JEFFERSON CITY â A Kansas man on Monday filed a lawsuit against a Tennessee congressman who falsely claimed on social media that he was in the United States illegally and a shooter in the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl rally shooting.
Denton Loudermill, a Johnson County resident, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas against U.S. Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, who last month shared a photo of Loudermill and erroneously wrote that one of the Kansas City shooters had been identified as an âillegal alien.â
Burchettâs false post caused Loudermill to receive death threats, incur damages totaling more than $75,000, anxiety and loss of sleep, according to the lawsuit, which accuses Burchett of false light invasion of privacy. The lawsuit asks a judge to issue damages âto punishâ Burchett or deter him and others from similar conduct in the future.
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The false light claim alleged in Loudermillâs lawsuit is different from a defamation claim and requires a higher standard of proof. A false light claim has to be made to a large group of people while a defamatory statement only has to be made to one other person.
A spokesperson for Burchett did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Loudermillâs lead attorney in the case is Arthur Benson, a longtime Kansas City civil rights attorney.
âWith this Complaint we are beginning the process to obtain full redress for Mr. Loudermill for the damages he has suffered,â Benson said in a statement.
Mondayâs lawsuit comes after Burchettâs false post sparked a social media firestorm in the wake of the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Kansas City that injured more than 20 people and killed 43-year-old Lisa Lopez-Galvan. A group of Missouri lawmakers â including Republican Sens. Nick Schroer, Rick Brattin and Denny Hoskins â also shared similar posts and have refused to apologize.
đšBREAKING: I am filing suit against Media Matters to force them to turn over documents regarding their solicitation of donations to bully advertisers into pulling out of X, the last platform dedicated to free speech in America.
â Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey)
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Loudermill told The Star last month that âeverybody that put my name through the mud, everybody needs to be held accountable.â He said police detained him because he wasnât leaving the area of the shooting quick enough but that he was released after about 30 to 45 minutes. He has not been charged with any crime stemming from the events of Feb. 14.
On the day after the shooting, Burchett was in Washington, D.C., when his account on X, formerly known as Twitter, shared the photo of Loudermill writing that one of the shooters âhas been identified as an illegal Alien,â according to the lawsuit. Burchett republished the false claim in another post three days later.
Burchett âknew or should have known that his inflammatory post on social media would be seen and read nationwide, including in Kansas where the subject of his post was a resident,â the lawsuit alleges. The post was âquickly seen by more than one million viewers.â
The lawsuit makes clear that Loudermill, of Olathe, is not in the United States illegally and was not involved in last monthâs mass shooting.
Earlier this month, a 20-year-old Kansas City man became the third adult to be charged with murder in the mass shooting. A third teen was also charged.
The shooting stemmed from a dispute between two groups that erupted into gunfire.
The Starâs Sarah Ritter contributed to this report.