A defamation lawsuit launched by the city manager against an anonymous blog that named a St. Albert citizen as a defendant has been discontinued.
Gord Hennigar announced on Thursday that the lawsuit against him has been discontinued by city manager Patrick Draper.
Cory Sinclair, communications manager for the city, confirmed on Thursday the suit has been dropped against Hennigar and said Draper wouldn’t be commenting. On Friday he said his understanding is the action has been totally discontinued, as Hennigar was the only defendant named.
A news release from Hennigar called it a victory for democracy.
He said in an interview that the discontinuance was filed about a week ago. However, the case isn’t done quite yet.
“I’m out quite a bit of money,” Hennigar said of the process of defending himself against the suit. He said there is now discussion occurring in consideration of his legal costs.
Draper announced in July 2014 that he planned to sue for defamation over an anonymous blog known as Third Floor News.
He sought support from council, which he was granted, to launch the lawsuit in his own name but pay for it out of city money. Council at the time unanimously supported him in launching the lawsuit but were divided about paying for it.
Months after the announcement, a lawsuit was filed against Hennigar, Richard Stringham, John Doe and ABC Corporation Ltd. Stringham was later removed from the defendant list. Mayor Nolan Crouse was named as a third party defendant by Hennigar.
Crouse said in an email he had no comment and that he has “received nothing officially nor any legal documents one way or the other in the last few weeks.”
A statement of claim filed by Draper in February 2015 said the defendants had been involved in creating and posting to the Third Floor News blog and publicizing the site to the local papers. Hennigar has maintained that he was not behind the blog and, upon being contacted about its impending debut, only sent the web address along to the mayor.
The cost of the lawsuit has been the source of some discussion in council, as no cap was set when council members agreed to finance the proceedings. As of March 18, the amount spent on the lawsuit was $28,511.66 according to Sinclair.
Council has voted in recent months to set aside up to $15,000 to get independent legal advice for council on the city manager’s lawsuit.
Coun. Cam MacKay’s motion to cap the lawsuit funding being provided by the city, postponed in November, is due at council on Monday. MacKay said he plans to continue with the motion.
Also on Thursday, a Wordpress-hosted website calling itself the St. Albert City Third Floor News appeared. It is not known if it is actually the same authors as the original blog, which was discontinued long ago, or someone else using the name. The original site and the recent site have different web addresses.
