Articles Posted in Defamation, Libel and Slander

Not every renter loves his landlord. And many people express their feelings, for better or for worse, on social media. However, sometimes what is said on social media can land a person in hot water. Such was the case for one Iowa resident whose social media venting landed him in court as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit that wound its way all the way up to the Iowa Supreme Court. Luckily for the individual, the Iowa Supreme Court held that referring to a landlord as a “Slumlord” was not defamatory but constituted non-actionable opinion.

The plaintiff in the case was Richard Bauer, the manager of the Bauer Apartments located in the small town of Sloan, Iowa. The defendant was Bradley Brinkman, who lived across the street from the Bauer Apartments. The dispute that landed Brinkman in court started out having nothing to do with him at all.

A dog care facility, Pet Perfect, began construction next to the Bauer Apartments. Bauer was concerned that issues would arise from the dogs and their feces due to the outdoor area being constructed. Bauer tried to get the construction stopped. First, he contacted the Sloan City Council. He also contacted the owner of Pet Perfect about his concerns and offered to buy the parcel of land where the facility was being built. The owner refused to sell. Next, Bauer filed suit against the City of Sloan and the city council members claiming they failed to enforce a zoning ordinance in approving the construction of the facility.

During this ordeal, Pet Perfect posted on its own Facebook page about Bauer’s lawsuit and cameras he had installed on the exterior of the apartments. The daughter of Pet Perfect’s owner also posted about the ordeal on her own personal Facebook page. She included in her post a photo of a letter Bauer’s attorney sent to her mother. Several people commented on the post, including Brinkman, who it turned out was a friend of the owner of Pet Perfect. Brinkman’s Facebook comment stated:

It is because of shit like this that I need to run for mayor! [grinning emoji] Mr. Bauer…you sir are a PIECE OF SHIT!!! Let’s not sugar coat things here people. Kathy Lynch runs a respectable business in this town! You sir are nothing more than a Slum Lord! Period. I would love to have you walk across the street to the east of your ooh so precious property and discuss this with me!

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As we previously covered here, an Illinois appellate court revived a lawsuit filed by Chicago Bears legend Richard Dent which seeks to learn the identity and addresses of unidentified individuals who published allegedly defamatory statements about Dent which allegedly cost him several lucrative marketing contracts. Following the ruling in Dent’s favor, the respondents in the case sought to challenge the First District’s ruling and requested a review of the case by the Illinois Supreme Court. Recently, the Illinois Supreme Court granted the petition for leave to appeal and will hear arguments in the case later this year.

For background, the case dates back to 2018 when energy supplier Constellation NewEnergy terminated various energy supply and marketing contracts with Dent and his company RLD Resources, LLC. Dent met with the energy company’s attorneys during which the attorneys informed Dent that the company had received complaints about him from multiple individuals accusing him of inappropriate comments and conduct at several Constellation-sponsored events. The attorneys refused to identify the complaining individuals. Shortly after the meeting, Constellation terminated its contracts with Dent. Continue reading ›

On March 18, the Illinois Supreme Court issued a much awaited opinion finding that private investigator Paul Ciolino’s defamation lawsuit against Chicago attorney Terry Ekl among others was not filed too late. In their briefs before the Court, the parties framed the question in terms of whether or not the discovery rule delayed the beginning of the one-year statute of limitations. The Court held that Ciolino’s action was timely but based its decision not on the arguments proffered by the parties either side or on the reasoning of the appellate court.

The case centers on a book titled Justice Perverted: How the Innocence Project of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism Sent an Innocent Man to Prison and a later documentary titled “Murder in the Park.” The subject of both the book and the documentary was the effort to convict Alstory Simon of a 1983 double homicide on Chicago’s southeast side, one of the most famous murder cases in Illinois’ recent history. Ekl, an attorney who represented Simon in his post-conviction proceedings, is among those whose comments are featured in the documentary.

The book and documentary posit the theory that Ciolino and others framed Simon in order to secure the exoneration of Anthony Porter, who was originally targeted for the murders, and to ultimately bring about an end to the death penalty in Illinois. They claimed that Ciolino and a Northwestern journalism professor coerced Simon into confessing to the crimes for which Porter had been earlier convicted. Simon’s conviction was later overturned and he was ultimately cleared of the murders in 2013, after Ciolino was accused of impropriety in obtaining the confession. Continue reading ›

Donald J. Trump is no stranger to lawsuits. He has been sued for everything from alleged shady business practices to alleged sexual assault and harassment, but while he was president, he claimed, as have other Presidents, he was protected from legal action as long as he was in office. Two courts had ruled against that argument, and he had appealed their decision to the New York State Court of Appeals, but before that court could decide on the case, Mr. Trump was voted out of office.

While Mr. Trump is currently facing multiple lawsuits across the country, the case in question is a defamation lawsuit filed in New York by Summer Zevos. Ms. Zevos was a contestant on Mr. Trump’s reality show, “The Apprentice”, and she alleges Mr. Trump groped and forcibly kissed her against her will during what she had been led to believe would be a business meeting.

Ms. Zevos came forward with her accusations of sexual assault in 2016 when Mr. Trump was running for president. He denied the accusations and called her a liar, at which point she sued him for defamation in 2017. At that point, he was already in office, and that’s when he claimed the office protected him from legal action. The two sides argued over whether holding the office actually protected the defendant from legal action, with the courts taking Ms. Zevos’s side in the debate and Mr. Trump’s legal team appealing those decisions. Continue reading ›

A scandal at a university’s innocence project led to a defamation suit by one of the project’s former employees against a writer of a book and documentary filmmakers who accused the employee of engaging in criminal behavior in pursuit of a false murder confession. The employee’s defamation claims were initially found to be untimely by the trial court, but the Illinois appellate court reversed the decision. The Illinois Supreme Court took up the appeal of the filmmaker’s and affirmed the decision of the appellate court, finding that each new showing of the documentary film to a limited audience retriggered the statute of limitations, making the claims timely.

Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism (Innocence Project) sought to exonerate Anthony Porter for the 1982 murders of Jerry Hillard and Marilyn Green. Those working at the project suspected that a different individual, Alstory Simon, had committed the murders. Paul Ciolino, a private investigator, worked at the Innocence Project. Ciolino obtained a videotaped confession from Simon after allegedly promising Simon that he would be represented by an attorney whom Ciolino knew.

Porter’s conviction was vacated and, after being pressured by his attorney, Simon pled guilty to the murders and was sentenced to 37 years in prison. Some people remained unconvinced that Simon had actually committed the murders. Simon unsuccessfully filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief. After obtaining representation, a second petition was filed on Simon’s behalf asserting actual innocence. That petition contained new evidence that two witnesses who had implicated Simon had recanted their statements. The witnesses stated that their earlier statements implicating Simon were induced by promises to them made by David Protess of the Innocence Project. Continue reading ›

Every show needs a hero and a villain, and when it comes to reality TV, producers can manipulate what gets shown and what doesn’t to make someone out to be a villain. According to a recent defamation lawsuit filed by Donovan Eckhardt, he is the alleged victim of the production company and TV network that aired “Windy City Rehab”, a reality TV show in which he and his partner, Alison Victoria Gramenos, bought run-down homes, fixed them up, and sold them at a profit to enchanted buyers.

The show started out well enough for Eckhardt, with the show portraying him and Victoria as best friends, but as the show continued to experience backlash from angry neighbors and disgruntled buyers, the relationship quickly soured.

According to the lawsuit, Big Table Media, the show’s production company, and HGTV scripted Eckhardt as untrustworthy and gave the impression that he stole money. The defamation lawsuit alleges the intention was to create a bad guy in order to boost ratings.

The defamation complaint is 23 pages long and involves Eckhardt going through each episode of the second season of the hit show and pointing out all the allegedly false scenes he claims were manufactured to make him look like a villain.

An example is one scene in which Victoria tries to figure out what Eckhardt could have done with construction funds for a project, but Eckhardt alleges nothing in that scene is true. Instead, he claims the show is far from reality, and is actually highly scripted and choreographed to create a story, even where he says there isn’t one.

According to the lawsuit, Eckhardt and Victoria spoke regularly about every aspect of each project and that, far from being left in the dark, Victoria was intimately involved when it came to creating every aspect of a budget for each project. Continue reading ›

Until recently, falsely accusing someone of being gay was considered defamatory per se in New York. Recently however, a New York appellate court broke with decades of precedent in ruling that such a statement no longer constitutes defamation per se. In so ruling the court cited recent transformations in the law and cultural attitudes towards homosexuality as justification for changing the standard as it relates to accusations of being gay.

Defamatory statements fall into one of two distinct categories: defamation per se and defamation per quod. When a statement is considered to be defamatory per se, it is considered so obviously harmful to one’s reputation that proof of harm or actual damages are not required.

The plaintiff in the case was a former elder in a Seventh Day Adventist church in New York. According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleged that he was defamed by the pastor of the defendant church when the pastor told members of the congregation that the plaintiff was a homosexual who viewed gay pornography on the church’s computer. The complaint further alleged that the pastor made the statements to influence the church to vote to relieve the plaintiff of his responsibilities at the church and to terminate his membership. The former elder responded by suing the pastor and the church to recover damages for defamation per se. Continue reading ›