The C.W. Mining lawsuit was originally filed in September 2004. The list of defendants includes the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), 16 Co-Op miners, unions and individuals who supported the miners, and newspapers that reported on what the miners had to say in the struggle against the mine owner. At the first hearing on the lawsuit in June, the judge said the company brief was insufficient and ordered their lawyers to rewrite it to describe clearly who was being sued, and what they were being sued for.

The Militant’s reply, filed by the newspaper’s attorneys Randy Dryer and Michael Petrogeorge, states the company’s lawyers made “no effort to comply” with the judge’s order. The rewritten complaint is “more confusing and cumbersome than the first, adds entirely new claims of defamation against The Militant, and provides neither the parties nor this Court with any basis to understand which of the alleged statements are defamatory and why.”

C.W. Mining’s “arguments about why the articles/editorials published by The Militant convey defamatory meaning and constitute actionable opinions, and the examples they cite, in most cases highlight the deficiencies of their claims,” explained attorneys for the Militant. By ignoring the judge’s order to clarify what the Militant was being sued for, C.W. Mining “further reveals that they have no good faith basis for pursuing this lawsuit.”

The Militant’s reply also points out that “the vast majority of its published statements, particularly those in its editorials, constitute statements of opinion, rather than statements of actionable fact.” Reporting on the views of individual Co-Op miners or UMWA officials that the mine is “dangerous,” certain safety conditions are “inadequate,” or the miners were fired because of “efforts to organize a union” cannot sustain a defamation charge. If that were so, the Militant’s attorneys say, then every contentious labor dispute “would become a morass of libel litigation.”

If the case against the newspapers is allowed to proceed, the Militant’s brief says, then the mine owners “will have achieved their primary objective of making the threat of protracted and expensive litigation a reality” in the hopes of chilling the Militant’s and others’ right to free speech and expression. The paper’s attorneys say the case against the Militant should be dismissed with prejudice and that it should be awarded reimbursement for “all of the reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in defending this frivolous and retaliatory lawsuit.”

The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News—Utah’s main daily newspapers—filed a joint reply to the company. Unlike in the C.W. Mining response to the Militant, the company’s attorneys made some attempt in their rewritten lawsuit to identify specifically what “defamatory” statements each of these newspapers was being charged with. In reply, the dailies said the “statements at issue are opinion and/or not capable of a defamatory meaning.”

For example, C.W. Mining claims the two dailies defamed the company by reporting workers were fired for trying to organize a union. The company “never explains how it defames an employer to say that it fired someone,” says the Tribune and Deseret News reply. “It is obvious in this dispute, as in nearly every labor dispute, that the miners and their employer disagree as to whether the miners were fired or walked out.”

Attorneys for the UMWA, individual Co-Op miners, and Utah Jobs With Justice plan to file their final written replies to the company on October 21.
 
 
Related articles:
Pickets at Co-Op mine press fight for UMWA
Memorial held for Alabama miners killed on job  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home