Libel and False Light

A new type of suit to most folks is “false light.”

Expect to hear a lot more about it, compliments of Shaw Newspapers' Kane County Chronicle. (Shaw also owns the Northwest Herald.)

A Sun-Times article by Eric Herman Monday explained the case this way:

Chief Justice Robert Thomas sued the Kane County Chronicle in 2004, alleging the paper libeled him in a series of columns by Bill Page.

Some more details from Herman’s story:

The Page columns dealt with the case of Meg Gorecki, a former Kane County state's attorney who faced discipline by the Supreme Court. According to Page, Thomas had a bias against Gorecki and wanted to suspend her law license for a year.

But Thomas agreed to a four-month suspension, Page wrote, after Gorecki supporters backed a judicial candidate he favored.

At one point, Page sent the Supreme Court an e-mail promising a "nightmare of bad publicity" if Thomas didn't withdraw from the Gorecki case.

A public official has a high burden of proof in a libel case. He must prove actual malice and that the article is incorrect, if not be charged with criminal behavior. (Now, remember, this is coming from a non-lawyer, so may not be completely correct.) Sounds to me as if Page’s email might help meet the "malice" burden.

But, the Sun-Times article did not mention “false light.” That is a milder from of libel, I’ve been told, in which the official must prove that he has been cast in a false light.

The suit states, that the statements made in the second column “place Justice Thomas in a false light before the public by alleging that Justice Thomas was a vindictive, petty and biased human being.”

Also found in Page’s column is this, according to the court papers:

As I sifted through the various pronouncements that followed the court’s decision, I couldn’t help but laugh at the self-righteous posturing of Gorecki’s critics, especially those who claimed her troubles ‘had nothing to do with politics.’
malice burden.

What nonsense. It had everything to do with politics….

Why, if not for political payback, would Thomas go so against the grain? And why, after demanding a year’s suspension, did he agree to four months? Ah, yes. Politics. The four-month suspension is, in effect, the result of a little political shimmy-shimmy. In return for some high profile Gorecki endorsing Bob Spense, a judicial candidate favored by Thomas, he agree to the four-month suspension.

You can bet that all of Shaw’s managing editors know a lot more about the “false light” tort than they used to. And, maybe, eventually, the word will filter down to the Northwest Herald’s columnists.

And, perhaps Justice Thomas’ lawyer’s name might be important.

It’s Joseph Powers.

He’s the one who represented the Scott Willis family when their six children were killed in a Milwaukee accident involving a truck driver who paid a bribe to an employee of George Ryan’s Secretary of State’s Office the day Ryan won his second term. Power’s discovery led to the U.S. Attorney’s Operation Safe Road investigation that led to Ryan’s corruption conviction, among others.

He’s one tenacious lawyer.

= = = = =
The Chicago Tribune also had an Associated Press article Monday afternoon, at least on its web site, a friend of McHenry County Blog tells me.

These quotes from Justice Thomas are especially favored by our friend:

"’The one thing the law doesn't protect is lying, and that's what this was,’ he said.

“The judicial system isn't set up, he added, so that ‘all citizens except judges on the Supreme Court have the right to a claim in which they've been wronged.’"

I wonder if it ran in the Northwest Herald today.