Jones v. Citizens for a New La.

387 So.3d 1

2023-0654 (La.App. 1 Cir. 1/26/24)

Amanda JONES

v.CITIZENS FOR A NEW LOUISIANA, Michael Lunsford, and Ryan

Thames

2023 CA 0654

Court of Appeal of Louisiana, First Circuit.

Judgment Rendered: January 26, 2024

Rehearing Denied June 26, 2024

On Appeal from the Twenty-First Judicial District Court, In and for the Parish of Livingston, State of Louisiana, Docket No. 175021, Honorable Erika Sledge, Judge Presiding

Alysson L. Mills, Kristen D. Amond, New Orleans, Louisiana, Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant Amanda Jones Charles L. Chassaignac, IV, Emily S. Morrison, Eleanor W. Wall, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Counsel for Defendants/Appellees Citizens for a New Louisiana and Michael Lunsford

Joseph J. Long, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Counsel for Defendant/Appellee Ryan Thames

BEFORE: McCLENDON, HESTER, AND MILLER, JJ.

McCLENDON, J.

₂In this defamation case, the plaintiff appeals from a judgment of the trial court. For the following reasons, we affirm.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The plaintiff, Amanda Jones, is a librarian in Livingston Parish. Over the summer of 2022, she attended a meeting of the Livingston Parish Library Board. The public notice for the July 19, 2022 meeting referred to "book content" as an agenda item, and Ms. Jones spoke at the meeting against "the proposed policy of imposing content-based restrictions on books." The defendants, Michael Lunsford and Ryan Thames, were present at the meeting. Mr. Lunsford is executive director of Citizens for a New Louisiana, a non-profit corporation founded in 2018 whose purported mission is to "foster prosperity in Louisiana’s overall economy by simplifying complex issues, promoting transparency in local government, and providing sound public policy insights based on thorough research and conservative principles." Mr. Thames operates a Facebook blog called "Bayou State of Mind," which Mr. Thames avers publishes political cartoons known as memes.

Ms. Jones alleges that after the meeting, Mr. Lunsford and Mr. Thames initiated a public campaign to defame her by posting pictures of her and comments about her on their respective social media accounts. Ms. Jones argues that the defendants targeted her by asserting that she "advocated providing erotic and pornographic material to children, and teaching children to perform sexual acts."¹ The defendants allegedly repeatedly referred to a book titled Let’s Talk About It: The Teen’s Guide to Sex, Relationships, and Being a, Human and what they described as a picture of two men having anal sex. Ms. Jones alleges that Mr. Lunsford and Mr. Thames falsely represented that she had promoted the book in question, defended having it in the kids’ section, and advocated for a book that teaches anal sex to 11-year-olds.

Ms. Jones contends that the defendants’ statements are false and that she did not "promot[e] pornography and erotic content to kids." She avers that no one at the meeting ever mentioned "THAT book" and she did not "advocate[e] teaching anal sex to ₃11 year olds." Ms. Jones asserts that the defendants apparently produced the book after the meeting with the intent to confuse their audience and smear her reputation. She also states that she has received death threats because of the defendants’ false statements.

Following these events, Ms. Jones filed a Petition for Damages and for Injunctive Relief against Mr. Lunsford, Mr. Thames, and Citizens for a New Louisiana. In response, the defendants moved to strike her petition pursuant to Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 971.² The trial court granted the special motions to strike and signed a judgment on October 11, 2022, dismissing with prejudice Ms. Jones’s claims against the defendants. The judgment also set a hearing date of November 21, 2022, to determine "an award of reasonable attorney’s fees and costs pursuant to La. Code Civil Procedure Art. 971(B)[.]" Notice of the judgment was mailed to all counsel on October 13, 2022.

On October 20, 2022, Ms. Jones filed a Motion for New Trial, arguing that the judgment was contrary to the law and the evidence and that good grounds existed for reconsideration of said judgment. By consent motion and order signed by the trial court, the parties agreed to hear the motion for new trial on November 21, 2022, and to set the defendants’ motions for attorney fees at a later date. After the hearing, the trial court denied Ms. Jones’s motion for new trial. On December 14, 2022, the trial court signed its judgment, denying the motion for new trial and ordering that the hearing on the award of reasonable attorney fees and costs would be reset by the court. The notice of this judgment was sent on January 5, 2023.

Subsequently, the parties, to avoid "the substantial time and expense of a hearing and its attendant litigation" entered into a judgment, entitled "Final Judgment," which ₄was signed by the trial court on March 2, 2023, and stipulated to the amount of attorney fees and costs incurred. Specifically, the judgment for attorney fees and costs provided that Ms. Jones "will pay $12,500 to Defendants Citizens for a New Louisiana and Michael Lunsford and $13,000 to Defendant Ryan Thames, constituting the reasonable attorney’s fees and costs" that they incurred in the prosecution of their respective special motions to strike pursuant to LSA-C.C.P. art. 971 "after [Ms. Jones’s] forthcoming appeal, provided that Defendants prevail on appeal." The notice of the judgment entitled "Final Judgment" was mailed on March 7, 2023.

On March 13, 2023, Ms. Jones filed a motion for appeal, averring therein that the "Court signed a final judgment disposing of all claims in this case on March 2, 2023. … The final judgment anticipates an appeal, and [Ms.] Jones desires to appeal." The trial court granted an order of appeal from the "Final Judgment" signed on March 2, 2023. In her appeal from said March 2, 2023 judgment, Ms. Jones alleges that the trial court erred in granting the defendants’ special motions to strike pursuant to LSA-C.C.P. art. 971 because, 1] Ms. Jones demonstrated a probability of success in proving each element of her defamation claim: defamatory words, falsity, malice, and injury; and 2) the trial court impermissibly resolved disputed issues of material fact in the defendants’ favor.

After the record was lodged with this court, this court, ex proprio motu, issued a Rule to Show Cause Order, stating:

It appears that the March 2, 2023 "Final Judgment" is not final for the purpose of appeal, as the stipulated relief provided in the judgment is contingent on a future event; namely, the Defendants prevailing on appeal.… "A judgment that is contingent on the occurrence of a future event is indeterminate and not a valid, final, appealable judgment." Barfield v. Tammany Holding Company, 2016-1420 (La. App. 1st Cir. 6/2/17), 2017 WL 2399020, at *1.

Thereafter, in response to this court’s show cause order, the parties obtained a Revised Final Judgment, signed by the trial court on August 28, 2023, which the parties aver addresses this court’s concerns with the Final Judgment. Specifically, the Revised Final Judgment removed the provision that the attorney fees and costs are payable "provided ₅that Defendants prevail on appeal."³ Because the Revised Final Judgment removed the contingency provision, we recall the rule to show cause order.

DISCUSSION

Following oral arguments in this court, the parties were invited to file supplemental briefs in response to the court’s questions regarding its appellate jurisdiction. The crux of the argument before this court is whether the October 11, 2022 judgment that addressed the motions to strike was an interlocutory judgment or a final judgment. If the judgment was interlocutory and not final and appealable until the attorney fees and costs were rendered, then Ms. Jones’s appeal of the March 2, 2023 judgment as to the merits was timely. However, if the October 11, 2022 judgment regarding the merits was a final and appealable judgment, we must determine whether Ms. Jones’s appeal of the March 2, 2023 judgment, in which she addressed the merits of the special motions to strike, was timely.

In response to this court’s order granting leave to file supplemental briefs, Ms. Jones argued that the October 11, 2022 judgment granting the special motions to strike was interlocutory and not a final judgment, as the issue of the attorney fees had been deferred. She asserted that the judgment granting the defendants’ motions to strike was only reviewable in an appeal from a subsequent final judgment resolving the attorney fees. Ms. Jones maintains that after the parties stipulated to the attorney fees and the trial court signed the judgment on March 2, 2023, the judgment became final, and she timely appealed.

Mr. Lunsford and Citizens for a New Louisiana filed their own supplemental brief.⁴ Therein, they asserted that the October 11, 2022 judgment was a final appealable judgment, rather than an interlocutory judgment, and that pursuant to LSA-C.C.P. art. 2087(A)(2), the delay for taking a devolutive appeal from the October 11, 2022 judgment granting the defendants’ special motions to strike was sixty days from the date of the mailing of the trial court’s denial of Ms. Jones’s motion for a new trial, which appeal delay ₆expired on March 6, 2023. Therefore, according to the defendants, because Ms. Jones did not file her motion for appeal until March 13, 2023, it was untimely. Mr. Lunsford and Citizens for a New Louisiana specifically referred to the 2021 revisions to LSA-C.C.P. art. 2088(A)(10), pursuant to which the trial court retains jurisdiction over those matters not reviewable under the appeal, which includes the right to set and tax costs, expert witness fees, and attorney fees.

[1, 2] An appellant’s failure to file a devolutive appeal timely is a jurisdictional defect, in that neither the court of appeal nor any other court has the jurisdictional power and authority to reverse, revise or modify a final judgment...