Court Tosses Out Monetary Award Against Minnesota Paper

By: Patrick Condon, The Associated Press The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday threw out a $625,500 verdict against a suburban newspaper and its editor and ordered a new trial to determine damages for a local politician who said he was libeled in print.

The Court of Appeals upheld a jury decision that an editorial in the Chanhassen Villager was defamatory to County Commissioner Tom Workman. But the appeals court cleared the way for a lower monetary award, saying that one of the two disputed comments about Workman deserved "full constitutional protection."

While the newspaper could still be on the hook for some damages, its attorney, Mark Anfinson, said the appeals court decision nullifies a jury verdict that he said would have had a chilling effect on the ability of newspapers to police public officials.

"That's what newspapers are supposed to do," Anfinson said.

Workman's attorney, state Sen. Julianne Ortman, also called the decision a victory, saying the Court of Appeals agreed Workman was defamed and that the newspaper can be punished for its actions. She said the end result could be a damage award even higher than the original.

"The Court of Appeals agreed we are entitled to damages," she said. "The jury will be entitled to presume that his reputation has been harmed ... There's no limit as to how much we can establish or how much that jury can award."

Workman, a former Republican state legislator, was sworn in as county commissioner at the beginning of 2003. Prior to his first board meeting, Workman conferred privately with several fellow commissioners and they decided to seek the resignation of the longtime county administrator, Richard Stolz.

At Workman's second board meeting, the board approved a termination agreement with little comment. A few days later, the Chanhassen Villager ran an editorial, written by editor Eric Serrano, that became the heart of the lawsuit.

The editorial suggested Workman was motivated by a grudge against the county administrator because Workman had been sued by the county a few years earlier. It also criticized Workman and fellow commissioners for discussing Stoltz's fate "out of the purview of the public."

As it turned out, the claim of an earlier lawsuit was incorrect. The newspaper retracted it a week later.

Workman sued anyway, claiming two instances of defamation - one for the incorrect statement, the other for suggesting that a supposed grudge motivated him to break the state's open meetings laws.

The jury found for Workman in both cases, ordering the newspaper to pay compensatory damages of $425,000, ordering the paper's owners to pay $200,000 in punitive damages, and ordering Serrano to pay $500 in punitive damages.

The appeals court, in an opinion written by Judge Terri Stoneburner, upheld the jury's finding of defamation for the incorrect reference to a prior lawsuit. But it struck down the finding of defamation in the paper's criticism of how Workman and colleagues terminated Stolz, saying the paper laid out facts that allowed readers to decide for themselves if open meetings laws were violated.

"The fact asserted in the decision-making statement is substantially true," Stoneburner wrote.

Anfinson said most newspaper editorials lay out facts that allow readers to reach a conclusion.

"It is, in my judgment, protecting the ability of the news media to criticize public officials," he said.

Because the jury set the award based on two findings of defamation and one has been thrown out, the court of appeals threw out the entire $625,500 award and said a new amount must be set. Anfinson anticipated a new award will be lower, Ortman disputed that.

"The court did not make a decision about whether the numbers were appropriate or not," said Ortman, Workman's attorney. Rather, she said, the court decided the jury should consider damages again, without reference to the open meetings claim being defamatory.

Workman's attorneys could appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court. Ortman said a decision on whether to appeal had not been made.