Ringsred v. City of Duluth

• Decision Date: 19 September 2022
• Docket Number: A22-0374
• Parties: Dr. Eric Ringsred, Appellant, v. City of Duluth, et al., Respondents, Duluth News Tribune, et al., Respondents.
• Court: Minnesota Court of Appeals

Dr. Eric Ringsred, Appellant,
v.
City of Duluth, et al., Respondents,

Duluth News Tribune, et al., Respondents.

No. A22-0374

Court of Appeals of Minnesota

September 19, 2022

This opinion is nonprecedential except as provided by Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).

St. Louis County District Court File No. 69DU-CV-20-1055

William D. Paul, William D. Paul Law Office, Duluth, Minnesota (for appellant)

Rebecca St. George, Duluth City Attorney, Elizabeth Sellers Tabor, Assistant City Attorney, Duluth, Minnesota (for respondents City of Duluth, Gunnar Johnson)

Robert Brandon Stock, Charlotte Jo Skar Rusch, Vogel Law Firm, Fargo, North Dakota (for respondents Duluth News Tribune, Forum Communications, and Peter Passi)

Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding Judge; Slieter, Judge; and Bryan, Judge.

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Bjorkman, Judge

Appellant challenges the dismissal of his defamation and First Amendment retaliation claims against municipal respondents and media respondents. He argues that the district court (1) misapplied the law regarding dismissal under Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e) and erred by dismissing most of his claims for failure to state an actionable claim, (2) abused its discretion by denying his motion to amend the complaint, and (3) erred by granting summary judgment dismissing the remaining defamation claims against the municipal respondents. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.

FACTS

In mid-2020, appellant Eric Ringsred initiated this action against respondent City of Duluth and its former city attorney respondent Gunnar Johnson (collectively, the municipal respondents) and respondent Duluth News Tribune and its reporter respondent Peter Passi (collectively, the media respondents). Ringsred's complaint alleges the following facts.

He has been a long-time outspoken critic of Duluth's efforts with respect to historic preservation, including pursuing litigation against the city multiple times since the late 1990s. One site of particular conflict is an historic building known as the Kozy Bar and Apartments or the Pastoret Terrace (the property), which Ringsred purchased in 2006. After fire damaged the property in 2010, city officials condemned it for human habitation. The city rebuffed Ringsred's efforts to reoccupy undamaged parts of the property. He spent the next five years and significant resources working to repair the property. But he

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failed to pay property taxes, and the property was forfeited to St. Louis County in December 2015. Ringsred sought to buy back the property the following month, but the Duluth Economic Development Authority (DEDA) purchased it to prevent its return to Ringsred. He subsequently filed two lawsuits against the city and DEDA regarding the property. During the pendency of those lawsuits, Johnson, who was then city attorney, made several false statements regarding Ringsred and the property. The media respondents published some of Johnson's false statements.

Based on these and similar alleged facts, Ringsred claims that (1) Johnson (and through him, the city) defamed him multiple times; (2) the media respondents defamed him by republishing Johnson's defamatory statements; (3) the municipal respondents interfered with his First Amendment rights by making false statements and engaging in other negative conduct toward him in retaliation for his prior lawsuits against and public opposition to the city; and (4) the media respondents conspired with the city to interfere with his First Amendment rights by publishing false statements and refusing to publish material depicting him positively or the city negatively.

Respondents moved to dismiss this action under Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e) for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Ringsred opposed the motions with respect to his first three claims but agreed that his First Amendment retaliation claim against the media respondents should be dismissed. The district court granted the media respondents' motion in its entirety and partially granted the municipal respondents' motion, dismissing all but two defamation claims.

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Ringsred subsequently moved to amend his complaint. He sought to add his company, Temple Corp., as a second plaintiff and to assert additional claims against the media and municipal respondents. He also sought to add several new defendants: Duluth Mayor Emily Larson, DEDA, St. Louis County, Johnson in his individual capacity, and Zack Filipovich and Roz Randorf, who are both DEDA Commissioners and Duluth City Councilmembers. The district court denied the motion on the grounds that the proposed amendments were procedurally flawed, futile, or both.

Shortly thereafter, the municipal respondents moved for summary judgment on the remaining defamation claims. The district court granted the motion, reasoning that dismissal of the claims was appropriate since Johnson was no longer in office and Ringsred failed to substitute the current city attorney. Rinsgred again moved to amend his complaint to add the current city attorney as a party. The district court denied the motion as an improper request for reconsideration. Ringsred appeals.

DECISION

I. The district court erred by dismissing most of Ringsred's claims under Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e).

A complaint is subject to dismissal if it "fail[s] to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Minn. R. Civ. P. 12.02(e). We review dismissal of an action under rule 12.02(e) de novo, accepting all alleged facts as true and construing "all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party." Abel v. Abbott Nw. Hosp., 947 N.W.2d 58, 68 (Minn. 2020) (quotation omitted).

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A complaint must "contain a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief." Minn. R. Civ. P. 8.01. It is sufficient when it affords the adverse party "fair notice . . . of the incident giving rise to the suit with sufficient clarity to disclose the pleader's theory upon which his claim for relief is based." Halva v. Minn. State Colls. &Univs., 953 N.W.2d 496, 503 (Minn. 2021) (quotation omitted). This may be accomplished through broad and conclusory factual statements. Id. at 500-01. On a motion to dismiss, "it is immaterial whether or not the plaintiff can prove the facts alleged." Martens v. Minn. Min. &Mfg. Co., 616 N.W.2d 732, 739 (Minn. 2000). Rather, a claim should be dismissed "only if it appears to a certainty that no facts, which could be introduced consistent with the pleading, exist which would support granting the relief demanded." Walsh v. U.S. Bank, N.A., 851 N.W.2d 598, 602 (Minn. 2014) (emphasis omitted) (quotation omitted).

A. Rinsgred's complaint sufficiently asserts defamation claims against the media respondents.

A party asserting a defamation claim must establish that: (1) the defendant made a statement to someone other than the plaintiff, (2) the statement is false, (3) the statement "tends to harm the plaintiff's reputation and to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of the community," and (4) the recipient "reasonably understands" the statement to refer to a specific individual. Larson v. Gannett Co., Inc., 940 N.W.2d 120, 130 (Minn. 2020) (quotation omitted), cert. denied, 141 S.Ct. 559 (2020). But "[e]ven if every element of a defamation claim is established, a speaker is not liable if an absolute or qualified privilege protects the defamatory statement and the qualified privilege is not abused." Id.

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Ringsred alleges that the media respondents defamed him by republishing three statements made by Johnson that they knew were false. The first two are contained in an April 25, 2018 article stating: (1) "Duluth City Attorney Gunnar Johnson said the building already was structurally compromised when DEDA took over ownership of the building[]," and (2) "'All that [building damage] occurred when Eric owned the building,' Johnson said." And the third statement is contained in an October 7, 2019 article stating: "Duluth City Attorney Gunnar Johnson called the decision 'pivotal' in the prolonged efforts by Ringsred to prevent redevelopment of the property."

Ringsred argues that the district court erred by concluding that the media respondents are protected by a "publishing or transmitting" privilege because they merely republished the three "direct quotes" from Johnson. This argument has merit.

"Under the republication doctrine, a speaker may be liable for repeating the defamatory statements of another." Id. at 131; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 578 (1977) (recognizing that "one who repeats or otherwise republishes defamatory matter" is generally liable "as if he had originally published it"). But a speaker that "merely deliver[s] or transmit[s] defamatory material previously published by another" is not liable unless "they knew, or had reason to know, that the material was false and defamatory." Church of Scientology of Minn. v. Minn. State Med. Ass'n Found., 264 N.W.2d 152, 156 (Minn. 1978). This narrow exception is premised on the speaker's reliance on reputable sources of information. See id. (reasoning that state medical association had no reason to know that American Medical Association article it distributed contained false information); accord Cole v. Star Tribune, 581 N.W.2d 364, 368-69 (Minn.App. 1998) (determining

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that St. Paul Pioneer Press had no reason to know that Associated Press article contained false information). But Ringsred expressly alleges that the media respondents knew Johnson's statements were false. Accordingly, the "publishing or transmitting" privilege does not protect the media respondents from liability for republishing Johnson's allegedly false statements.

Nonetheless, "a dismissal must be affirmed if it is clear that no relief can be granted under any set of facts that can be proved consistent with the allegations." Nelson v. Productive Alternatives, Inc., 715...