Courant and Tribune Claim They Can’t Be Forced To Keep Journalistic Promises To Staff

In an interesting legal argument today in Hartford Superior Court, the lawyer for The Courant and its owner, The Tribune Company, said that it cannot be held legally accountable to promises it made to me when I was given the job of investigative consumer columnist in 2006.

Hartford Attorney Victoria Woodin Chavey argued that newspapers were protected by the First Amendment from being sued for its journalistic promises.

The argument was made in the Courant and Tribune’s motion for summary judgment, asking Superior Court Judge Marshall Berger to dismiss my wrongful discharge suit claiming that I was fired in violation of an agreement I had with the publisher and editor of the Courant.

My position was eliminated in August 2009 after I refused to be nice to major advertisers. I refused a severance which would have included a gag provision.

Instead I sued on the grounds that before accepting the consumer columnist  job I had specifically requested assurances from the editor and publisher that I would be protected from advertisers whom I wrote about. I was given that assurance.

But on Monday, Atty. Chavey said that even if that assurance was given, I could not rely on it because the First Amendment gives newspapers the right to decide what goes into a newspaper. In answering a question from the judge, she conceded that she could not site a single court case that supported her position.

Besides, she argued, the promise I claim that was made was “vague.”

However, New Haven Attorney Joseph Garrison, my attorney, argued that requiring The Courant to keep its promise does not impinge on its editorial powers. We were not challenging The Courant’s right to decide whether to print what I wrote, only to keep its word that I would not be harmed because of  advertiser backlash.

Judge Berger is expected to rule on the motion in the next couple of months.