HEADLINEÂ Newspaper Case Could Revamp Employment Law
SUBHEAD: Ex-columnist alleges Courant’s mission statement was job contract
Interviewed by Thomas B. Scheffey Senior Writer The Connecticut Law Tribune
GOMBOSSY: Former Hartford Courant consumer columnist George Gombossy said his right to publish a column critical of a mattress retailer should have been protected under the state’s employee free speech act.
Two years ago, when the Hartford Courant was happy to run George Gombossy’s consumer watchdog columns, his pugnacious mug was plastered on billboards throughout the capital region. That was before economic reversals, bankruptcy proceedings involving its parent company, and new management changed the outlook of Connecticut’s largest newspaper.
In August, Gombossy was planning to run a column about a bedbug problem at mattress retailer Sleepy’s. Gombossy contends he was instructed to inform top management before writing about top advertisers. Words were exchanged behind closed doors and, in short order, Gombossy was a former employee. He retained New Haven employment lawyer Joseph D. Garrison, and has sued the Courant under the state’s employee free speech law. His complaint, as amended Nov. 3, also alleges the Courant’s mission statement acts as an employment contract.
In various statements, the Courant countered that Gombossy “mischaracterized†his departure “for his own personal gain.†It said he “was not under any contract requiring his continued employment as our consumer reporter and a business decision was made to move in another direction that did not require his particular talents.†The Courant’s lawyers want the case moved to the complex litigation docket. The newspaper and other news media may have more at stake here than Gombossy, according to the motion filed by Day Pitney attorneys Victoria Woodin Chavey and David C. Salazar-Austin:
“This case directly impacts the Defendants’ First Amendment rights, and threatens to set significant precedent in Connecticut that could negatively impact the First Amendment rights of newspaper publishers and other media outlets in this state.â€
Gombossy gave his views on this and other issues in a recent interview with Senior Writer Thomas Scheffey.
LAW TRIBUNE: Is your new web site, CTWatchdog.com, going to be a replacement for your job at the Courant?
GEORGE GOMBOSSY: It is my job. And it will become profitable over time. It has potential.
LAW TRIBUNE: Do potential advertisers shy away when you say you won’t go easy on them?
GOMBOSSY: [On my site, a propane company pays] $200 a month for an ad, knowing full well that, any chance I get I will take a shot at the propane business, because it is the most opaque, least transparent, shadiest energy business in the country.
Advertisers don’t advertise because they like the publisher or the reporter. They couldn’t care less. They scream and holler about a negative story, but they don’t cut their advertising. If they have a bad image problem, if they’re smart they take out more ads. Think about it. How did this work out for Sleepy’s? Did the Courant really protect Sleepy’s [image]? I never investigated Sleepy’s. I just followed up on an attorney general’s investigation with just normal reporting.
LAW TRIBUNE: The Courant says that your position was eliminated, and you were offered a different job.
GOMBOSSY: No. I wasn’t offered any position…I was offered severance. It would have come with a gag order and a confidentiality agreement – I didn’t read it that closely, because it would have prevented me from suing the Courant.
LAW TRIBUNE: The Courant’s lawyers say your case has important employment law and First Amendment issues of first impression.
GOMBOSSY: The reason it’s a case of first impression is because no journalist has ever sued a newspaper claiming that their right of free speech was hampered or prevented because their employer refused to publish something that was in the public’s interest to know. [In this case,] the journalist was then fired for attempting to do what his job is.
LAW TRIBUNE: Is there a possible argument that the paper’s free speech rights exceed the individual journalist’s?
GOMBOSSY: The legislation that covers this, introduced by the late Rep. Richard Tulisano, is not called the employer’s freedom of speech statute. It’s called the employees, the worker’s free speech act. The paper has plenty of free speech rights. To this day, the Courant has a mission statement, still on its web site, that tells the public and journalists working for it that they will cover the news – fairly, honestly and with favor to none. By preventing a journalist from telling a simple story, that the attorney general is investigating a prime advertiser, how is that fulfilling the mission statement?
LAW TRIBUNE: And you’d like the Courant to live up to its best ideals of the past.
GOMBOSSY: Not just its best ideals, its written promise. I was on the committee that drafted that. I was one of the few reporters asked by the Courant to help draft the language, so I know the intent of that language.
LAW TRIBUNE: Are there any developments in the Sleepy’s mattress story?
GOMBOSSY: In my last column, I wrote that [Attorney General Richard Blumenthal] has learned of 25 more complaints of bedbugs.
LAW TRIBUNE: What’s the time frame for your employment trial?
GOMBOSSY: I assume it will come to trial within the next two, two-and a-half years. They’ll probably make a motion for summary judgment. Hopefully they won’t win that. I’m looking forward to trial. You’ll notice that after the first few times [top Courant executives] contradicted each other, their lawyers put a gag order on them. There’s no gag order on me.
