Nearly one year after losing a high-profile libel lawsuit in SLO County, CalCoastNews filed its opening brief with the 2nd Distric Court of Appeal.
The opening brief, filed Feb. 26, asks the appellate court to reverse the lower court’s judgment against reporter Dan Blackburn, and throw out the $1.1 million in total damages the jury leveled against him, reporter Karen Velie, and CalCoastNews in their entirety.
“We are feeling very good about our prospects,” Paul J. Beard II, the attorney representing CalCoastNews, told New Times.
The verdict and damages stem from a 2012 article about Arroyo Grande waste management businessman Charles Tenborg bylined by both Blackburn and Velie. After a civil trial that ended in March 2017, a jury found that the story contained defamatory statements about Tenborg. CalCoastNews announced its intentions to appeal in May 2017.
The appellate brief argues that Blackburn was only responsible for writing a portion of the article, and that his portion did not contain any of the statements about Tenborg the jury found defamatory.
The brief also asked the court to throw out the $1.1 million in damages, claiming that the trial court gave jurors erroneous and prejudicial instructions.
“The entire process was poisoned by bad jury instructions,” Beard said.
Alternately, the brief also asks the court to consider throwing out the $300,000 in presumed damages against Blackburn, and the $500,000 in punitive damages against Velie.
Tenborg’s attorney has until March 28 to file a response.
This article appears in Spring Arts Annual 2018.
Charles is one of the most honest and trustworthy people I’ve ever known.
When you lie about people for the sole purpose of generating page views that you can then trumpet to potential advertisers, you lose the right to be called a “journalist.” The decision was just, and these weasels don’t want to pay up.