Cramer files second tort claim against commissioners, county

SANDPOINT — Bonner County resident Rick Cramer is seeking a total of roughly $1.5 million spread across two tort claims filed in connection to his being trespassed from county commission meetings earlier this year.

A tort is a claim filed by an individual who was injured by the wrongdoing of a federal employee acting in the scope of his or her official duties. The claim requests the reimbursement of injury or damages caused by the employee’s wrongdoing.

Cramer initially filed a tort claim, often a precursor to a lawsuit against a governmental agency, in February after he was trespassed from, and subsequently arrested at, the Bonner County Administration Building for refusing to leave the premises. The notice of trespass came from Commissioner Luke Omodt after he claimed Cramer had repeatedly disrupted county business meetings.

While the trespass denied Cramer access to the Administration Building for one year, that decision has since been overturned and Cramer has been allowed back to the meetings.

However, Cramer is still seeking damages from the county — and specifically Omodt and Commissioner Steve Bradshaw, who voted to approve his trespass — to rectify the harm that he claims has been caused due to these events.

In that initial claim, Cramer sought $750,000 for non-economic damages.

“[Cramer] suffered public embarrassment, the loss of dignity, the loss of liberty, mental anguish and other suffering,” the tort claim said.

In the supplemental tort claim, filed in early May, Cramer is seeking an additional $705,000 for reputational repair damage, which would bring the total of sought damages to nearly $1.5 million.

According to Cramer’s attorney, Dan Sheckler of Sheckler Law Office, the decision to trespass Cramer was illegally executed by two of the three commissioners and has damaged Cramer’s reputation. While Cramer was notified verbally that he was being trespassed Jan. 26, the board did not vote on the matter until March 7. Sheckler also claimed Omodt did not have the power to trespass anyone without a vote, as he did in January, because he is not the sole owner of county property.

“The BOCC cannot make it a crime for [Cramer] to have previously remained in the Administrative Building when ordered to leave by a person without authority at the time the request was made of [Cramer],” Sheckler argued in the tort. “The attempt to retroactively trespass [Cramer] is void and the arrest remains unlawful.”

Sheckler said the board’s decision to grant his client’s appeal and reverse the decision to trespass him “does not cure the aforesaid constitutional infirmities.”

Sheckler claimed the March 7 meeting when commissioners voted to trespass Cramer was an adjudicatory hearing, “specifically affecting [Cramer],” and he therefore should have been allowed an opportunity to speak prior to the vote. Although both he and his counsel were present during the meeting, neither were given the opportunity to speak, Sheckler said.

Omodt also mentioned a “fear of violence” as a reason for trespassing. The Bonner county man’s counsel claimed that Cramer has done nothing to elicit either violence or the fear of it.

“Approaching the commissioners’ table and speaking out of order does not rise to a true threat of an assault,” Sheckler said in the tort.

Sheckler said that should an attendee be disruptive, the law allows the chairman of the board to remove that citizen from that particular meeting. It does not, he said, give the chairman the authority to “banish citizens from public meetings” altogether.

The attorney claimed the actions taken against Cramer have been an “unconstitutional bill of attainder” — an act that allows the government to punish an individual or group of individuals for a perceived crime without going through the proper trial process first.

There are dangerous consequences when a government has the power to pass a bill of attainder, the tort said.

“If it may banish at discretion all those whom particular circumstances render obnoxious, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction,” the tort said, quoting “The Federalist Papers.”

Had the commissioners or county employees had solid proof that Cramer posed a threat to the county proceedings, Sheckler said the board should have sought a judicial determination by an impartial court, instead of resorting to a bill of attainder.

“[Cramer’s] reputation was significantly damaged as a result of the wrongful arrest, the wrongful trespass and the wrongful comments of the commissioners,” Sheckler said in his conclusion.

According to a roughly 100-page analysis and opinion by Eric Rose, a partner at Englander Knabe & Allen — an independent public affairs agency — Cramer should be awarded the requested $705,000 by the county to begin a robust reputation repair campaign in the form of “content suppression.” This campaign would work to create social media posts, ads, and various other content across multiple platforms “to amplify positive messaging and mitigate negative publicity.”

“The primary goal would be to get people to go to properties owned and controlled by Mr. Cramer, reducing the prominence of negative stories and directing users toward a controlled narrative,” Rose said in his analysis. “It will enable Mr. Cramer to have greater control over the narrative surrounding his brand.”

Rose said that by doing this, Cramer’s bad press will not be deleted, but it will “suppress the negative stories so that they will not be found on the first few pages of a Google search.”

Rose estimated that the campaign breakdown will cost Cramer roughly $150,000 for paid search results, $50,000 for advertising on Facebook, and $25,000 for YouTube ads. He also suggested that Cramer create his own website, costing roughly $15,000. The creation of six video ads was estimated to cost $30,000 and a digital reputation management firm — whom Cramer would be encouraged to hire to manage the campaign — would cost roughly $240,000 the first year and $120,000 the second year. The cost of native display and videos came in at $75,000.

Rose suggested that Cramer utilize the campaign for at least two years.

“A two-year campaign enables Mr. Cramer to gradually influence the search results and enhance the visibility of positive content,” Rose said. “He can push down negative articles and replace them with more favorable information by consistently promoting new content. A sustained effort will likely keep the negative articles suppressed.”

Rose claimed that $705,000 “represents the minimum amount of money necessary” to implement a reputation repair campaign. According to him, many campaigns of similar nature exceed $500,000 a month.

“I can confidently say that it takes time for the stress, hurt and humiliation caused by reputational damage to go away,” Rose said.