Jury deliberating whether 2020 Nebraska GOP campaign mailer defamed legislative candidate
LINCOLN — Opposing attorneys laid out starkly different portrayals Friday of campaign mailers sent during the 2020 election that a Nebraska legislative candidate alleged were defamatory and damaged her business, marriage and reputation.
The attorney for the candidate, Janet Palmtag of Nebraska City, told jurors during closing arguments that the Nebraska Republican Party showed a reckless disregard for the facts in sending out the fliers, which he said falsely stated that she had broken the law and lost her license to practice real estate.
The attorney, David Domina, asked jurors to award Palmtag $4.25 million for the loss of real estate listings and damage to her standing in her community and damage to her relationship with her family.
'Other than to call her names, there's really no defense here,' Domina said.
The attorney for the Nebraska GOP portrayed the mailers as largely true and said the content had been checked against available public records. It was only later, lawyer Kamron Hasan said, that the party learned the back story about the disciplinary steps taken against Palmtag's real estate firm by the Iowa Real Estate Commission.
He termed it 'an honest mistake.'
'The First Amendment and free speech protects honest mistakes … it protects Democrats, it protects Republicans, it protects other political affiliations,' Hasan said.
The closing arguments came at the end of a weeklong trial in Lancaster County District Court over the defamation lawsuit filed by Palmtag against the Nebraska GOP.
A jury of seven men and four women (One juror didn't return after being picked to serve.) must decide, by clear and convincing evidence, if the statements made in the campaign mailers were false, that the GOP knew they were false and published them with a reckless disregard for the truth.
If the jury cannot reach a verdict by 4:30 p.m. Friday, deliberations will continue Monday, according to the trial judge, Lancaster County District Judge Andrew Jacobsen.
The case raises issues of how far political speech can go during a heated campaign and hinges on whether the political party issued the mailers recklessly or with malice, a legal term that essentially means intentionally.
Palmtag lost the 2020 race for the Nebraska Legislature in southeast Nebraska against the then-incumbent, State Sen. Julie Slama.
The race pitted two Republicans against each other, with Slama being backed by then-Gov. Pete Ricketts, who appointed Slama to her post, and the state party. Palmtag, a longtime state GOP volunteer, was supported by former Gov. Dave Heineman, then-U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, among others.
Palmtag filed her lawsuit three months after the election.
Testimony at trial indicated that Palmtag had called the then-executive director of the state GOP after the initial mailer was sent out on Oct. 8, 2020. The mailer stated that Palmtag had 'broke the law' and 'lost' her real estate license, which Palmtag said was a lie and needed to be corrected.
Instead, the GOP executive, Ryan Hamilton, refused and instead sent a second mailer to 3,200 households stating that Palmtag was 'too irresponsible' to serve as a legislator. That piece cited a 2017 civil fine levied by the Iowa Real Estate Commission paid after one of Palmtag's agents had failed to obtain all the required signatures for a transfer of an earnest deposit on the sale of a home.
Domina, during his closing argument, said the Nebraska GOP was 'reckless' in the campaign flyer because Palmtag never 'lost' her license — she voluntarily gave up her personal and the firm's corporate licenses in 2019 due to a lack of Iowa business after flooding — and because her consent agreement with the Iowa commission admitted no violation of law.
'(The consent agreement) doesn't end with a license revoked, suspended or lost,' he said. Palmtag and her firm were still in 'good standing' for two years afterwards, when the licenses were not renewed, Domina said.
But, Hasan, the GOP attorney, told jurors that what the party sent out was 'at least substantially true,' because the consent order read that Palmtag's real estate firm, J.J. Palmtag, did not contest the 'alleged violation' of Iowa law.
'It was a violation. The law was broken,' he said. 'You don't have to admit to being guilty of a crime for it to be true.'
Hasan said that when Hamilton looked up the status of J.J. Palmtag's Iowa license in 2020, he found that it was listed as 'canceled.'
'You don't have to overthink this,' he told jurors. 'Just read the words.'
But Domina said that if Hamilton had researched the Iowa commission's website further, he would have discovered that Palmtag's individual license had become 'inactive' in 2019, and the company's license had been listed as 'canceled' because that's how corporate licenses are listed when not renewed.
Palmtag, Domina said, only agreed to pay a $500 fine to resolve the matter, which she testified stemmed from a mistake by one of her salesmen, who was gravely ill.
Domina said Palmtag was being 'responsible' for resolving the matter, calling it 'preposterous' that she had been 'irresponsible' as claimed by the GOP.
Hasan, meanwhile, said that as the supervising agent, it was her mistake that caused the fine.
'Janet is J.J. Palmtag and J.J. Palmtag is Janet,' he said.
The case took so long to get to trial because initially, the judge had granted a summary judgment filed by the GOP, thus dismissing the case.
Domina appealed to the Nebraska Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor that a jury, and not the judge, needed to make that decision, which led to this week's trial.
This is a developing story.
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