Facts: Ms. Clark made several social media posts about Mr. Sixx, his wife, and his young daughter. Many of these posts had photographs of his family along with disparaging or threatening comments. Several posts also included hashtags related to Mr. Sixx, his family, and Mötley Crüe. She also posted that she and Mr. Sixx were “soulmates” and that she had stalked him via the Internet despite having never met him or communicated with him.

On July 29, 2021, Mr. Sixx obtained an order of protection prohibiting Ms. Clark from contacting or communicating with him or his child. The order of protection was set to expire on July 28, 2022. No appeal was taken from this order.

In September 2022, Mr. Sixx filed a second petition for an order of protection against Ms. Clark. He alleged that Ms. Clark claimed Mr. Sixx and his wife tried to murder their daughter, Mr. Sixx was a pedophile, Mr. Sixx’s obsession with Ms. Clark made his wife jealous, Mr. Sixx had been stalking Ms. Clark and was trying to kill her, etc. On the day the 2021 Order was to expire, Ms. Clark posted the expiration date of the order, commenting that she “can contact anybody if I want … #timesup.”

Mr. Sixx testified he did not know Ms. Clark and had never communicated with her. He said her posts had caused him and his family to experience great fear.

The trial court entered a second order of protection in September 2022 prohibiting Ms. Clark from contacting or communicating with Mr. Sixx. She was also prohibited from posting about Mr. Sixx in any electronic media. The order of protection was set to expire on October 19, 2023. No appeal was taken from this order.

Also in September 2022, Mr. Sixx filed a motion requesting that Ms. Clark be held in criminal contempt for violating the 2021 Order. He cited many threatening posts she made before the expiration of the 2021 Order.

In August 2023, Mr. Sixx moved to extend the 2022 Order.

In September 2023, Mr. Sixx again asked for Ms. Clark to be found in contempt for many violations of the 2022 Order.

In October 2023, Mr. Sixx testified that Ms. Clark continued writing harassing social media posts in violation of the 2022 Order. The trial court issued another order of protection against Ms. Clark. No appeal was taken from this 2023 order.

In December 2023, Mr. Sixx supplemented his September 2023 contempt petition, alleging that Ms. Clark had continued to intentionally violate the orders of protection against her. He alleged 106 more “threatening and deranged” counts of contempt.

The trial court found Ms. Clark guilty of 100 of the 115 counts that were alleged. She was fined $50 per violation, for a total of $5000, and sentenced to serve three days in jail per violation, for a total of 300 days, with 270 days suspended pending her compliance with the trial court’s orders. It also entered a separate order of protection for five years.

In March 2024, Mr. Sixx filed an emergency petition asking for Ms. Clark to serve the rest of her sentence because of her continuing violation of the trial court’s orders. Ms. Clark was arrested and held without bail until she was later released on her own recognizance.

Ms. Clark appealed, arguing that the trial court’s orders were ambiguous.

On Appeal: The Court of Appeals affirmed and modified the trial court’s judgment.

Tennessee courts have the inherent power to punish for contempt. Violations of a court’s lawful order are contemptuous conduct that can be punished as criminal contempt, including imprisonment for 10 days and a fine of $50 for each violation.

People charged with criminal contempt are presumed innocent, and the petitioner must prove them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

Criminal contempt claims have four essential elements. First, the order alleged to have been violated must be “lawful.” Second, the order alleged to have been violated must be clear, specific, and unambiguous. Third, the person alleged to have violated the order must have actually disobeyed or otherwise resisted the order. Fourth, the person’s violation of the order must be “willful.”

A person may not be held in contempt for violating an order unless the order expressly and precisely spells out the details of compliance in a way that will enable reasonable people to know exactly what actions are required or forbidden. Thus, orders that are vague or ambiguous and susceptible to more than one reasonable interpretation cannot support a finding of contempt.

Orders alleged to have been violated must be construed using an objective standard that considers both the language of the order and the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the order, including the audience to whom the order is addressed. Orders need not be full of superfluous terms and specifications adequate to counter any flight of fancy a contemnor may imagine to declare it vague.

The 2022 Order said:

[Ms. Clark] shall not post using hashtags related to #NikkSixxPixx, NickiSixx, motley crue, the names of motley crue’s past or current band mates, or any of their albums or commercial activities with any post concerning Mr. Sixx, his wife, or children. [Ms. Clark] shall not post in any electronic media about Mr. Sixx.

The Court found the trial court’s order was clear and unambiguous:

Ms. Clark appears to assert that the order’s breadth somehow renders it vague. We disagree. The plain language of the order prohibits Ms. Clark from making any posts about Mr. Sixx in electronic media regardless of the manner in which she refers to Mr. Sixx or uses his name. Therefore, we conclude that a reasonable person would understand that this order prohibited Ms. Clark’s conduct…. Accordingly, the trial court was not required to list every conceivable method of referring to Mr. Sixx to effectively prohibit Ms. Clark from posting about him.

Counts 19, 23, 24, 26 through 28, 31, and 32 were all based on posts that contained Mr. Sixx’s full name. Some of the posts also contained the “N6” reference, his wife’s full name, or his signature. For the above-stated reasons, we agree with the trial court that these posts constituted violations of the 2022 Order as well.

Ms. Clark contends that there is another ambiguity in the 2022 Order because the handwritten directive in the order prohibits the use of the hashtags, “#NikkSixxPixx” (with the missing “i” in “Nikki”) and “#NickiSixx” (with “Nikki” misspelled as “Nicki” with a “c”). Although the 2022 Order does contain these misspellings, we conclude that the balance of the order resolves any ambiguity regarding the order’s intent. In addition to the specifically proscribed hashtags, the 2022 Order prohibited the use of hashtags “related to … the names of motley crue’s past or current band mates, or any of their albums and/or commercial activities with any post concerning Mr. Sixx, his wife, or children.” Mr. Sixx is clearly a Mötley Crüe band member, and the posts with hashtags containing his name were undisputedly “concerning Mr. Sixx.” More importantly, the 2022 Order specifically and expressly stated that Ms. Clark “shall not post in any electronic media about Mr. Sixx.” We therefore find that the 2022 Order was unambiguous despite any minor typographical errors in the delineated hashtags.

Moreover, other provisions of the 2022 Order prohibited Ms. Clark’s conduct as well. The order prohibited Ms. Clark from contacting Mr. Sixx “either directly or indirectly, by phone, email, messages, text messages, mail, or any other type of communication or contact.” Mr. Sixx testified during the October 2022 hearing that he had received communications related to use of the above-described hashtags, and Ms. Clark was present for that hearing. In the 2022 Order, the trial court found that Ms. Clark “knew from a previous trial that [Mr. Sixx] receives messages posted to #NikkiSixx and/or #NikkiSixxPixx.” Moreover, as this Court has previously determined, social media posts directed at a particular person can constitute contact with that person even if the posts were made on the poster’s own page. Accordingly, there is no ambiguity regarding whether Ms. Clark was prohibited from making posts with the hashtags “#NikkiSixxPixx” or “#NikkiSixx” as alleged in counts 5 and 9.

For reasons that are not important here, the Court changed the trial court’s judgment to find 98 counts rather than 100. Her sentence was also reduced by one day to reflect the time she served in pretrial confinement. Otherwise, the Court affirmed the trial court’s judgment.

K.O.’s Comment: (1) “Mr. Sixx is a celebrity musician and cofounder of the rock band, Mötley Crüe.” This may be the coolest opening sentence of an appellate opinion in Tennessee. Are there any other candidates?

(2) This is the first appellate opinion in Tennessee to define the word “hashtag.” It is a “word or phrase preceded by the symbol # that classifies or categorizes the accompanying text.” While an earlier opinion includes the word “hashtag,” this is the first to define it.

Source: Sixx v. Clark (Tennessee Court of Appeals, Eastern Section, May 2, 2025).

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