KNOXVILLE, Tenn — A Kansas judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit against U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, ruling he lacks the jurisdiction to consider the case.
Denton Loudermill Jr., a suburban Kansas City resident and Kansas City Chiefs fan, sued the Knoxville Republican in March in federal court in Kansas after Burchett tweeted a photo of Loudermill. In the tweet, Burchett referred to Loudermill as a gunman and an "illegal" who had disrupted a February Chiefs Super Bowl celebration in downtown Kansas City.
Loudermill was not, in fact, the gunman who fired shots during the celebration, killing one and wounding others. Nor was Loudermill armed. He's also a U.S. citizen, his Kansas City attorney Arthur Benson noted in the complaint.
Loudermill had attended the Chiefs celebration with hundreds of thousands of fans to share in the joy of their second consecutive Super Bowl victory.
Benson told WBIR on Thursday he expected to file his client's complaint in federal court in Washington, D.C. "promptly."
In May, Burchett's attorneys argued the lawsuit should be dismissed in federal court in Kansas City, Kan., because the action had nothing really to do with Kansas. Burchett didn't live there and didn't represent Kansas and wasn't talking about Kansas in his tweet.
U.S. District Judge John W. Broomes agreed in a decision filed Tuesday.
"(Loudermill) has failed to meet his burden to show that this court has personal jurisdiction over (Burchett). (Loudermill) has failed to put forth any evidence from which this court could find that (Burchett) 'purposefully directed its activities at residents of the forum, and the litigation results from alleged injuries that arise out of or relate to those activities.' "
Burchett campaign spokesman Michael Grider told WBIR on Thursday: "The Congressman is happy to be able to focus his energy and efforts on the upcoming election."
Burchett is running to retain his seat in November against Democrat Jane George.
MORE THAN 20 SHOT
As the Chiefs celebration was winding down Feb. 14, shots rang out near Union Station and a stage erected for the team.
Loudermill was part of the massive crowd of Chiefs fans at the site.
In the ensuing melee, as Kansas City police sought to identify the source of the gunfire, they grabbed Loudermill, cuffed him and sat him down on a curb. Loudermill said in his lawsuit he'd been moving too slow as police tried to clear the scene and ended up being detained.
Someone took Loudermill's photo; it ended up on social media. It was distributed widely on Twitter.
Many photos of people down at Union Station were taken that day and dispersed because of the high-profile nature of the event.
In a matter of minutes, when Kansas City police determined there was no further reason to keep Loudermill because he'd done nothing wrong, they uncuffed him and let him go on his way.
Burchett, who tweets often about congressional business and other things that catch his fancy, saw the photo of Loudermill, dressed in red and sitting on the curb, and wrote a factually false message with it.
The message: "One of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade shooters has been identified as an illegal alien."
Burchett later tweeted he'd gotten that information from "multiple incorrect news reports". He's not provided evidence of what "news reports" he was tweeting about.
The Kansas man has, as a result of Burchett's actions, suffered mental anguish, sleeplessness and anxiety, the lawsuit stated. He's been humiliated and has endured insults, the lawsuit states.
