials. A judge in 2022 rejected her bid to put the NRA out of business despite finding that James presented evidence of “a grim story of greed, self-dealing and lax financial oversight.”
The NRA unsuccessfully sought to reincorporate in Republican-dominated Texas with a bankruptcy filing after Ms. James filed her lawsuit.
