The Uniform Public Expression Protection Act protects statements that are made in relation to, or about, a governmental proceeding. But what if the statement is a complaint made to a governmental entity that isn’t already investigating the subject matter of the complaint?
Austin Anderson was detained by the St. Cloud, Minnesota, police on outstanding warrants. While in jail, Austin’s sister, Ashley Anderson — a licensed clinical social worker — called the jail to tell them about Austin’s Type 1 diabetes. A couple of weeks later, Ashley learned that another brother, Adam Anderson, had filed an online report that complained about Ashley to the Minnesota Board of Social Work. The essence of Adam’s complaint was that Ashley had misused her position as a social worker to improperly obtain protected health information about Austin from the jail and other governmental sources.
Claiming that Adam’s statements were false, Ashley sued Adam for defamation and her other siblings (Adam, Austin, and Arica) for civil conspiracy. Ashley’s lawsuit was brought in the Stearns County District Court in Minnesota.
For their part, Adam, Austin and Arica filed a motion to dismiss Ashley’s complaint under the Minnesota UPEPA, and other Minnesota rules. The district court found that Adam’s report was a communication in a governmental proceeding about a matter of public concern and that Ashley otherwise could not prove up essential parts of her claims. The district court then ordered Adam, Austin and Arica to submit an affidavit for their attorney fees sought against Ashley.
Ashely moved to vacate the district court’s order on the basis that the district court had misapplied the Minnesota UPEPA. Ashely also now argued, for the first time, that the UPEPA violated her constitutional right to a jury trial (the previous Minnesota Anti-SLAPP law had been invalidated years earlier for this very reason). The district court declined to vacate its previous order and Ashley then appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Because Ashley challenged the constitutionality of a statute, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office intervened in the case. The appeal resulted in the opinion in Anderson v. Anderson, 2026 WL 1128755 (Minn.App., April 27, 2026), that we shall next explore.
The first issue taken up by the appeals court was whether the district court should have granted the UPEPA special motion filed by Adam, Austin and Arica. Reviewing Minnesota’s UPEPA, the appeals court noted the UPEPA three-step analysis: (1) the challenged cause of action falls within the scope of the UPEPA; (2) the plaintiff can make a prima facie case for recovery; and (3) the defendant can show that there are grounds for dismissal of the case.
On the first element, the UPEPA describes three areas of protected expression. The first two related to communications made pursuant to some governmental proceeding or about some issue that was under consideration by a governmental proceeding. The third area is speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution or its counterpart in the Minnesota Constitution “on a matter of public concern”.
Adam argued that his report to the Minnesota Board of Social Work was a communication pursuant to a governmental proceeding and the district court agreed. But Ashley disagreed and argued that because Adam’s complaint occurred before there was any governmental proceeding ongoing, and in fact Adam’s report later initiated the Board’s investigation of Ashley, Adam’s complaint was not a communication made in or about a governmental proceeding.
The appeals court noted that “proceeding” encompasses all business that would come before a court or agency. Since Adam’s complaint was a part of the business before the Minnesota Board of Social Work, then his complaint to that Board satisfied the requirement that it be a communication in a governmental proceeding. Thus, Adam’s complaint was within the scope of the Minnesota UPEPA.
Once Adam proved that his complaint submitted to the Board was within the scope of the UPEPA, then it was up to Ashley to prove that she could still prevail on her cause of action. She tried to find an exception to the UPEPA, claiming that she fell within an exception unique to Minnesota that the UPEPA does not apply to a victim’s lawsuit against a crime perpetrator. The problem with this, of course, was that Ashley was not a victim of any crime for which Adam had been convicted.
Ashley next argued that she was a victim of criminal defamation by Adam. The appeals court disagreed. To prove criminal defamation, Ashley had to plead and prove that Adam knew that his statements were false at the time that he made those statements, and there was no such evidence in the record. Although Ashley had alleged things like malice, ill-will and improper motives by Adam, that still fell short of proving that Adam knew that his statements were false. Thus, Ashley could not make a claim that she was a victim of criminal defamation and so could not fall within that exception to the UPEPA’s coverage.
The appeals court next examined whether Ashley could prove up each element of her case for defamation against Adam. To do this, Ashley had to point to sufficient evidence for each element of her defamation claim that it could properly be considered by a jury. This, of course, is the same standard that is applied on a motion for summary judgment ― exactly as the UPEPA intends.
The district court found that Ashley had failed to prove that Adam’s statements tended to harm Ashley’s reputation or standing in the community. Although Ashley alleged this in her lawsuit, her conclusory statement did not equate to proof. By contrast, the appeals court noted that Adam had privately submitted his complaint to the Minnesota Board of Social Work only, and did not disseminate it to the public generally, such that there was no proof that Ashley’s reputation had been harmed at all. Since the Board did not take any disciplinary action against Ashley, her reputation had not been harmed in that regard either.
The bottom line was that the appeals court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Ashley’s defamation claim against Adam. Because Ashley’s defamation claim failed, her claim that her siblings had conspired to defame her likewise failed. Thus, it was appropriate for the district court to dismiss Ashley’s entire case.
All this left one issue to be resolved, which was whether the Minnesota UPEPA violated Ashley’s right to a jury trial. Here it should be recalled that Minnesota’s previous Anti-SLAPP law had been ruled unconstitutional on those grounds. So this was a quite substantial issue to be considered by the appeals court.
The Minnesota Constitution provides that the right to a jury trial be inviolate. The prior Minnesota Anti-SLAPP law required that the court make certain pre-trial factual findings which was held to violate the right to a jury trial. In sharp contrast, the UPEPA tracks the existing summary judgment standard which only looks to whether a minimum of evidence exists and does not require the court to decide issues of facts. Also, the UPEPA does not require the court to apply a burden of proof that was higher than would be required at trial. Thus, the appeals court held that the Minnesota UPEPA was constitutional.
ANALYSIS
This opinion answers the important issue of whether the Minnesota UPEPA violates the right to jury trial under the Minnesota constitution, although of course the Minnesota Supreme Court will have to itself weigh in on this issue. The analysis of the appeals court here is correct. The UPEPA applies the summary judgment standard and the summary judgment standard has been repeated held not to violate a party’s right to jury trial. This is why the UPEPA is constitutional in states such as Minnesota and Washington whose previous Anti-SLAPP acts have been invalidated because they employed a higher standard of proof than the summary judgment standard.
The other issue resolved by this opinion is scarcely less important. The holding here is that a complaint made to a governmental entity is within the UPEPA’s scope because the business of the governmental entity is to receive such complaints. Or, to put it differently, a complaint made to a governmental entity is still within the UPEPA’s scope even if that complaint starts the wheels of that governmental entity to grind. The “governmental proceeding” is already going on when the complaint is submitted. Whether the governmental entity later does anything with the complaint (here, the Board did not) is irrelevant.
Having said that, it does not mean that a person can knowingly make a false complaint to a government entity and believe that the UPEPA will protect them. It will not. A person who knowingly makes a false complaint will still be subject to a defamation complaint that will survive the UPEPA as well as possibly for abuse of process, malicious prosecution or similar causes of action. Which is to say that the UPEPA doesn’t create a license for one person to knowingly harm another through communications.
The appeals court also focused on the fact that Adam’s complaint to the Board about Ashley was kept private to the Board and was not disseminated publicly. This is critical. There is a big difference between making a private protected complaint to a government entity and quite another to make such a complaint and then splash it publicly through a press release or social media post or whatever.
Which is all to say that while the UPEPA is very straightforward in its application, there can be substantial nuance with the facts against which it is applied. A very slight change in the circumstances can lead to quite different results. This requires that practitioners in this area have a deep understanding of the facts of a particular case and not approach the UPEPA superficially.
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