LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - An attorney has asked the Nebraska Supreme Court to reverse a district judge’s quarter-million-dollar judgment against the city of Lincoln for wrongly accusing a woman of theft on TV and online.
Shayla Funk had sued the Lincoln Police Department in 2014 after her image appeared on the Lincoln-Lancaster County Crime Stoppers website with incorrect claims that she was a “crook” who made fake ATM deposits and withdrawals using a stolen credit card, the Lincoln Journal Star (https://bit.ly/1sPE5OY ) reported. Police also featured the case in two segments on local TV news in 2013.
Assistant City Attorney Elizabeth Elliott argued in court Tuesday that the police department’s actions were done in good faith. But Funk’s attorney, Vince Powers, argued that police acted carelessly.
Police didn’t check out Funk’s claims until the department received another tip that the post was hurting an innocent woman’s reputation.
Within hours, the bank told police that Funk was telling the truth. They had given police video of the wrong person in the theft case because of an incorrect time stamp.
Lancaster County District Judge Steven Burns found the city legally responsible for Funk’s damages and ordered the city to pay her more than $259,000.
The Facebook post was still online when the case went to trial last July.
The city acknowledged the posts were defamatory and false, but argued they were privileged because police created them for the purpose of solving a crime.
Two Supreme Court justices questioned Elliott during oral arguments Tuesday about why it wasn’t false information for police to keep the Facebook post online after July 10, when it obtained the bank records clearing Funk.
“In your view there’s no obligation for a timely retraction regardless of media?” Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman asked.
Elliott said there would be a preference to remove it as soon as you know.
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Information from: Lincoln Journal Star, https://www.journalstar.com
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