Peachtree Officials Come To Their Senses, Vote Down Plan To Finance Lawsuits Against Critics Following Widespread Criticism

from the nice-move-geniuses dept

A quick followup to yesterday's post about officials in Peachtree, Georgia looking to pass a resolution that would allow city officials to spend taxpayer money to sue their own critics for defamation. There were all sorts of problems with this... and it appears the taxpayers weren't happy. At the city council meeting last night, lots of those taxpayers made it clear this was a bad idea:

People lined up to push back against the resolution....

“You get to decide whether you’ve been defamed or not and you want to use our money taxpayer money to sue us, we might impoverish us,” said another Peachtree City resident.

It sounds like nearly everyone who spoke out was against the proposal, leading it to be voted down unanimously, though the mayor, Vanessa Fleisch, had an odd bit of commentary on the whole thing:

“I think it’s the right outcome I work for the citizens, the intent was very pure but it wasn’t written correctly I’ve been told and so the citizens have spoken and we move on,” said Mayor Fleisch.

The intent is never pure when the goal is for public officials to sue critics. And, the problem was not that it wasn't written correctly. The problem was with the whole idea. Hopefully, this doesn't mean there's a plan to "rewrite" this proposal. Just leave it be and maybe get a somewhat thicker skin if you're going to work for the government.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, defamation, free speech, georgia, jon rorie, lawsuits, peachtree city, taxpayer funds, vanessa fleisch

Peachtree City Wants To Use Taxpayer Money To Sue Critics Of City Government

from the can-someone-buy-them-a-Bill-of-Rights? dept

What is it with the state of Georgia and its attempts to stifle free speech and a free press? It's the state that argues its official copy of the law is covered by copyright and cannot be posted online. The same state that is currently trying to regulate journalism by creating "ethical standards" they have to follow. The same state that is so bad in responding to public records law that an official was actually criminally charged for it?

The latest, as sent in by a few people, is that tonight, Peachtree City, a suburb of Atlanta, is voting on a laughably obviously unconstitutional provision that would allow city officials to file bogus SLAPP suits, using taxpayer funds, against critics. Really. Specifically, the proposal says that the city will provide "coverage for legal expenses when a City official has been defamed in a public media outlet or otherwise slandered or libeled to the public..." It does note that the defamation must be a "valid claim for defamation... under Georgia law." So, one might argue that filing a bogus SLAPP suit wouldn't be covered by this policy -- but it's unclear how that will work.

We see bogus defamation lawsuits filed all the time to censor critics, and as a public official, the bar to a successful defamation lawsuit is (for very good reasons) quite high. So, under this proposal, will the city officials have to pay back the city treasury if such a case is tossed out? One would hope that's the case, but the text of the proposal has no language to that effect. The only language is has regarding reimbursement is that if the lawsuit is "settled in the City's favor, the City shall seek reimbursement for the actual legal costs incurred in successful pursuit of the defamation ruling by the person or persons committing the defamation."

It has no provision for what happens when it turns out there wasn't defamation and the city just wasted taxpayer funds suing critics who didn't actually defame anyone.

It is already dubious that any public official should ever be suing critics -- but to have taxpayers have to foot the bill for SLAPP suits is both deeply obnoxious and unconstitutional, that it seems perfect for Georgia.

The city manager, Jon Rorie, is quoted in a few different articles about this, basically making the same extraordinarily bad point

“I don’t think that someone should have the ability to come in and just said something, that I committed a crime, I don’t think it’s fair,” said Jon Rorie, the city manager of Peachtree City.

Right. And if it's actually defamatory, then you can sue yourself. You don't need taxpayer funds to go after someone.

In the other link (up above, towards the beginning of the article) Rorie gets even more ridiculous:

“It’s a brave, new world. It’s not about people criticizing. It’s about being defamed,” Rorie said, noting that such defamation could come from a newspaper or any media, including social media. “People think they have the luxury of saying false things about people. No one has the right to say I (or anyone working or volunteering for the city) am corrupt and attack me publicly.”

Actually, Jon, you're wrong. People absolutely do have the right to attack you (verbally) in public. And they can certainly make opinion-based statements, including arguing that actions are corrupt. To actually be defamation, they would need to be making false statements of fact, where they knew the statement was false (or recklessly disregarded the truth) and those statements had to actually harm your reputation. That doesn't seem to be the standard Rorie is laying out here.

The journalist for the Citizen properly pointed out to Rorie that, even if this is all true, the bigger question is why should taxpayer funds go towards such lawsuits, and Rorie's answer is telling:

Rorie was asked why use taxpayers dollars to sue an individual. Rorie responded, saying he did not know the answer to that question, adding that the topic is worth discussing in a public meeting and, hence, was put on the agenda.

Seems like the kind of thing you should think about before pushing such a resolution, no?

Filed Under: anti-slapp, defamation, georgia, jon rorie, peachtree city, public officials, slapp, taxpayer funds