HARRISBURG – The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has upheld a Montgomery County trial court’s dismissal of a defamation case brought by a political action committee against a group of Pennsylvania-based journalists, who had referred to the committee as supporting QAnon-backed candidates for school boards statewide.
Superior Court judges Jack A. Panella, Megan McCarthy King and Correale F. Stevens handed down the ruling on June 12, in the case brought by Claire Schillinger and the Keeping Kids in School Political Action Committee versus Pennsylvania Spotlight, (trading as “PA Spotlight”), Eric C. Russo and a reporter identified only as John Doe No. 1.
Stevens authored the Court’s opinion.
“By way of background, Ms. Schillinger organized KKIS during the COVID-19 pandemic to advocate for ‘concerned caregivers for the reopening of schools to in-person instruction and to promote and endorse candidates for local school boards in Pennsylvania who support in-person learning.’ Appellants assert that KKIS is a bipartisan political action committee (PAC) that is properly registered in all Pennsylvania counties and files timely public financial disclosure reports to detail the sources and amounts of funding it receives from donors in accordance with campaign finance law,” Stevens said.
“Appellants filed a complaint to seek damages from PA Spotlight and Russo for negligent defamation, intentional defamation and false light invasion of privacy. Appellants claim they sustained substantial injury from false and defamatory statements made in an article published by Pennsylvania Spotlight on its website. The complaint indicates that PA Spotlight ‘purports to be an accountability and investigative organization building power through research reports, commentary, digital organizing, and tracking organizations who fight against the best interests of the working class.’ Mr. Russo is the executive director of PA Spotlight.”
In a June 3, 2021 article, the defendants named former Congressman Ryan Costello and venture capitalist Paul Martino as the biggest donors to KKIS, which was referred to in the headline as a “PAC supporting QAnon school board candidates.”
Within the article itself, the organization was further referred to as follows: “The Keeping Kids in Schools PAC associated itself with school board candidates in nine counties spanning from Lackawanna County in Northeastern Pennsylvania to Chester County in Southeastern Pennsylvania. The PAC coordinated with the Commonwealth Foundation’s dark money network in Pennsylvania.”
The article went on to say that several of the candidates supported by the PAC were present at the U.S. Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, and that it was now included on the “list of front groups masking the work of billionaire donors and extremist politicians.”
Schillinger and KKIS filed suit in the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, taking issue with the above assertions and brought counts of negligent defamation, intentional defamation and false light invasion of privacy against Pennsylvania Spotlight, Russo and Doe.
In response, the defendants filed preliminary objections that the plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege that the statements in the article were false and defamatory or that the statements were made with actual malice.
On Aug. 1, 2022, the trial court granted the preliminary objections and dismissed the complaint on the basis that the article contained statements of opinion and not actionable defamatory statements – leading the plaintiffs to appeal to the Superior Court.
But on appeal, the Superior Court concurred with their colleagues in the Montgomery County trial court.
“The trial court properly found that the article’s characterization of KKIS as a ‘dark money organization’ did not imply that KKIS failed to comply with its financial disclosure requirements as a political action committee. To the contrary, the article highlighted that KKIS had filed campaign finance reports that publicly disclosed their two largest donors. When analyzing the article in its entirety, the article does not invite the reader to make an inference that KKIS failed to disclose any of its donors, but instead emphasizes that the PAC’s two largest donors are a venture capitalist and a politician,” Stevens stated.
“Rather, we agree that the article’s characterization of KKIS as a part of a ‘dark money network’ is based on the author’s opinion that KKIS had coordinated with the Commonwealth Foundation, a non-profit organization. To the extent that appellants allege that the article falsely claimed that KKIS collaborated with the Commonwealth Foundation, the article sets forth facts to support its conclusion that KKIS aligned with the Commonwealth Foundation, pointing to websites with connections to the Commonwealth Foundation that published articles about the launch of KKIS and subsequent positive content about KKIS. Thus, the article set forth the basis for its opinion, although appellants may disagree with its conclusion.”
Notably, Stevens wrote that “although appellants argue that it was derogatory to label KKIS as a ‘dark money organization’ based on its coordination with a ‘dark money network,’ appellants do not assert that term ‘dark money’ implies that the entity has engaged in illegal or criminal conduct.”
“Accordingly, appellants have not set forth a cause of action for defamation for this expression of opinion in the article, which sets forth the basis for its conclusions and does not imply the existence of additional, undisclosed facts. Although appellants may be offended by article’s content, we reiterate that ‘[a] simple expression of opinion based on disclosed or assumed non-defamatory facts is not itself sufficient for an action of defamation, no matter how unjustified and unreasonable the opinion may be or how derogatory it is,” Stevens concluded.
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 2266 EDA 2022
Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas case 2021-16992
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com