N.D. Supremes: Calling Pol 'Wife-Beater' Not Libel

By: Mark Fitzgerald UPDATED 12:00 PM

In a unanimous opinion, the North Dakota Supreme Court Friday ruled that the Grand Forks (N.D.) Herald did not libel a Libertarian Party candidate when it described him as a wife beater who lied about his finances.

The justices ruled that the Herald description was accurate.

Roland Riemers, who is on the ballot this year as the Libertarian candidate for governor, sued the Herald over a 2002 story about his run for U.S. Senate that year. The story noted that the judge in Reimers' 2001 divorce case wrote in the decision that he had kicked his then-pregnant wife in the stomach, and slapped and punched her.

Riemers sued, and he appealed to the Supreme Court when his claim was rejected by a lower court. The high court agreed he had no case.

"Riemers failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact whether the statement was a 'fair and true' report of a 'judicial proceeding' and was made without malice, with reasonable belief in its truthfulness, and was based on a subject matter relevant to the common interest," Supreme Court Justice Mary Muehlen Maring wrote in the decision, according to an Associated Press account by Dale Wetzel.

Riemers could not be reached.

This was Reimers' second loss before the high court this year. Reimers sued the accounting firm appointed by the judge in his divorce case to investigate the real estate investor's financial state. He lost in a lower court and appealed to the state Supreme Court. In April, the justices declared his appeal "frivolous" and ordered him to pay the firm's legal fees.

Herald Publisher and Editor Mike Jacobs told E&P Monday that he was unsure whether the newspaper might go after Riemers on a similar claim of frivolous litigation. "In this sort of thing, you're just sort of glad to be done with it," he said. "I don't know that we would want to pursue it any further, but obviously our lawyers will want to take a look at it."

Jacobs said Riemers in his campaigns has "used the Herald as his platform and his whipping boy" -- buying advertising in the newspaper to complain about its coverage. "So this has been sort of a win/win for us," Jacobs said. "We win the libel suit, and we also get his advertising."