A Republican has lost a lawsuit she filed against her own party over political mailers in her hotly contested race for a state legislative seat in 2020.
While Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen found that the GOP's flyer contained "not substantially true" statements about Janet Palmtag, he said she couldn't prove actual malice, the legal standard to recover damages in a libel suit involving a public figure.
In other words, the plaintiff must show the person who said something knew it was false or showed a reckless disregard for the truth.
The case hadn't met the "daunting" standard, Jacobsen found.
Palmtag is expected to appeal, arguing that's a question for a jury.
In 2020, Palmtag, a Nebraska City real estate broker, ran for the District 1 seat seeking to represent five counties in Southeast Nebraska in the Legislature.
The Nebraska Republican Party backed her opponent, state Sen. Julie Slama, who was first appointed to the seat by Gov. Pete Ricketts in 2018, and ultimately won reelection in 2020 with 68% of the vote.
At issue in the case were two mailers the Nebraska GOP sent out in October 2020 saying Palmtag had "broke the law & lost her real estate license," neither of which were true.
When she demanded a correction, the state GOP refused and she ultimately filed the suit alleging she had been defamed and her business suffered as a result.
The judge, setting up his analysis, wrote:Â "Courts must 'tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.' Yet the right of free speech does not give citizens the right to speak falsely of their political opponents."
Jacobsen said: "After reviewing the evidence, the court concludes that a reasonable fact-finder could find that it was not substantially true that the plaintiff broke the law and was charged and fined for improper trust account procedures."
Palmtag's attorney, Dave Domina, had argued the Republican Party made "intentional, reckless and false statements" about Palmtag to smear her reputation and integrity.
Listen now and subscribe: | | | |
He said Palmtag wasn't disciplined over the infraction, which was due to a technical oversight. The Iowa Real Estate Commission fined her company $500.
In the order, Jacobsen said Palmtag wasn't involved in the underlying transaction, a sale in Iowa involving another agent, and didn't know about it until a random 2017 audit. The agent who had the listing had made an earnest money deposit payable to the corporation's trust account, which wasn't the usual practice. And another employee transferred the money to an escrow company.
Jacobsen said Palmtag admitted the transfer was improper and that she had a supervisory role over the employee who wrote the check.Â
She voluntarily changed her Iowa license status to inactive because she wasn't doing much business in Iowa and didn't want to pay the annual renewal fee.
According to the order, GOP chairman Dan Welch admitted during a deposition he was "uncertain" whether Palmtag had "lost" her license.
Jacobsen concluded that Palmtag had stated a claim for libel per se because the statements in the mailer implied that she was unfit to work as a real estate broker.
But Ryan Hamilton, then executive director of the Nebraska Republican Party, said he subjectively believed she had broken the law after reading the consent order.
"Of course, the defendant could have talked to the plaintiff herself. But it would be a very strange rule that political parties have a duty to run their attack ads by the opposing candidate before publishing them," the judge said.
While he could have done more to investigate, failure to isn't enough to show actual malice, Jacobsen said.