Williams v. Tharp

On Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 29A02-0707-CV-625.

DICKSON, Justice.

This appeal challenges the trial court's grant of summary judgment which found privileged a restaurant employee's statements to a passerby and a police officer that a customer had "pulled a gun" inside the store. The plaintiffs, Sanford Kelsey and Thomas Williams, respectively, the suspected gun carrier and his companion (neither of whom actually had a gun), sued the restaurant operator, Papa John's U.SA., Ine., and its employee, Kelly Tharp, for a variety of torts (defamation per se, false imprisonment,…