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Fall 2007 Bulletin
Illinois Paper Apologizes, Settles Civil Rights Suit against State Chief Justice who Sued It for Libel
An Illinois community newspaper and the state high court’s chief justice struck a settlement agreement Oct. 10, 2007 over a libel suit, under which the newspaper apologized, agreed to drop a federal civil rights suit it had filed, and will pay a reduced award of $3 million to the judge.
Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Thomas won his libel suit against the Kane County (Ill.) Chronicle and former columnist Bill Page in November 2006. In a series of columns in 2003, Page wrote that, according to confidential sources, Thomas had been lenient in a disciplinary action against a state’s attorney in return for political favors. A jury found the statements to be false and defamatory, and awarded Thomas $7 million in damages, which was later reduced to $4 million. The newspaper responded by filing a novel federal civil rights suit against Thomas, alleging that his power and influence over the state court system had denied the newspaper a fair trial. (See “Illinois State Supreme Court Justice Awarded $7 Million Libel Judgment Against Newspaper” in the Winter 2007 issue and “Newspaper, Columnist Sue State Supreme Court Chief Justice in Federal Court” in the Summer 2007 issue of the Silha Bulletin for more details.)
According to the Chronicle, the parties began settlement negotiations mediated by a federal magistrate judge on Sept. 27, 2007. On October 11, the Chronicle reported that Thomas, the newspaper’s president and chief executive officer Tom Shaw, and Page had reached the settlement. A joint statement released to the press said, “Mr. Thomas, the Chronicle, and Mr. Page have now agreed that the public interest is best served by a spirit of reconciliation and the settling of the dispute.”
The statement said that the newspaper and Page “apologize to Mr. Thomas,” and that Thomas “affirms his support for the role of a free press in informing the public about all branches of government, including the judiciary, as well as his commitment to equal treatment under law for all litigants in the Illinois courts.”
The statement and lawyers did not disclose the settlement amount, according to the Chronicle, but various media sources including the Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, and The Associated Press (AP) attributed the $3 million figure to Page.
Page also said he stood by his reporting, which was based on confidential sources who had not been called to testify in the November 2006 trial.
According to the AP, Page denied apologizing to Thomas, despite the statement saying he did so. “That apology runs after my signature,” he said. “I stand by everything I wrote, and I would repeat it. I’m not backing down from this.”
According to the Chicago Tribune, Chronicle attorney Bruce Brown said he was pleased the paper had raised broader issues in filing the federal lawsuit.
“It may persuade the next judge who comes along who has a complaint with news coverage that the better approach may be to bring that complaint to the public or bring that complaint to the publisher of the newspaper rather than bringing it to the court system that the judges control,” Brown said.
According to the Chronicle, Thomas’ attorney Joe Power said the chief justice was satisfied with the settlement because the newspaper apologized.
“I think the importance of the case is not only for Justice Thomas, but all the judiciary, that it cannot be open season on judges,” Power said. “When you do something like this and you make something up out of whole cloth, there are consequences to it.”
- Patrick File,
Silha Fellow and Bulletin Editor
University of Minnesota | College of Liberal Arts | School of Journalism and Mass Communication
