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PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
A
LBERT
S
NYDER
,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.F
RED
W. P
HELPS
, S
R
.; W
ESTBORO
B
APTIST
C
HURCH
, I
NCORPORATED
;R
EBEKAH
A. P
HELPS
-D
AVIS
; S
HIRLEY
L. P
HELPS
-R
OPER
,
Defendants-Appellants,
andJ
ANE
D
OE
; J
OHN
D
OE
, J
R
.,No. 08-1026
Defendants.
T
HOMAS
J
EFFERSON
C
ENTER FOR THE
P
ROTECTION OF
F
REE
E
XPRESSION
;A
MERICAN
C
IVIL
L
IBERTIES
U
NION
;A
MERICAN
C
IVIL
L
IBERTIES
U
NION OF
M
ARYLAND
,
Amici Supporting Appellants,
andJ
EFFREY
I
RA
S
HULMAN
,
Amicus Supporting Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Courtfor the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.Richard D. Bennett, District Judge.(1:06-cv-01389-RDB)
Argued: December 2, 2008Decided: September 24, 2009Before KING, SHEDD, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.Judgment reversed and bonds discharged by published opin-ion. Judge King wrote the opinion, in which Judge Duncan joined. Judge Shedd wrote a separate opinion concurring inthe judgment.
COUNSELARGUED
: Margie Jean Phelps, Topeka, Kansas, for Appel-lants. Sean E. Summers, BARLEY & SNYDER, L.L.C.,York, Pennsylvania, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF:
Craig T. Tre-bilcock, SHUMAKER WILLIAMS, P.C., York, Pennsylva-nia, for Appellee. J. Joshua Wheeler, THE THOMASJEFFERSON CENTER FOR THE PROTECTION OF FREEEXPRESSION, Charlottesville, Virginia, for The Thomas Jef-ferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, AmicusSupporting Appellants. Joel Kleinman, David Schur, RangaSourirajan, DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO, L.L.P., Washington,D.C., for American Civil Liberties Union and American CivilLiberties Union of Maryland; Steven R. Shapiro, AMERI-CAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION, NewYork, New York, for American Civil Liberties Union; Debo-rah A. Jeon, ACLU FOUNDATION OF MARYLAND, Balti-more, Maryland, for American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Amici Supporting Appellants. Jeffrey I. Shulman,GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER, Washing-ton, D.C., Amicus Supporting Appellee.
2S
NYDER
v. P
HELPS
OPINION
KING, Circuit Judge:In June 2006, Albert Snyder instituted this diversity actionin the District of Maryland against Westboro Baptist Church,Incorporated (the "Church"), and several of its members (col-lectively, the "Defendants"). Snyder’s lawsuit is predicated ontwo related events: a protest the Defendants conducted inMaryland near the funeral of Snyder’s son Matthew (anenlisted Marine who tragically died in Iraq in March 2006),and a self-styled written "epic" (the "Epic") that the Defen-dants posted on the Internet several weeks after Matthew’sfuneral. Snyder’s complaint alleged five state law tort claims,three of which are implicated in this appeal: invasion of pri-vacy by intrusion upon seclusion, intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED"), and civil conspiracy. After a trialin October 2007, the jury found the Defendants liable for $2.9million in compensatory damages and a total of $8 million inpunitive damages. Although the district court remitted theaggregate punitive award to $2.1 million, it otherwise deniedthe post-trial motions.
See Snyder v. Phelps
, 533 F. Supp. 2d567 (D. Md. 2008) (the "Post-Trial Opinion"). The Defen-dants have appealed, contending that the judgment contra-venes the First Amendment of the Constitution. As explainedbelow, we reverse on that basis.I.A.The facts of this case as presented at trial are largely undis-puted, and they are detailed in the district court’s Post-TrialOpinion:On March 3, 2006, Marine Lance Corporal MatthewA. Snyder was killed in Iraq in the line of duty.Shortly thereafter, two United States Marines came
3S
NYDER
v. P
HELPS
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