Small town ‘perennial candidate’ asks Ninth Circuit to let him sue for defamation

Jonathan Tallman, a Boardman, Oregon coffee shop owner who ran unsuccessfully for four different local offices in four consecutive years, is asking the Ninth Circuit to revive his defamation suit against Dillon Spencer, who accused him online of sexually assaulting minors. A lower court dismissed the case under Oregon's anti-SLAPP law after finding Tallman a public figure who'd need to prove actual malice, a bar Tallman isn't contesting directly, arguing instead that his public-figure status expired the moment his last campaign ended.

Judges Michelle Friedland and Robert Lasnik pushed back hard, noting Tallman gave the community no reason to think his run of candidacies was over and that discussing a repeat candidate's fitness for office remains a live public interest. Tallman's attorney countered that no case law makes public-figure status permanent, while Spencer's attorney argued Tallman never actually withdrew, he just hadn't run again yet, which the panel found a distinction without much difference.

The court didn't indicate when it would rule.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.