May 4, 2016 3 min read

It may be “embarassing and annoying” to be falsely accused of giving someone the middle finger in public, but a Washington County judge said that accusation doesn’t rise to the level of being grounds for a politician to sue a former constituent for defamation.

That determination is part of a seven-page opinion and order signed Monday by President Judge Katherine B. Emery in which she dismissed a defamation lawsuit by former state representative Jesse White against Cecil resident Merl Williams over posts critical of White that appeared on Facebook between April and July 2014, as White, a Democrat, made an unsuccessful bid to keep his House seat.

White, an attorney from Cecil, contended that all of these posts attributed to Williams were false. He sought damages in excess of $50,000 in each of two counts in the complaint he filed in the case in April 2015.

One post accused White of spending $11,000 in tax dollars on a class at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. White said he paid for it himself.

“Stating that someone’s employers paid for a person to attend a leadership class does not impugn one’s integrity or deter people from associating with him,” Emery wrote. “In this case, the employer is the government and Defendant Williams seemingly implies that the payment was a waste of tax dollars; while that may be embarassing or annoying to (White), it does not rise to the level of defamatory meaning.”

She applied similar reasoning to the other posts White cited in the lawsuit, one of which accused White of “outrageous behavior in public” and “giving people the middle finger.” Another accused White of “telling lies” and a fourth said he slammed the door in the faces of the commenter and commenter’s friend when they went to White’s Harrisburg office.

In discussing the post about the middle finger, Emery acknowledged a public official like White is under more scrutiny than others, and “being vulgar and crude does not lower an average person’s level in the community, but for a public official, it may be harmful.”

But that falls short of being defamatory, according to the judge’s opinion.

“It may be embarrassing and annoying, but it does not rise to the level that persons would not want to associate with such a person or lower his esteem in the community,” Emery wrote.

White alleged defamation and commercial disparagement, accusing the defendants of contributing to his defeat in the 2014 election and harming his private law practice.

He originally named the group calling itself Concerned Citizens of the 46th District, which is also the name of a Facebook page and a website critical of White, as a defendant. He also named district residents Darlene Barni, Janice Gibbs and Judy Bowser – who allegedly were in charge of the group – as defendants.

Emery dismissed White’s complaint against all the defendants in the case but Williams in September.