The Illinois Supreme Court won’t let Chicago Bears legend Richard Dent uncover the names of people he claims wrongly accused him of groping a woman, and of drunken behavior, prompting an investigation that cost him and his company a marketing contract with an energy supplier.
Justice Michael Burke wrote the majority opinion, issued April 21, with concurrence from Justices Mary Jane Theis, David Overstreet and Robert Carter. Justice Rita Garman wrote a dissenting opinion, joined by Justice P. Scott Neville. Chief Justice Anne Burke took no part in the decision.
The case dates back to March 2019, when Dent and his company, RLD Resources, filed a petition in Cook County Circuit Court, asking a judge to order energy supplier Constellation NewEnergy to disclose the names and addresses of at least three people Dent accused of defamation. In November 2020, the Illinois First District Appellate Court ruled Cook County Judge Patricia O’Brien-Sheahan wrongly blocked Dent from continuing his effort to unmask their identities, prompting his appeal.
The justices in the majority and the dissenters differed over the role of qualified privilege in protecting the identity of Dent’s accusers, and whether such privilege can be invoked on a motion to dismiss.
“Qualified privilege in Illinois defamation law is based on a policy of protecting honest communications of misinformation in certain favored circumstances in order to facilitate the availability of correct information,” Burke wrote. “A privileged communication is one that might be defamatory and actionable except for the occasion on which, or the circumstances under which, it is made.”
Without qualified privilege, the majority explained, Dent would only need to show his accusers acted negligently. With it, he would have to prove direct intent to cause legal injury or a reckless disregard of Dent’s rights or the potential fallout from their accusations.
The majority agreed with a 1999 Illinois Third District Appellate Court opinion, Vickers v. Abbott Laboratories, in establishing “a qualified privilege exists in cases alleging defamation in the context of workplace sexual harassment allegations.”
The allegations against Dent begin with a June 2016 Constellation-sponsored golf outing near Philadelphia when he allegedly told a woman she “had a butt like a sister.” The woman — identified in court documents as “Person A” — also allegedly accused Dent of groping her two years later at a party at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium, before another Constellation-sponsored golf outing.
Another person, a male identified as “Person B,” allegedly told Constellation that, at the same event, “he had observed Dent” at the Marriott Hotel on Adams Street in Chicago “collecting the golf materials and that Dent was drunk and disorderly.” Those accusations allegedly triggered an investigation by another individual, “Person C,” that resulted in Constellation sacking their contracts with Dent and RLD in October 2018.
The company later revealed Person B is a Constellation employee who made his statements in the course of investigating Person A’s accusations. “Person C” actually are a group of attorneys Constellation hired to investigate Person A’s accusations.
Dent argued Persons B and C can’t invoke qualified privilege because they didn’t witness any alleged sexual harassment. But the majority said “privilege protects the investigation” of such claims, and all three persons are therefore interconnected. Burke further wrote that although Dent claims Person A’s allegations are entirely false, “allowing a conclusory denial to overcome qualified privilege would, in essence, eviscerate the privilege.”
The majority explained Dent had chances to present evidence supporting his denial of the allegations and the identity of Person A wasn’t central to his ability to refute claims regarding his conduct at a large gathering.
In her dissent, Garman expressed concern about the ramifications of the decision, saying it makes it all but impossible for some people, like Dent, accused of bad behavior, of defending themselves against scandalous accusations.
"The majority opinion essentially treats the qualified privilege as an absolute privilege, which in turn endows a private company and its third-party investigators with quasi-judicial status and impermissibly deprives a class of individuals of the ability to restore their reputations following investigations that arguably lack procedural safeguards," Garman wrote.
Garman agreed with the applicability of qualified privilege to workplace sexual harassment investigations, but said the majority’s opinion as applied to Dent shows a lack of concern for how he “is realistically expected to allege concrete facts to overcome the qualified privilege.” She rejected the majority’s framing of Dent’s position with respect to defending himself, saying such parties are “in a position where they must allege sufficient facts to establish malice or reckless acts against shadows.”
While stressing she doesn’t “cast doubt upon the believability of accusers and victims of sexual harassment or the findings of internal sexual harassment investigations,” Garman said, “I will not vote in favor of a holding that makes it impossible for a class of individuals to seek relief from what may very possibly be an unjustified injury to their reputation.”
Dent has been represented in the case by attorney Paul G. Neilan, of Highland Park.
Constellation has been represented by attorneys Terri L. Mascherin and Christian L. Plummer, of the firm of Jenner & Block LLP, of Chicago.