FARGO — A judge has dismissed a case brought against the West Acres Shopping Center by a Moorhead man, who alleged the mall defamed him last fall when he was selling President Donald Trump memorabilia near the facility .

On Thursday, June 20, Cass County District Judge Stephanie Stiel granted the defense’s motion and dismissed Eric N. Smith’s case, in which he asked for $500,000 in damages, according to court papers.

Smith claimed in his lawsuit, filed in April, that on Sept. 24, 2018, mall security approached him near the Chic-Fil-A restaurant located in the West Acres parking lot and harassed him and his friend, Charles Tuttle, who at the time was running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Smith and Tuttle were selling Trump memorabilia and the suit claimed that mall security continued to harass Smith and Tuttle by calling Chic-Fil-A “every 10 minutes harassing them to ask us to leave the area even after police informed security that we had every right to be in that area on the boulevard.”

Stiel dismissed the case because Smith’s complaint hadn’t met the state’s standard for a defamation lawsuit, court papers show.

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In a phone interview on Friday, Smith said he plans on filing a different lawsuit in Cass County District Court against the West Acres Mall and the city of Fargo alleging that his civil rights, specifically his freedom of speech, had been violated in the incident on Sept. 24.

Smith said he was on public property and that he was harassed because he was selling Trump memorabilia.

“If I wasn’t a Trump supporter, this never would have happened,” Smith said.