By AARON SANDERFORD
Nebraska Examiner
OMAHA — The two-year legal fight is not yet over between the loser of a 2020 GOP-on-GOP legislative race and the Nebraska Republican Party that accused her in ads of wrongdoing.
Nebraska City business owner Janet Palmtag lost her defamation lawsuit against the state GOP, a Lancaster County District Court judge ruled Friday in a summary judgment.
District Judge Andrew Jacobsen ruled that Palmtag’s legal team failed to clear the higher bar for public figures alleging defamation, saying they didn’t prove the GOP acted with “actual malice.”
Her lawyer, David Domina, said Monday that he plans to appeal the judgment to the Nebraska Supreme Court. He said he sees several potential positives in the ruling for Palmtag.
“It found she did not violate the law,” Domina said of Palmtag. “She did not lose her license. The question is whether there was actual malice. Our argument is that belongs to the jury.”
Part of Jacobsen’s ruling found that a reasonable person could read the GOP ads inaccurately and think that Palmtag had gotten in legal trouble herself and lost her real estate license.
Truth vs. truthiness
The GOP sent ads to southeast Nebraska’s Legislative District 1 saying Palmtag, a licensed real estate agent in Nebraska and formerly Iowa, “broke the law” and “lost her real estate license.”
She had not. The truth is more complicated.
Someone working for Palmtag’s real estate firm, J.J. Palmtag Inc., had gotten in trouble in Iowa, documents show, and she as the corporate officer had to sign off on an order issuing a fine.
The person who got in trouble, whom Palmtag supervised, had transferred money to an escrow account too soon, without written consent from both parties, Palmtag testified.
Former state GOP Executive Director Ryan Hamilton, with outside help, got hold of documents about the discipline against the firm from the Iowa Real Estate Commission.
He testified that he didn’t see a difference between the real estate firm being disciplined and Palmtag because she had signed the order as the company’s officer and broker.
Palmtag testified that she had given up her real estate license in Iowa, but not in Nebraska, and not for disciplinary reasons. She said she did so because she was doing less business in Iowa.
The judge appeared to side with her about the facts in the ads, saying an Iowa website referenced says she had received “no discipline or board actions.”
But he did not see enough to prove malice from the state GOP. The judgment references former state GOP chairman Dan Welch signing off on ads, “as long as this is accurate.”
Race split GOP
Palmtag, a long-time state GOP volunteer, had the support of former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry and former Gov. Dave Heineman. She lost the race to State Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar.
Slama had recently been appointed to the seat by Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who controlled much of the state party apparatus at the time and gave her candidacy $20,000 on his own.
The state GOP, for which Ricketts was the top donor, donated another $113,000 to Slama and spent nearly $50,000 on ads and materials opposing Palmtag.
Disagreements about the state GOP taking sides in that all-GOP race lingered. Some mentioned it as motivating their support for the party populists who took over the state GOP this summer.
The new-look GOP had no immediate comment on the judgment.
Slama, reached Monday, said she was “glad to see justice prevail.” She criticized Palmtag for dragging the state GOP into a “wasteful, years-long lawsuit.”
“I hope this ruling brings closure to all involved,” Slama said.
Palmtag referred a message seeking comment to her lawyer. Since her race, she has reregistered as a Democrat, voting records show.