Former Rep. White’s defamation suit nixed
A judge has tossed a defamation lawsuit by former state Rep. Jesse White’s against residents of his old district who allegedly circulated critical materials during his unsuccessful bid to keep his House seat in 2014.
Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery signed an order Thursday dismissing White’s lawsuit against Cecil Township Supervisor Thomas Casciola; the Facebook group Concerned Citizens of the 46th District; and Judy Bowser, Darlene Barni and Janice Gibbs, district residents whom White accused of running the Facebook page.
A headline from a 2011 Observer-Reporter story which read, “Lawmaker Guilty of Defaming Area Dem” was at the center of White’s claims. White, a Cecil Township attorney, accused the defendants of circulating campaign materials with the headline, which he called false and defamatory.
Emery wrote that even if the headline was false, it wasn’t defamatory.
The story that ran with the headline described a jury’s decision against White in a civil case in which he and a Democratic committeeman accused each other of defamation.
White alleged in his lawsuit that the word “guilty” implies the someone committed a crime, and that no defamation occurred because no damages were awarded in the case.
Emery disagreed, concluding that the adjective “does not impute criminality, it imputes wrongdoing. Imputing wrongdoing in the course of campaign literature when the Plaintiff was indeed determined to have published a defamatory communication simply does not rise to the level of defamatory meaning.”
She added “campaign literature with a reprint of the heading in question does not rise to the level of deterring others from associating with him or lowering him in the estimation of the community.”
White alleged the concerned citizens Facebook group and people who ran it were responsible for distributing campaign literature bearing the headline door to door.
Along with defamation, White accused the defendants of commercial disparagement, alleging their actions harmed his law practice and re-election campaign. He sought damages in excess of $50,000 in each of two counts in an amended complaint he filed in the case.
White initially included Observer Publishing Co. in the lawsuit, which he filed in April 2015.
Emery dismissed his complaint against the publisher because she found he had missed the one-year deadline to initiate legal action against the company under the statute of limitations.