Appellate court upholds dismissal of libel lawsuit

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ELGIN – A Crystal Lake attorney plans to ask the Illinois Supreme Court to hear a libel case after an appellate court sided with the Northwest Herald.

The Second District Appellate Court recently ruled that the newspaper was shielded from libel damages in the case involving a woman who gave police her sister’s name. The newspaper was protected because it provided a fair summary of an official action or proceeding, the judges ruled.

Lake in the Hills police sent a newspaper reporter a daily bulletin Dec. 29, 2006, stating that Carolene A. Eubanks had been charged with retail theft and attempting to obstruct justice. The reporter submitted the information for the police blotter that day, which was the Friday before a holiday weekend.

The blotter item ran in the Jan. 2, 2007, issue, before the reporter returned to work and read an e-mail from police correcting the identity of the person arrested for those charges. The second e-mail was sent at 10:25 p.m. Dec. 29, 2006, after the reporter had left work for the holiday weekend.

The newspaper immediately corrected the blotter information posted on its Web site and ran a correction in its Jan. 3, 2007, print edition.

McHenry County Judge Maureen McIntyre dismissed Eubanks’s libel claim in August 2008, and the appellate court agreed.

“Courts have consistently held that news reports based on the records and utterances of police and other law enforcement officers are the types of official proceedings protected by this privilege,” Judge Mary Schostok wrote in the appellate opinion.

Eubanks’ attorney, George Kililis, said they planned to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case. He had argued to appellate judges that the newspaper acted recklessly and did not take appropriate steps to ensure the information was accurate and complete.

“Basically, the newspaper won by admitting that they were completely irresponsible,” Kililis said.

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