Former Park City School District Chief Operating Officer Mike Tanner filed a lawsuit against freelance journalist Michelle Deininger, alleging defamation and being painted in a false light stemming from an article she wrote that was published in The Park Record.
The civil suit, filed in Summit County’s Third District Court on Thursday, claims Deininger has regularly targeted Tanner and the school district in her reporting, and that her campaign against Tanner has caused him to suffer personally and professionally. Tanner is seeking a jury trial.
Tanner was employed as the school district’s COO, responsible for overseeing construction projects and security initiatives, from 2019 through March 2025. District administrators said Tanner was let go in a “reduction-in-force.” However, his lawsuit claims he was “fired” because they believed he was guilty of various types of negligence and misconduct that Deininger had alleged.
The lawsuit states Deininger wrote 27 articles with a “negative message” about the school district or officials in other news media before the publication of a November 2024 story in The Park Record detailing Tanner’s salary, work agreements and contracts. The article raised concerns about how much the COO was being paid, whether “special assignment” duty contracts were repetitive, and how Tanner was dividing his time.
“The November Story includes false statements of fact, manipulated figures, and distorted half-truths, patched together in a malicious attempt to damage Mr. Tanner’s reputation and livelihood,” the lawsuit states.
Specifically, the lawsuit says the allegations about the amount of time Tanner spent living and working in Illinois, a bus driver incident, the delayed opening of a school, the total compensation he received and that he was hired for the COO position because of preferential treatment are false. Tanner was also granted a remote work contract by then-Superintendent Jill Gildea partly for Air Force Reserves duties as recently as 2024, but records show he retired in 2021.
Lawyers for Tanner argued Deininger should have taken more care in confirming the details of the story. They said he was subject to “public disapproval and humiliation,” which has harmed his professional and personal reputation.
“Some of the statements in the November Story may not appear damaging on their face, but within the context of accusations that Mr. Tanner was overpaid and worked from a distance much of the time, they created a clear impression of neglect and laziness, and of benefiting unfairly from public funds,” the complaint states.
Tanner alleged that Deininger started a subsequent campaign against him following the publication of the article. The lawsuit said Deininger asked Park City Board of Education candidates about the remote work agreement Tanner had with the school district and speculations about the district’s safety.
It also alleges that Deininger filed a false police report and stalked Tanner’s residence and invaded his privacy beyond the “ordinary course of the journalistic investigation of government employees.”
Tanner accused Deininger of trying to turn the community against him and destroying his career. The lawsuit said he has faced extreme difficulty in finding a new job and the “false allegations” from the November article have forced him to defend his record and behavior with future employers and community members.
Tanner said he has not been employed since he was terminated despite obtaining several job interviews. He estimated he will lose more than $300,000 in future income as well as the income lost from being let go from the school district. The school district’s separation agreement with Tanner allocated more than $161,000 for wages, emotional distress and attorney fees.
His reputation in the military community has also been damaged, according to the lawsuit. It did not address documents confirming Tanner retired from the military in 2021, despite suggesting last year he was still active.
Tanner asked a judge to award compensatory damages for an amount to be determined at trial, award the costs associated with bringing the case forward and award punitive damages for Deininger’s alleged malicious intent. The Park Record is not named in the lawsuit.
Deininger provided communications and documents supporting the claims in her article before it was published in The Park Record. The school district threatened legal action after the November article was published, but no specific corrections were ordered and district officials did not respond to questions intended to address any discrepancies.
Last month, Deininger was awarded the Utah Society of Professional Journalists’ Don Baker Investigative Journalism Award for her reporting.
Deininger could not be reached for comment by the time of publication. Attorneys for Tanner were also unavailable.