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LOGAN — Cache County taxpayers are funding a private defamation lawsuit that two employees in the Cache County Attorney's Office have brought against two members of the public, according to documents obtained from a public records request.
Some are questioning the unusual move, expressing concerns about free speech, potential liability and whether the move is an appropriate use of tax money.
The county employees — Terryl Warner, the director of victim services, and Tonya Ryan, a victim advocate who has worked for the county for a decade — are seeking $500,000 or more in damages after being subjected to a "relentless campaign of defamation, harassment and emotional torture," according to the complaint.
The lawsuit claims Ryan worked with victims in cases involving a Logan woman, who pleaded no contest to stalking charges across four different cases in December 2022. In the midst of these criminal proceedings, the Logan woman and her friend "spread vile and baseless accusations against (Warner and Ryan), falsely painting them as racists, criminals and even child traffickers," according to the civil suit.
The women posted these messages on Facebook, a personal blog website and YouTube channel, court documents say.
Ryan was granted a civil stalking injunction against the Logan woman in March 2023, but the woman was arrested three separate times for violating it, according to court documents. Warner has never met the two women in question, though she says she has been subjected to their accusations.
"They were being stalked and harassed," Cache County Attorney Taylor Sorensen said. "Given that it was only arising because of their job duties, they decided to ask the council if they would be willing to fund it and the council decided that they would be willing to contribute some money toward that."
As part of a closed session, the Cache County Council agreed to pay a private law firm $20,000 as a retainer fee so that Warner and Ryan could bring the defamation case against the two Logan women, according to a receipt from Feb. 29 along with the retainer agreement obtained by Logan lawyer Joe Saxton through a public records request.
In a March 26 budget hearing, an amendment was approved to transfer $20,000 to the county's professional and technical account, where the retainer payment was drawn from almost a month earlier.
The Cache County employees are being represented in their individual capacities, and the county is not named in the lawsuit, despite the funding source and the claim in the complaint that the "malicious and false statements" were "connected to (Warner and Ryan's) employment with the Cache County Attorney's Office as victim advocates."
If county employees were the target of a lawsuit, which is relatively common, the county has an insurance policy that would contribute toward legal fees, according to Cache County Executive David Zook. But this situation is the opposite, where employees are bringing a lawsuit against members of the public.
Speaking generally, University of Utah law professor RonNell Andersen Jones told KSL.com that "cities and counties often have systems in place to help government officials and employees defend themselves when someone sues them on a matter related to their government work, but not to use taxpayer money to help those employees sue citizens."
Saxton, who first made the records requests, told KSL.com, "The county has committed to covering all legal fees for a private matter involving employees in their individual capacities, with no clear explanation provided to the public."
According to the description of the cost on the county's receipt, the charge was "discussed with Cache County Council," and "David Zook has signed the contract." But Zook, the county executive who holds an elected office similar to a county mayor, denies signing the agreement. "It was probably a staff person, one of my deputies who actually signed it and reviewed it," he said.
"I had shared that I was not supportive of taking this action and that was the last I heard about it," Zook said. "I didn't realize that the county attorney had decided to move forward with this."
Sorensen said his role was to make sure the suit was legal.
"My role as the county attorney is just to ensure that money is spent according to the law and that we follow state code," he said. "It's not my decision whether or not we should spend county funds."
Despite multiple requests for comment over weeks, Cache County Council members Barbara Tidwell, Dave Erickson, Nolan Gunnell and Karl Ward did not respond.
Without knowing the details of this particular case, Jones said "these sorts of libel suits are deeply discouraged, both as a matter of libel law and as a matter of free speech doctrine."
"As a constitutional matter, the Supreme Court has heavily discouraged public officials from using libel lawsuits as a tool for striking back at citizens they think have wronged them," Jones said. "The preferred tool is not a lawsuit to punish the citizen's speech but instead more speech on the part of the public official, countering the falsehoods in the public sphere and addressing them with truthful information."
"The legal fees in such a suit are likely to be very high and not result in a win for the public official, which might make them a particularly poor use of taxpayer funds," according to Jones.
But Sorensen contends that these protections do not apply to Warner and Ryan. "They're not elected officials, they're otherwise anonymous employees," Sorensen said.
"If plaintiffs are found to be public officials or public figures, they will face a quite difficult uphill battle in the suit," Jones said.
Saxton argues that the retainer agreement is a serious liability for the county, with private lawyers charging $300 to $425 an hour, versus the estimated $49 an hour public defenders in the county make.
The county may be on the hook for the attorney fees of the Logan women being sued, Saxton says, and there has been no clear answer whether the county would be reimbursed if Warner and Ryan win the case and are awarded damages.
To make matters more complicated, one of the defendants is facing criminal proceedings in Cache County and is being prosecuted by the Cache County Attorney's Office, which Saxton believes is a potential conflict of interest.
"The county is not a party to the lawsuit in the civil case," Sorensen said, "and this criminal case that this particular individual is a part of is completely unrelated."
Correction: A previous version incorrectly spelled the names of Taylor Sorensen as Sorenson and Joe Saxton as Paxton.
