Court rejects towing company lawsuit
The state’s highest court last week notified attorneys that it would not hear the case of a towing service and its owner, Danny Isiminger, who filed a defamation suit in 2011 against then-Washington mayoral candidate Brenda Davis, claiming she defamed the business during her campaign.
Christopher Blackwell, who represented Davis as a private attorney, learned Monday the court exercised its discretion in denying Isiminger’s further appeal of a Superior Court decision.
“It should be over,” Blackwell said Tuesday. “Between the initial lawsuit and appeals we won in the Supreme and Superior courts, the whole process lasted her entire term as mayor.”
Blackwell stressed Davis used no public funds in her defense.
Although the Supreme Court’s order was only one sentence, Blackwell said the high court would decline to hear the case if it found no constitutional issues or no discrepancy in how Superior Court handled similar issues.
Charles Kurowski, Isiminger’s attorney, did not return a call for comment.
Last year, Judge Katherine B. Emery dismissed Isiminger’s suit, ruling that while the comments Davis made about Isiminger’s Towing Service during her mayoral campaign in 2011 were false, they were not defamatory.
Isiminger claimed Davis made statements at two mayoral debates that police officers were waiting extended times for a tow truck, which were false, and said at a City Council meeting the “towing contract should not be extended and should be advertised so that the best possible person is serving the city.”
In addition to suing for defamation, Isiminger claimed Davis interfered with contractual relations as his business’s towing contract was not renewed with the city, according to court documents.
Emery noted, in her opinion, that the name of the towing company was never mentioned, and the “average reasonable person would have no knowledge of the identity of the vendor providing towing services to the city.”
As to the alleged interference with contractual relations, Emery ruled none of the information presented to the court showed that the “city breached its contract or terminated the contract.”
Members of City Council voted in 2012 not to renew the Isiminger’s Towing contract and to open services to vendors within one mile of the city.
The suit against Davis was not the first time Isiminger sued for defamation. In 2008, he sued former Mayor Ken Westcott for defamation over a statement he made while in office about a judgment directing the city to pay Isiminger for oil changes he performed on city vehicles seven years prior. The lawsuit was settled in December 2010. After serving two terms as mayor, Westcott was elected and re-elected to city council.
Davis is her waning days as mayor, having lost to newcomer Scott Putnam in the Democratic primary and in a write-in on the Republican primary ballot. Putnam is scheduled to take his oath of office next month.