A recently appointed library board member will sue a city councilman and the City of Hillsdale over allegedly defamatory statements.

Eric Moore claims Ward 4 Councilman Joshua Paladino damaged his reputation by comments he made in a city council meeting in January during discussion over nominees for the Library Board. 

Paladino read an email from Moore at the Jan. 20 council meeting and said Moore believed the city and the library could not regulate its content for children regarding violence, vulgarity, and sexuality. Moore, who says this misrepresents his position, is seeking damages of $250,000, according to his attorney, Jeffrey Hart. 

“Joshua Paladino, intentionally, and out of whole cloth, fabricated the contents of an email which Eric Moore never sent,” Hart said in a statement to The Collegian. “Clearly, Mr. Paladino’s statement painted Mr. Moore in a false light as an advocate for violence, vulgarity, and sexual exploitation of children. Such false statements carry reputational harm.”

Hart said Paladino will face claims of defamation, harassment, intrusion upon seclusion, false light invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is representing Paladino, told The Collegian the case “is without legal merit.” 

Paladino directed requests for comment to his attorney.

“Joshua Paladino has absolute legislative immunity, and that’s important,” Thompson said. “Local legislators, like city council members, are entitled to absolute immunity for their legislative activities.”

Hart, however, said immunity does not cover defamation.

“Because Mr. Paladino’s statements were made outside of the scope of his governmental authority and were intentionally fabricated and made out of animus dating back more than three years, he will have no defense of governmental immunity,” Hart said.

The Hillsdale City Council voted 6-2 at its March 2 meeting against a resolution that would have retracted Paladino’s statements and clarified that he spoke for himself and not for the city. Hart had said Moore would not seek legal action against the city if the council passed the resolution.

“We’re being asked to retract something that was interpreted by someone else, but it was nothing,” Ward 2 Councilman Will Morrisey said during the meeting. “It makes no sense. It’s an incoherent statement.”

Mayor Scott Sessions and Ward 1 Councilman Greg Stuchell voted in favor of the resolution.

In the email Paladino referenced at the January council meeting, Moore expressed concerns that the city could face legal or financial troubles if library board trustees voted to remove books.

“If these potential acts are deemed to be ‘intentional,’ there could be a denial of insurance coverage, as liability policies typically have an exclusion for ‘intentional acts,’” Moore wrote in the email. “This would mean the city could be financially responsible for any uninsured claims, and could result in higher insurance premiums or worse, the ability to obtain insurance at renewal.”

Hart said Paladino misrepresented the contents of the email.

“I do know that he was pretty firmly advocating that the city could not and the library board could not regulate its content for children in regard to violence, vulgarity, and sexuality, and he wrote as much to the board, and, I believe, to the council, at the time,” Paladino said in the January council meeting. “He said that we should not create a system to determine what books were age-appropriate for children due to the threat of lawsuit.”

Paladino did not object to Moore personally, he said, but disagreed with what he viewed as a policy position. Moore was appointed to the library board in the same meeting in a 6-3 decision.

Multiple court cases have ruled that statements made during official deliberations are protected by legislative immunity and the First Amendment, TMLC said in a statement posted to its website.

“The threatened lawsuit was clearly intended to intimidate and silence an elected official during the performance of his official duties,” the statement said.

Thompson told The Collegian paying Moore could set a dangerous precedent for legislators.

“It sets a bad example or a bad precedent, because the next person that’s disgruntled by something that a member of the legislative member of the city council did, he’s going to threaten a lawsuit, and he’s going to say, ‘Retract and pay me $25,000, or whatever amount,” Thompson said.

TMLC is prepared to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary, Thompson said.

“This is an important issue for the democratic process, and it’s an important issue for Hillsdale as well,” Thompson said.