Left: Blue Angels perform in 2023 (U.S. Navy). Right: Layla the cat (Lauren Ann Lombardi).
A woman from Washington state has initiated legal action against the Blue Angels, claiming that the flight team infringed upon her First Amendment rights by blocking her on social media. This action followed her complaints regarding the noise from their show, which she asserts had a detrimental effect on her ill cat.
Lauren Ann Lombardi submitted the lawsuit on Monday to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, targeting Navy Cmdr. Adam Brayan, the leader of the Angels, Lt. Ben Bushong, the team’s public affairs officer, along with an unspecified social media administrator.
The suit accuses the Blue Angels of contributing to the death of her cat, Layla. The introduction actually refers to the cat as Lombardi”s daughter.
This narrative unfolds as a tale of poignant emotional loss exacerbated by unwavering Constitutional breaches. When a cherished family member suffered distress due to the activities of the United States Navy’s Blue Angels, an American citizen availed herself of her Constitutional right to critique her government’s involvement in the ordeal. The response was disheartening: the naval officers, seemingly thin-skinned and masquerading their fragility, chose to stifle her expression, thus breaching their Constitutional duty and tarnishing the honor associated with their uniform.
It goes on to say that Layla — dubbed “the greatest cat who ever lived” — died following the next year’s show “after enduring yet another sonic assault during her final days on Earth.” Each August, the Angels descend on Puget Sound for their aerial show with 130 decibel sound levels, which is “louder than a jackhammer at close range and sufficient to cause immediate hearing damage,” the lawsuit alleged.
Lombardi fired off messages to the Angels’ social media pages in 2023 to complain about the effect it had on Layla, an elderly cat who she claimed suffered from heart disease.
She left multiple comments on Blue Angels’ social media posts and tagged their handle on other accounts’ posts asking users to sign a petition titled “We All Want to Feel Safe: No More Blue Angels Over Seattle.”
Lombardi also sent a series of direct messages to the account, which were a bit more colorful.
“Stop with your F—ing bulls— you are terrorizing my cat and all the other animals and wildlife. F— off,” she wrote.
Another message said: “Nobody gives a f— about your stupid little planes.”
The Angels responded by blocking Lombardi on Instagram, the lawsuit claims. Lombardi did not violate Instagram’s terms of service, the attorneys noted.
“As a result of the blocking, Plaintiff suffered immediate and ongoing Constitutional harm: she was prevented from communicating with the Blue Angels, receiving information from their account, viewing public discourse on their page, and having others see her Constitutionally protected criticism of government actions,” her attorneys wrote.
Plaintiff lawyers are asking for a judge to rule that the blocking of Lombardi on social media by the Angels is “unconstitutional.” It also requests an injunction to unblock Lombardi and have the Angels’ members “take remedial training on the fundamental importance of the First Amendment which the brave men and women of the U.S. Navy are sworn to protect.”
A representative from the Blue Angels did not immediately return a message from Law&Crime seeking comment.
