He satisfied the Health Department's objections by early February and received his food license on February 4, 1959. Early in 1959 the plaintiff appeared at an informal hearing before the Health Department the plaintiff represented to the Department that he would correct the deficiencies as soon as possible.595.) The trial court accordingly erred in holding that the defendant's publication was libelous per se the court should have recognized and applied the defense of privilege as a matter of law. The right to speak and print about such actions of government is well established denial of this right would be a serious infringement of both State and Federal constitutional guarantees of free speech and press. The only sustainable conclusion from the record is that the defendant's publication is an accurate and capsulized summation of the plaintiff's six weeks of difficulty with the Peoria Health Department.The questions were raised below and passed upon by the trial court, which gives this court jurisdiction. The defendant contends that the trial court's rejection of the defense of privilege to report governmental affairs and denial of the right to publish substantial truth violated section 4 of article II of the Illinois constitution and the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States constitution. The defendant appealed directly to this court claiming State and Federal constitutional questions. Judgment was entered against defendant upon the verdict. The plaintiff Robert Lulay obtained a jury verdict for $150,000 ($60,000 in compensatory damages plus $90,000 in punitive damages) against the Peoria Journal-Star, Inc. This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court of Peoria County in an action for libel.The plaintiff had the obligation both upon the motion for summary judgment and at the trial to adduce all of the evidence he believed would satisfy his burden. App.2d 33.) Although the plaintiff contends that the defendant here was guilty of actual malice, plaintiff did not offer any evidence remotely creating an issue of fact as to whether defendant's news article was conceived or inspired solely because of a malicious design to injure the plaintiff or his business. 525, 305 P.2d 817.) As expressed in the Restatement of Torts, section 611, a publication reporting government proceedings is nonactionable unless published "solely for the purpose of causing harm to the person defamed." The burden of proving actual malice is always upon the plaintiff, and it would not be the ordinary case where a plaintiff could establish that a news report or discussion of governmental activities was only published because of actual malice. The privilege to report governmental acts or utterances can only be defeated by proving that a particular publication was motivated solely by actual malice.The right to report the activities of "a municipal corporation or of a body empowered by law to perform a public duty is privileged, although it contains matter which is false and defamatory, if it is (a) accurate and complete or a fair abridgment of such proceedings, and (b) not made solely for the purpose of causing harm to the person defamed." The privilege plainly includes the right to report the activities of such agencies as the Peoria Health Department. Section 611 of the Restatement of Torts definitely expresses the prevailing, if not unanimous, weight of judicial authority. The plaintiff concedes here that a privilege to report government proceedings exists, but contends that it does not encompass the acts, declarations or records of agencies at the lower levels of government, such as the Peoria Health Department.If this is to go forward and taxpayer funds are to be spent, we’d request that every City Council member be on record as to how he or she justifies that - or not - for accountability purposes down the road, however this turns out. If not, well, Peoria isn’t just the mayor’s city. The editorial again calls on the city “to cut its losses,” challenges the wisdom of the city’s public relations strategy, and maintains that the mayor and city council members must be held responsible and accountable:Īs mayor, Ardis’ public responsibilities must trump his personal feelings. Reviewing the suit filed by the ACLU of Illinois on behalf of Jon Daniel, the newspaper reiterated the strengths of Daniel’s claim that his First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when, at the mayor’s instigation, police entered his home, searched and confiscated his cell phone and computer equipment in response to his Twitter parody of the mayor. In a weekend editorial, the Peoria Journal Star questions the idea that Peoria’s citizens should be footing the mayor’s legal defense costs in the city’s Twittergate lawsuit.
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