CT Supreme Court: watch what you say at zoning hearings
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15 deer park meadow road (note to Mr. Priore’s lawyers: just kidding)
Greenwich libel suit against neighbor can proceed
GREENWICH — The state Supreme Court has overturned earlier court rulings that a Greenwich woman could not be sued for libel for comments she made about a neighbor six years ago during a Greenwich Planning & Zoning Commission hearing.
The Supreme Court directed the case be sent back to the trial court, presumably Superior Court in Stamford, “for further proceedings according to law.”
Thomas Priore brought the libel suit against Stephanie Haig, his neighbor, after she called him not “trustworthy” and “wrongfully accused” him of having been convicted of a crime, according to court documents. Her statements, made during a 2016 P&Z hearing, were also published on a local news website.
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The case centered on whether land use commissions are quasi-judicial in nature. Free speech protections are granted at jury trials, a longstanding convention in libel law, and courtroom speech cannot be cited for libel.
While the law grants immunity from litigation in courtrooms and legislative hearings, whether the local P&Z Commission should have the same protocols around speech in place was a question that arose during the litigation.
The initial court ruling in state Superior Court found that Haig had immunity from litigation, but Priore appealed that decision.
In 2020, the state Appellate Court upheld the decision and ruled that the P&Z Commission was quasi-judicial in nature, and therefore subject to immunity from libel litigation. But Priore appealed again to the state’s highest court.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision found that Priore did indeed have grounds to sue. “We agree with the plaintiff that the public hearing was not quasi-judicial in nature and, accordingly, reverse the judgment of the Appellate Court,” the high court justices said in their decision.
The case stemmed from a property dispute after Priore bought property in the Deer Park Association and was seeking permission to build a new home and sewer system, and in the process, removed some trees. There was discussion involving Priore and his neighbor, Haig, about who would pay for the sewer upgrades, as well as what happened to the trees.
According to court papers, Haig called Priore not “trustworthy” at the P&Z hearing in 2016. “Unfortunately, he does have a criminal past and paid over $40 million fines,” she said, according to court papers.
The remark was printed in the hyper-local news website Greenwich Free Press.
But Priore was never convicted of a crime. He sued Haig for libel, and the legal complaint stated her statements caused damage to his “reputation and good name.”
Priore was involved in civil litigation in 2012. He, his firm and affiliated partners agreed to pay $23.5 million to settle civil fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission, which investigated complaints that Priore’s firm misled investors and reaped millions in fees.
As part of the settlement, Priore and his affiliated companies consented, without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations, to certain injunctions. He was never charged criminally, his lawyer noted.
I haven’t read the decision, but I do know that six years of appellate litigation, though not as labor intensive as an actual trial, is very, very expensive, and in view of this ruling, opponents of development projects by deep-pocketed developers or individual homeowners will want to be cautious about what they say about the personal qualities of that developer.
Whether this turns out to be a good ruling or bad, it’s now the law in Connecticut, so curb your enthusiasm.
