Simpson County Judge Executive Mason Barnes answers questions regarding accusations made last year of using his position as judge-executive to receive personal financial gain through his construction business and of unprofessional conduct with other local officials as members of the Barren River Area Development District board committee hold an ethics hearing in the BRADD conference room on Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. The hearing concluded with the committee members stating they will reach a decision on the matter within the next 30 days. GRACE MCDOWELL / DAILY NEWS

A First Amendment lawsuit brought against Simpson County Judge-Executive Mason Barnes, who was accused of violating Joel Peyton’s free speech rights by blocking him on Facebook, has been settled, according to court filings.

Attorneys for both men filed a notice July 18 in U.S. District Court that they have reached a settlement in the case.

The notice says that the attorneys will file paperwork formally dismissing the lawsuit and finalizing the settlement by Aug. 15.

Peyton filed the suit against Barnes on March 11, claiming that the judge-executive blocked him from Barnes’ Facebook page around Feb. 10, following a finding by the Barren River Regional Ethics Board that Barnes committed an ethics violation regarding his vote in favor of a rezoning ordinance at a Simpson County Fiscal Court meeting last year.

The rezoning covered a tract of land that had previously been zoned for the county’s Interstate Interchange Business District, but was rezoned for residential use ahead of the construction of a house on the property.

Peyton was part of a group of residents who filed an ethics complaint against Barnes following that vote, claiming the judge-executive used his office to receive preferential treatment to allow for the construction company he owns to start building the house on the rezoned property.

“It undermines the integrity of our local government,” Peyton told the ethics board when it took up the issue at a hearing in January.

Steven Megerle, an attorney representing Peyton, did not return a message seeking comment.

At the ethics hearing, Barnes said he did not attend the meeting of the planning and zoning board where the property was approved for rezoning before the fiscal court’s ultimate vote, did not make a motion or second a motion at the fiscal court meeting regarding the rezoning and was not given any legal advice to abstain from voting on the matter.

The ethics board found that Barnes violated two parts of the county’s ethics ordinance that prohibits elected officials from discussing or taking action on any matter that may result in personal financial gain, but added that there was no evidence that the judge-executive leveraged his position as an elected official to influence the fiscal court or the planning and zoning commission to act in any particular way with regard to the rezoning issue.

According to court records, Barnes named Peyton and others who had signed the ethics complaint against him in a Feb. 10 post on his Facebook page and said that “one of the members of the small citizen group started filing copious amounts of open records requests.”

Another post on Feb. 14 addressed the findings of the ethics board, stating that “the group of complainants were purely politically motivated by my stance on industrial expansion.”

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Peyton by the Liberty Justice Center, an Austin, Texas-based legal firm that concerns itself with free speech, private property rights and similar issues, and sought an injunction against Barnes ordering him to refrain from blocking Peyton or others from accessing the judge-executive’s Facebook page, which the firm argued was intended to be a place for public announcements related to Barnes’ office.

Peyton claimed that Barnes’ block was therefore an action of the state violating his First Amendment rights.

Attorney Aaron Smith, representing Barnes, had filed a motion last month to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that Barnes has no statutory duty to maintain a Facebook page as part of his job and that Peyton could show no violation because he had not previously commented on any posts on the account or signaled an intent to do so.

Also, the page itself is not a public forum subject to First Amendment scrutiny by the courts, Smith said.

“Each post and/or comment on Judge Barnes’ social media page appears to have been posted by and/or been approved by Judge Barnes,” Smith said in the motion to dismiss. “Judge Barnes is entitled to control the speech he makes on his own behalf, and he is not required to allow the public to speak for him.”

Smith declined to comment when reached by the Daily News.

With the agreement to dismiss the case, Smith withdrew his motion and his arguments will not be taken up by a judge.