Background
Gary Grasso, a licensed attorney and mayor of Burr Ridge, Illinois, brought a defamation lawsuit against a political consulting firm and its president for publishing three campaign mailers during his 2019 reelection campaign. The mailers accused Grasso of “defrauding the government” by taking improper homestead property tax exemptions totaling $36,000. The defendants based their claims on a research report from America Rising, a political research firm, which documented that Grasso had received homestead exemptions on two properties—a Cook County condominium and his Burr Ridge residence—simultaneously.
However, the research report only supported a two-year overlap in exemptions (2016 and 2017), which would have amounted to approximately $12,000 in improper benefits, not $36,000. The defendants could not explain how they calculated the $36,000 figure or justify the implied six-year duration claimed in the mailers. The circuit court granted summary judgment for the defendants, concluding that Grasso, as a public official, failed to present sufficient evidence that they published the mailers with actual malice.
The Court’s Holding
The Illinois Appellate Court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded the case for trial. The court held that genuine issues of material fact exist regarding whether the defendants recklessly disregarded the truth in publishing the mailers. Under the actual malice standard established in New York Times v. Sullivan, Grasso must prove the defendants either knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for their truth. The appellate court found that Corbett’s deposition testimony created sufficient factual ambiguity to preclude summary judgment.
The court emphasized that while the defendants relied on the America Rising research report and claimed to have verified information through government records, their published allegations exceeded what the report actually supported. Corbett repeatedly testified that he could not explain the mathematical basis for the $36,000 figure or the six-year period, stating “I can’t speak to our thinking at that time.” This discrepancy between the research and the mailers’ claims, combined with Corbett’s inability to justify the figures, raised an inference that defendants may have published information they knew—or should have known—was unsupported.
Key Takeaways
- Summary judgment is inappropriate in defamation cases when a defendant’s subjective state of mind—their actual knowledge or reckless disregard for truth—is central to the claim.
- A defendant’s self-serving testimony that they believed published statements to be true does not automatically defeat a defamation claim and does not warrant summary judgment when circumstantial evidence suggests possible recklessness.
- Campaign materials that make specific factual accusations (such as dollar amounts and time periods) must be supported by the sources upon which the defendant claims to rely; unexplained gaps between source material and published claims can raise questions of recklessness.
- For public officials bringing defamation claims, actual malice can be inferred circumstantially from evidence that a defendant’s investigation revealed insufficient information to support the accusations in good faith.
Why It Matters
This decision clarifies the proper application of summary judgment in political defamation cases involving public officials. While New York Times v. Sullivan protects robust political debate, it does not shield defendants from liability when they recklessly disregard the accuracy of specific factual claims. The court’s reversal signals that summary judgment movants cannot simply assert their own good faith beliefs about truth when their state of mind is disputed; credibility determinations and inferences about subjective knowledge properly belong with a jury.
The decision is also significant for the concurring opinion by Justice Anderson, which articulates a fundamental principle: a party should not be able to win summary judgment on a motion based solely on their own unverified assertions about their internal state of mind, particularly when the plaintiff cannot access or contradict information existing only in the defendant’s head. This reasoning protects public figures from being foreclosed from trial on defamation claims merely because defendants submit affidavits claiming to have acted in good faith.