In a 6-0 ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to end a defamation lawsuit from Mauro Glorioso, who accused the Chicago Sun-Times of falsely reporting he was investigated and removed from the state Property Tax Appeal Board for meddling with a Trump Tower assessment.
Tim Novak and Sun-Times Media Holding had already failed to convince a Cook County Circuit Court judge and an Illinois First District Appellate Court panel that Glorioso’s complaint constitutes a so-called Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) under the Citizen Participation Act.
Justice David Overstreet wrote the opinion. The court’s remaining justices concurred with Overstreet, except Justice Elizabeth Rochford, who took no part in the decision.
Glorioso served on the PTAB from December 2000 through March 2019 before becoming its executive director and general counsel until October 2020.
He filed his lawsuit in January 2021. The complaint centered on a report published in February 2020 alleging “a Republican state agency head pressured staff to slash by $1M the $2.5M in property taxes Donald Trump paid in 2012.” Then, in October 2020, the paper reported Gov. JB Pritzker fired Glorioso during a state investigation.
Reviewing the case on its original merits, the court said Novak and the newspaper had to show the reporting was “in furtherance of their rights to petition, speak, associate, or otherwise participate in government to obtain favorable government action” in order to win dismissal on SLAPP grounds.
The court sided with Glorioso, who focused on the requirement that challenged action must be “aimed at procuring favorable government action or outcome” and not broadly covering “speech regarding matters of public concern.”
Overstreet said Novak’s reporting “contain no language specifically requesting a response or reaction from a government entity or employee, nor do they seek any specific action on the part of the voting public.” The court further distinguished Novak’s articles from investigative reporting, saying what Novak wrote was a summary of a third party’s investigation, the Office of the Executive Inspector General.
The court further noted the Citizen Participation Act’s stated policy of protecting “the constitutional rights of citizens and organizations to be involved and participate freely in the process of government.” Overstreet noted the law contains no reference to “news media or the freedom of the press.”
Taking care to note that observation isn’t intended “to minimize or understate the importance of the press and other news media in our democracy,” Overstreet wrote the government’s “jurisprudence is replete with privileges and other protections designed to protect these concerns, many of which remain at issue in this lawsuit. We are simply holding that the Act specifically protects government participation and does not encompass all media reports on matters of public concern as advocated by defendants.”
The complaint heads back to circuit court for further proceedings.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other media organizations filed a support brief on behalf of the Sun-Times through Baron Harris Healey, of Chicago, and Dentons US, also of Chicago.
“SLAPPs burden constitutionally protected newsgathering and reporting about matters of public concern,” according to the brief, which asserted: “The appellate court’s decision is contrary to the intent of the Illinois legislature to protect, through the Act, the exact type of action by the media that gave rise to plaintiff’s lawsuit.”
The Committee pointed out concerns over “the potentially exorbitant costs of defending meritless lawsuits” and said such litigation is precisely the tactic addressed in a 1964 U.S. Supreme Court opinion New York Times v. Sullivan. It argued the appellate panel narrowly applied the law in a manner that places an undue burden on the newspaper as the moving party thus ignoring a General Assembly mandate the law “be construed liberally to effectuate its purposes and intent fully.”
The brief further quoted an appellate dissent from Justice Michael Hyman, who wrote the majority opinion “essentially weakened a potent deterrent to groundless lawsuits that target those who protest or raise concerns on matters of public interest.”
In response to questions from The Record, Mara Gassmann, senior staff attorney at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said:
“While we are glad that the ruling noted the important role of the press in a functioning democracy, we regret that the court chose to adhere to an interpretation of the Illinois Citizen Participation Act that is neither required by the language of the statute nor consistent with its legislative history. Anti-SLAPP laws are vital to free speech, including the ability to report the news, and Illinois journalists need greater protection from lawsuits seeking to silence their work.”