The former mayor of Libby is suing a publisher for defamation less than a year after he resigned following a recall effort spurred by negative coverage in the local newspaper.
In a lawsuit filed in Lincoln County District Court on March 22, former Mayor Doug Roll states that Hagadone Montana Publishing and The Western News published “malicious falsehoods” about him in early 2016. Roll said he was unable to serve because of the stories written by former Editor Bob Henline, who resigned after it was revealed that he had helped launch a recall effort against the mayor.
“After all the bad press, thousands of dollars in attorney fees expended, loss of trust with the City of Libby council members, the Plaintiff had no choice but to resign in the face of his lost reputation,” attorneys Quentin M. Rhoades and Nicole L. Siefert wrote in the lawsuit. “The public shaming made it impossible to do his job.”
The mayor, who served from 2008 until he resigned in September 2016, is accusing Hagadone of defamation, civil conspiracy, tortious interference with contractual or business relations and malice.
According to the lawsuit, Henline authored a story that falsely accused Roll of holding an illegal lunch meeting with three city councilors. Henline alleged in the April 2016 story, which is still available online, that because three members and the mayor attended the lunch, it constituted a quorum and should have been open to the public. But city officials argued that a quorum was not present because there were only three council members at the lunch, and to be an official meeting, a fourth would have had to be present. The Western News later retracted the story. In the same issue that the meeting story was published, Henline authored an editorial titled, “The time has come for Roll to go.”
Soon after those stories were published, a local woman, Tammy Brown, began gathering signatures to recall Roll. Later it was revealed that Henline had helped Brown author the petition and had asked a co-worker at the newspaper to proofread it. After Henline’s involvement with the recall went public, he resigned from his position as editor.
Brown’s effort to recall Roll ultimately failed after the mayor challenged the petition’s validity in court. However, Roll said it was nearly impossible for him to continue leading the community after the recall effort and negative publicity.
University of Montana media law professor Lee Banville said libel lawsuits by a public official against a news organization are rare. He said Roll’s attorneys would have to prove that Hagadone and the newspaper had acted with malice by allowing Henline to publish falsehoods about the mayor, which might be tough because the paper ultimately published a correction.
“He would need to show that Hagadone and the newspaper were out to get him,” Banville said. “The mayor has an uphill battle.”