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Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Courts - Still more on: Illinois chief justice doesn't just get mad, he sues
And wins.
"Jury awards $7 million to justice in libel suit" is the headline to a story by Jim Kimberly posted at 3:44 PM CST. The story begins:
A jury today awarded a sitting Illinois Supreme Court justice $7 million in his defamation case against a small Kane County newspaper that had published columns accusing him of injecting politics into a case pending before the high court.After listening to two weeks of testimony, the jury took just a few hours to return a verdict in the libel trial involving Chief Justice Robert Thomas and the Kane County Chronicle.
They found in favor of Thomas on each of four counts, deciding that two columns written by former columnist Bill Page in 2003 were false and published with actual malice.
Jurors, who got the case around 4 p.m. Monday, said today they had decided in favor of Thomas by the end of Monday evening. When they reconvened at 9 a.m. this morning, they spent the bulk of their time deciding how much to award Thomas for economic damages.
They returned a verdict at 1:20 p.m. today, awarding Thomas $1 million for economic loss reasonably certain to be experienced in the future; $1 million for personal embarrassment, mental suffering and humiliation; and $5 million for impairment of personal and professional reputation and standing in the community.
Thomas cried after the verdict was read and hugged his attorneys. He waited in the hallway outside the courtroom to thank jurors, hug them and shake their hands.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on November 14, 2006 04:42 PM
Posted to Indiana Courts