Sign Here v. Chavez, 1 CA-CV 16-0363

Sign Here Petitions, LLC and Petition Partners competed in collecting petition signatures; Chavez is a managing member of Petition Partners who posted tweets criticizing Sign Here’s Cholla referendum drive.
Sign Here submitted ~20,172 signatures but only 12,659 were valid; two circulators were convicted felons whose signatures were disqualified.
Sign Here withheld about $17,000 from an approximate $71,000 contract payment due to performance disputes.
Chavez tweeted statements predicting the referendum would fail, alleging many signatures were collected by felons, and criticizing Sign Here’s competence and cost.
Petition Partners moved for summary judgment arguing the tweets were non-defamatory, substantially true, and other claims were time-barred or unsupported; the superior court granted summary judgment and denied Sign Here’s Rule 60 post-judgment relief.
The court of appeals affirmed, articulating the superior court’s gatekeeping role in defamation suits under the Arizona Constitution and applying an enhanced review.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether tweets were capable of defamatory meaning	Tweets were indisputably false and could be read as factual statements damaging reputation	Tweets were rhetorical hyperbole, opinion, or non-actionable puffery when read in context	Held not capable of defamatory meaning as a matter of law; summary judgment proper
Whether factual disputes precluded summary judgment on substantial truth	Factual disputes exist about accuracy and the statements were not mere exaggeration	Statements were substantially true in gist; minor inaccuracies irrelevant	Held substantially true; any inaccuracies would not materially change the gist
Standard/role of court on defamation SJ	(implicit) Jury should resolve meanings where reasonable people could disagree	Court must act as gatekeeper to protect free speech and decide capacity to be defamatory first	Held court must determine whether statement is capable of defamatory meaning under all circumstances from reasonable person’s viewpoint before jury considers conveyed meaning
Whether post-judgment tweets justify relief under Rule 60	Post-judgment tweets altered context and warranted relief from judgment	Post-judgment statements are irrelevant to perceptions at time of original statements; no extraordinary circumstances	Held Rule 60 relief denied; post-judgment tweets do not undermine original ruling

State ex rel. Corbin v. Tolleson, 160 Ariz. 385 (App. 1989) (discusses free speech as foundational and commercial-speech distinctions)
Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co. v. Ariz. Corp. Comm'n, 160 Ariz. 350 (discusses Arizona Constitution’s free-speech protection)
Yetman v. English, 168 Ariz. 71 (establishes two-step gatekeeping: court decides if statement is capable of defamatory meaning before jury)
Read v. Phoenix Newspapers, Inc., 169 Ariz. 353 (plaintiff bears heightened burden to establish prima facie defamation with convincing clarity; substantial-truth defense)
Turner v. Devlin, 174 Ariz. 201 (applies gatekeeping, recognizes rhetorical hyperbole and opinion in commercial/dispute contexts)