On Thursday, December 29, 2005 my lawyers (
Latham & Watkins) filed a motion for sanctions against the politician suing me for defamation and his law firm.
Yes, the president of the local school board, Emanuel "Chris" Welch, and his brother sued me for defamation based on entries on my blog, Proviso Probe.
The Daily Kos community was immediately supportive. (First diary & second diary.) I remain thankful for all the help I got from the dKos community.
From the motion:
Illinois Supreme Court Rules prohibit attorneys from signing pleadings not "well grounded in fact" or "warranted by existing law of a good-faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law," or from filing pleadings "for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation."
The motion asks for the suits to be dismissed with prejudice--the plaintiffs cannot re-file--and for the judge to rule the plaintiffs must pay legal fees.
I posted most of the motion in three parts. The first part is the history of Welch and James J. Roche, the head of his law firm, using these bad-faith lawsuits to stifle speech by critics. The second part includes some of the choice excerpts from the motion. The third entry has the table of contents and conclusion.