A Cumberland County Superior Court justice dismissed former Raymond Selectman Dana Desjardins’ defamation and invasion of privacy claims against Selectman Michael Reynolds in a June 29 ruling.
Justice Thomas Warren granted a longstanding motion to dismiss the claims, ruling that Reynolds’ decision to request that a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy come to a Raymond Board of Selectmen meeting in early 2012 had not caused Desjardins “actual injury.” Desjardins plans to file an appeal of the ruling.
The lawsuit that led to the appeal was the result of nearly a year of what Desjardins called “harassment” by Reynolds and Town Manager Don Willard, beginning with an incident on Jan. 8, 2012, when a Cumberland County sheriff’s deputy pulled over Desjardins on his way to a selectmen’s meeting for speeding 5 miles per hour above the limit. Desjardins argued that Willard and Reynolds used a December 2011 selectmen’s meeting – and the allegation that he had attended drunk – as a false pretext to ask the sheriff’s deputy to pull him over. Desjardins is seeking undisclosed damages.
In the June 29 ruling, Warren ruled that Desjardins’ claims of “humiliation and embarrassment” following the traffic stop as well as “great emotional distress” once he learned the sheriff’s department had “red flagged” him do not meet the standard of “actual injury.” If Reynolds’ petitioning of the Sheriff’s Department had caused “actual injury” to Desjardins, or was “devoid of any reasonable factual support or any arguable basis in law,” then the case could proceed to trial, Warren wrote.
“Desjardins has failed to demonstrate that he was caused ‘actual injury’ within the meaning of the anti-SLAPP statute,” Warren wrote.
To date, Reynolds’ attorney, Daniel J. Murphy, of the Bernstein Shur law firm, has successfully used Maine’s statute barring strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP) – expensive and drawn-out lawsuits designed to bully a party into silence – to prevent the claims from proceeding to trial. The anti-SLAPP statute, enacted in 1995, is designed to protect a party’s right to freedom of speech and to petition government officials. Desjardins’ attorney, John S. Campbell, has argued that the anti-SLAPP statute should not prevent a trial.
Reynolds celebrated the ruling, saying that when he contacted Sheriff Kevin Joyce, he did not mention Desjardins’ name.
“The entire defamation case is based on Dana thinking that I did something wrong against him with the sheriff,” Reynolds said. “I never even mentioned his name. I was sued – eight counts were placed against me by Dana and eight counts were placed against Don for defamation – when I didn’t even mention his name. That’s why the courts, I believe, have thrown this out three times now.”
“My whole point was to ask him about having a sheriff present at the meeting in the case the meeting got out of control like the one in December did,” Reynolds said.
Desjardins said Campbell is appealing the ruling to the Maine Law Court.
“We expected it,” Desjardins said. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll move on.”
The legal proceedings began nearly two years ago. In August 2013, Campbell filed a complaint in Cumberland County Superior Court accusing Reynolds and Raymond Town Manager Don Willard of defamation of character, negligent infliction of emotional distress, intentional infliction of emotional distress and invasion of privacy, among other claims.
That fall, Murphy moved the suit to U.S. District Court and filed two motions on behalf of each client to dismiss the case. Desjardins opposed the motions. Following a June 20, 2014, ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Torreson to dismiss the complaint “in its entirety,” Campbell appealed the case to the United States 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.
At a Jan. 6 oral argument, members of the circuit court’s three-judge panel advised Campbell to drop the claims against Willard. Campbell subsequently dropped Willard from the case.
On Jan. 23, Chief Judge Sandra Lynch of the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, upheld the dismissal of Desjardins’ 4th and 14th Amendment claims, and sent the state claims of defamation and “false light invasion of privacy” against Reynolds back to Cumberland County Superior Court, arguing that the state law claims should be ruled on by the Maine courts.
If the superior court had rejected Murphy’s use of anti-SLAPP, the claims of defamation and invasion of privacy would have gone to trial. Desjardins said he hoped for better results at the law court.
“I’m not happy with it, but that’s the way it is,” he said. “Judges don’t like to judge other judges, whether they are right or wrong, it doesn’t matter. That was our take on it.”
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