A court has ruled that a defamation lawsuit filed by a former City of Guelph executive against a local blogger can proceed.
Former journalist Gerry Barker is being sued by former deputy CAO Mark Amorosi for $500,000 for comments made on Barker’s blog guelphspeaks.ca.
Barker was seeking that the lawsuit be dismissed.
He argued that the lawsuit was a SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) lawsuit meant to quell public criticism and oversight of the city’s administration.
“He argues that Mr. Amorosi’s defamation claim is groundless and that, even if it were to prevail at trial, Mr. Amorosi suffered no real harm and therefore would be entitled to nominal damages at best,” wrote Justice Petersen in allowing the lawsuit to proceed.
The judge said their job was to determine if it was a SLAPP suit, which would mean dismissing it, or whether it was a legitimate defamation lawsuit.
The judge ruled that there were grounds to believe that the “proceeding has substantial merit” and that the public interest in allowing the lawsuit to continue outweighs the public interest in dismissing it.
Amorosi filed the lawsuit in 2016 when he was still with the city, basing it on numerous critical comments found on guelphspeaks.ca.
The watchdog blog has for several years posted articles, largely critical, of Guelph City Council and city executives.
In 2017 Amorosi and the city parted ways after he took the fall for thousands of private emails and attachments that were mistakenly released by the city to a former employee who was suing them for wrongful dismissal.
Amorosi wasn’t directly responsible for releasing the emails, but was head of the department that did.
Amorosi has applied for four similar jobs since leaving Guelph and has not received a single interview, the lawsuit says. Amorosi believes Barker’s blog posts are at least partially to blame for this.
Barker argues that Amorosi’s inability to obtain interviews for alternative employment is not causally connected to the blog posts, but rather is the result of news stories reporting on him being terminated by the city following the leaked emails.
As per his contract with the city, Amorosi’s legal fees in the lawsuit against Barker are being covered by the city.
“The impugned blog posts characterize Mr. Amorosi as dishonest, unqualified for his position, and incompetent in respect of his human resources management and financial oversight duties as DCAO,” says the ruling.
“Mr. Barker asks the Court to find that this proceeding is not a genuine defamation action intended to protect Mr. Amorosi’s reputation, but rather was commenced with the strategic intent of “gagging” his expression and imposing a “chill” on the expression of others who, like him, would shed light on municipal governance issues of concern to the public.”
The judge did rule that Barker’s statements about Amorosi were not personal, but focused on his role as a public servant.
“Moreover, the statements about Mr. Amorosi form part of a broader report on the City of Guelph’s municipal government affairs, specifically on the state of the City’s finances, the expenditure of public funds, the transparency of decision-making, and the job performance of those in charge of the City’s management and budget. These are all matters that invite public attention and about which members of the public, particularly Guelph residents, have an undeniable interest. As Mr. Barker deposed, “There are few things more important to taxpayers than knowing how their money is being spent.”
Barker’s blog receives an average of 550 page views a week, according to the suit.
The ruling notes that Barker made no attempt to get Amorosi’s side of events he criticized him for.
“Mr. Barker candidly admitted during his cross examination that, on multiple occasions, he made no effort to get both sides of the story before publishing it.”
