Minnesota law allows people to bad-mouth a person, and even deliberately lie, to a state regulatory board without fear of legal reprisal, a judge has ruled. The protection is part of a state law covering "quasi-judicial" agencies, District Judge Timothy Connell decided in overturning a jury verdict recently. "Without this privilege, there would be a chilling effect upon people coming forth with allegations that should be investigated by boards such as these," the judge said. The ruling may have ended a case in Worthington that involved questionable allegations against a dentist and a criminal-defamation law apparently dormant for 67 years. The complicated case began in September 1998, when a caller told the state Board of Dentistry that Dr. Bruce Larson of Worthington had "messed up" his root canal and was practicing while drunk. But investigators for the board and the attorney general's office discovered that the caller had used a false name and, despite two other anonymous calls, they did not find evidence to support any disciplinary action against the dentist. The case was closed. Then Worthington police traced phone calls to the home of Jerry Obermoller, Larson's next-door neighbor on Lake Okabena. Ken Kohler, then the Nobles County attorney, charged Obermoller with criminal defamation, which generally makes it a crime to expose a person or group to "hatred, contempt, ridicule, degradation or disgrace in society or injury to business or occupation." The offense, a gross misdemeanor, is rarely prosecuted anywhere in the United States. The last case notation found in Minnesota law books was in 1935, and legal experts said the statute could be an unconstitutional infringement on free speech and could stifle complaints to state licensing boards. A Nobles County jury convicted Obermoller in March 2001 after a three-day trial. He was sentenced to probation and fined $1,530. Then Obermoller changed attorneys, hiring Ron Meshbesher of Minneapolis, and asked the judge to throw out the conviction. Meshbesher cited case law that a defamatory statement is "absolutely privileged" — exempt from civil or criminal defamation under statute — "if published in the course of a judicial or quasi-judicial proceeding and is relevant to the proceedings ... even when made maliciously and with knowledge of falsehood." Courts have accepted that argument for state agencies, such as the Board of Pardons and the Commerce Department, that have quasi-judicial disciplinary powers, Meshbesher argued. Despite objections from the prosecutor, the judge agreed and, in an order signed July 30, vacated the conviction. "Essentially, people must feel free to communicate openly with quasi-judicial entities such as the State Board of Dentistry," he wrote. Joe Friedberg, a Minneapolis attorney who represented Larson in a defamation lawsuit against Obermoller, criticized the decision. He said he would have argued to the judge that, under the decision: "Your Honor, I can report you to the Board of Judicial Standards, say you molest children or little old ladies or little old men, and know it's false, and you can't do anything about it." Larson said he won an out-of-court settlement in a separate civil lawsuit, in which Obermoller did not admit culpability. The amount is confidential, but "it was nice," he said.