Thomas Williams and Sanford Kelsey, Appellants (plaintiffs Below) v. Kelly Eugene Tharp and Papa John's U.S.A…

Summary

The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for Papa John's and Tharp, holding that Tharp's reports that a customer had pulled a gun were protected by a qualified privilege. The privilege could be defeated only by proof that Tharp knowingly made a false report or that the circumstances showed he had no discernible basis for believing it was true, and the designated evidence did not create a genuine issue on that point. The court also held that the privilege barred the related false-imprisonment, negligence, intentional-infliction, and punitive-damages claims, and that the evidentiary exclusions did not affect the result. Justices Boehm and Rucker dissented, concluding that the evidence collectively supported an inference that Tharp knowingly made and repeated false accusations.