“The Kingston family has demonstrated a disturbing trend of using improper and frivolous ‘defamation’ actions as a powerful tool in their attempts to silence the press and their critics,” the brief says. “The current lawsuit constitutes yet another attempt by the Kingstons to chill the constitutional rights of the press, and deter political opponents from fully exercising their freedom of the press and speech in order to avoid public scrutiny of their business practices at the Co-Op Mine, and the Plaintiffs should not be allowed to abuse the legal system in this way.”

Representing the Militant and the SWP as their lead counsel is Salt Lake attorney Randy Dryer, who has defended many newspapers in cases where defense of freedom of the press and free speech are involved. Also working on this case is Dryer’s colleague Michael Petrogeorge.

The introduction to the memorandum submitted to the court in support of the motion to dismiss explains, “For more than 75 years, The Militant, a socialist newsweekly published in New York, has written extensively on the labor movement, the efforts of workers to unionize and to obtain greater rights, and on issues of public health and safety particularly affecting workers. Given its interest in labor issues, The Militant has written extensively over the past 18 months on the contentious and very public dispute between a central Utah coal mine (the “Co-Op Mine”) owned by the Kingston family, and a number of the mine’s workers.

“Like other newspapers, including The Salt Lake Tribune and The Deseret Morning News, The Militant’s articles have reported extensively on the workers’ allegations that they lack genuine union representation at the Co-Op mine, and that they have experienced unsafe working conditions, retaliatory, and anti-union labor practices, and other egregious and unfair treatment.”

It further explains that the Militant has reported extensively and reprinted documents about the Co-Op miners’ fight from hearings and proceedings of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the federal Mine Safety and Healthy Administration.

Reprinted in this issue (see article in this issue) is the full text of the legal documents submitted on behalf of the Militant and SWP to the federal district court. Many of the arguments in the motion to dismiss filed by the Militant and SWP are based on the arguments put forward in the brief filed on February 17 by the Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret Morning News, Utah’s most prominent daily newspapers, which have also been sued by the Kingstons. For that reason, substantial excerpts of that brief are also reprinted here (see Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News brief in this issue).

This lawsuit originated last September, when the Kingstons sued the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), its international officers and other officials, several Co-Op miners, several labor organizations, newspapers, and other groups and individuals, who have supported or written about this important labor struggle.

Attorneys for the Kingstons filed an amended brief in December, dropping some publications and a number of individuals from the suit. The Socialist Workers Party is named as a target in the Kingston lawsuit.

Prominent among the defendants in the amended brief is the Militant, its editor, and 25 of its volunteer correspondents. In fact, 24 of the 70 pages of the Kingston complaint alleging defamation are citations from the Militant’s nearly weekly coverage of the Co-Op miners’ fight over more than a year’s time.

In addition to seeking a judgment of unfair labor practices against the UMWA and the individual miners, and defamation against nearly 100 named defendants, the Kingstons are asking for damages claiming the UMWA “intentionally interfered” with their business and “civil conspiracy” against both the Kingston-owned C.W. Mining Company and the in-house Kingston family-operated International Association of United Workers Union (IAUWU), which claims to be the union representing miners at Co-Op. The Kingstons are requesting that the court award C.W. Mining in excess of $1 million as well as court costs.

This lawsuit stems from the struggles workers at the Co-Op mine have waged over the past 19 months. The coal miners are fighting for reinstatement to their jobs, better wages and working conditions, job safety, and to be treated with dignity. They are fighting to win union representation by the UMWA. The Kingstons have resisted this union-organizing effort at every step.

After 10 months on the picket line, the miners and the UMWA won a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruling last summer affirming that the miners were unjustly fired and ordering the company to reinstate the workers. A union representation election was held in December. The election results are still pending.  
 
Harassment and retributive lawsuit
Following the NLRB ruling and before the union election, C.W. Mining and the IAUWU filed their harassment lawsuit on September 24. They filed an amended complaint on December 9, the same day that 30 of the Mexican-born miners, including many named as defendants in the suit, were fired for allegedly not having valid documentation showing eligibility to work in the United States.

The Kingstons “draft their Complaint with an extremely broad brush, boldly contending that nearly each and every article The Militant published about the Co-op Mine labor dispute between October 2003 and December 2004 is defamatory. Such sweeping and conclusory allegations of defamation defy all common sense and reveal Plaintiffs’ true motive to harass The Militant (and other media defendants), and to deter further negative press about the Co-op Mine and the claims of its workers,” the Militant and SWP brief explains.

While the Socialist Workers Party is also named as a defendant, the brief explains that the only allegation against it is that “it owns and controls The Militant.”

“Even assuming (as we must for this motion) that this allegation is true (which it is not), the plaintiffs’ claims against the Socialist Workers Party rise and fall with their claims against The Militant, and because the claims against The Militant should be dismissed, so too should the claims against the Socialist Workers Party.”

The Militant and SWP brief explains that newspapers are afforded broad latitude in reporting on issues of public interest, in quoting or reporting on opinions expressed in the course of a dispute, and in reporting on matters before governmental bodies such as the NLRB and MSHA, and as a result the Kingston’s claims are frivolous and should be thrown out.

The Kingstons’ attorneys have 30 days to reply to the motions filed by the various defendants, although it is common for the court to grant an additional 30-day extension to respond. All of the defendants will then have 15 days to submit an additional reply before the motions to dismiss this case are decided upon by the federal district court in Utah.
 
 
Related articles:
Defend the ‘Militant,’ SWP!
‘Militant’ answers defamation lawsuit
Legal brief by socialist weekly, SWP backing motion to dismiss Kingston suit
Bosses, gov’t use suits to harass workers movement
 
 
 
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