The owners of a Layton Subway shop are suing the city for defamation after their employee was wrongly accused of drugging a police officer’s lemonade last year.
Franchise owners Dallas Buttars and Kristin Myers say in the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court that sales dropped off precipitously after police publicized the Aug. 8, 2016, drink spiking claims. They also say several employees of the the shop quit after being questioned by police.
“This is an unusual case in that it deals with constitutional defamation or slander by a public agency, a police department in this case,” Robert Sykes, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in an email.