Ex-columnist files motion in court case against judge
A new state law discouraging lawsuits that "diminish citizen participation in government" is grounds to reverse a libel verdict against the Kane County Chronicle, attorneys representing the paper argue.
The Citizen Participation Act discourages "abuse of defamation laws by the powerful," which applies to the suit brought against the paper and ex-columnist Bill Page by Illinois Supreme Court Justice Robert Thomas, according to a motion for dismissal filed Tuesday.
"Simply put, the Illinois legislature has spoken: (Page's) actions are absolutely privileged and (Thomas') claims cannot proceed," states the motion filed by Washington D.C.-based attorneys Bruce Sanford, Lee Ellis Jr. and Bruce Brown on behalf of Page and Shaw Suburban Media Group, the Chronicle's parent company.
The attorneys argue that the law can apply to this case even though the case was decided before the law was enacted. Thomas' attorney, Joseph Power, called the motion "totally frivolous" and argues it "never would be applied retroactively."
This is the first court action related to the new law since it was enacted last month. The law targets so-called SLAPP suits -- an acronym for Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation -- often brought against citizens by public officials and wealthy developers to silence criticism, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, which backed the new law.
Most SLAPP suits are filed by big corporations hoping to silence whistleblowers, Powers said, which makes the anti-SLAPP law not applicable to the Page-Thomas case.
The law says such suits are an "abuse of the judicial process" that "significantly chills and diminishes citizen participation in government."
A Kane County jury in November awarded Thomas $7 million -- the largest compensatory award in a defamation case in Illinois history -- after finding the paper was libelous for publishing two columns by Page in 2003 that accused the justice of trading Supreme Court votes for favors.
The paper appealed the verdict. A Cook County judge who was called in to oversee the case lowered the judgment amount to $4 million in March.
In June, the paper filed a lawsuit in federal court against seven Illinois Supreme Court justices, three Illinois appellate court justices and the Cook County judge who presided over the trial, contending the paper can not receive a fair appeal because the appellate court judges are under Thomas' control.