Court dismisses libel suit against news outlet, awards attorneys’ fees 

A state court has dismissed a lawsuit filed in May against a Montana news outlet over its reporting on a complaint about a political consultant, citing a new Montana law designed to protect press freedoms. The judge also awarded attorneys’ fees to the defendants. 

The 13th Judicial District Court dismissed the lawsuit from Republican political consultant Jake Eaton in an order dated Oct. 6. The order was distributed to defendants on Friday, Oct. 30. Attorneys’ fees haven’t yet been calculated. 

The state law at the root of the decision is the Uniform Public Expression Protection Act, passed by the Montana Legislature in 2025 as the state’s first anti-SLAPP law. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuit against public participation.” 

“In enacting UPEPA, the Montana Legislature directed courts to construe UPEPA ‘broadly’ and apply it ‘to protect the exercise of the right of freedom of speech and of the press,’” Judge Jessica Fehr wrote. 

Eaton sued Billings attorney Gene Jarussi for statements Jarussi made encouraging the Legislative Audit Committee to investigate Eaton. Jarussi said the Montana Department of Justice had paid roughly $1.8 million over three years to Eaton and his wife, attorney Emily Jones, and that those payments weren’t documented through publicly available contracts with the state. Jarussi questioned what work was performed for the payments and pushed for more information. 

Jones is currently serving on the Judicial Standards Commission. Eaton operates Western Media Partners, a political consultancy. 

Eaton’s lawsuit also named the nonprofit news organization Daily Montanan and its editors, publisher, reporter and two executives of the outlet’s parent company for writing about Jarussi’s complaint. 

Specifically, Eaton zeroed in on a statement Jarussi made in a letter delivered to the audit committee and shared with media outlets. The statement said Jarussi had previously prosecuted a campaign finance violation case against one of Eaton’s business entities. 

Eaton said his business was never prosecuted for a campaign finance violation and demanded that both the outlet and Jarussi issue a retraction. Eaton alleged defamation and libel and asked for punitive damages. 

Jarussi eventually submitted a new letter to the Legislative Audit Committee correcting the error and accurately explaining the involvement of Eaton and his business in the case, which included a subpoena dispute and resulting sanctions, Judge Fehr wrote. 

Reached Friday, Jarussi said the mistake was a simple error. 

“If you watch enough baseball, the shortstop gets a ground ball, throws it to first base, does it 100 times, and then for some reason one time throws it into the stands, and you go ‘huh, I wonder how that happened.’ And that’s this. I’d told the story 100 times. And I don’t know why, when I was drafting up those questions, I don’t know if I was trying to take a shortcut or what, but it was just a mistake.”

Asked Friday afternoon about the ruling, Eaton texted: “It is not that surprising that a Bullock-appointed judge would side with a liberal Democrat activist and a liberal blog.” 

Eaton added: “With this ruling we now have the unfortunate reality of the law allowing anyone to legally defame a private citizen so long as they do it in a context that is tangentially related to an official proceeding. I doubt that will be a positive impact for the nature of discourse in our society.”