Finally got a copy of the 2nd Appellate Court’s decision dismissing the appeal from Kane County Judge Kevin Busch’s dismissal of claims by Republican County Board candidates Orville Brettman and Ersel Schuster that Illinois Integrity Fund mailings had defamed them.

There were all sorts of procedure objections brought by Brecker Press, et al, (including Jack Franks) but, as Appellate Court Justice Mary Seminara-Schostok put it,

Turning to the merits, the plaintiffs assert that the trial court erred in dismissing their defamation suit because they had a valid claim of defamation. The defendants claim that they were immune from suit under the Act because they exercised their protected political rights in mailing the flyers at issue and the plaintiffs’ suit was designed to prevent them from further exercising their rights.

We agree with the defendants.

Continuing,

The Act was intended to protect individuals from lawsuits designed to prevent them from exercising their political rights, also known as SLAPPs. The Act accordingly immunizes from liability any “[a]cts in furtherance participation in government ***, regardless of intent or purpose, except when not genuinely aimed at procuring favorable government action, result, or outcome.”

The Act provides that a defendant may move to dismiss a lawsuit “on the grounds that the claim is based on, relates to, or is in response to any act or acts of the moving party in furtherance of the moving party’s rights of petition, speech, association, or to otherwise participate in government.”

The Justice found the defamation claims of both Brettman and Schuster insufficent.

As the record supports the trial court’s determination that the plaintiffs’ claim for defamation was meritless, the next part of our analysis requires us to consider whether the plaintiffs filed their suit in retaliation for the defendants’ publishing the political flyers in question.

We need not delve into this issue, however, because the plaintiffs have not presented any cogent argument on appeal that its complaint was filed for any reason other than retaliation against the defendants.

Winding up the opinion Justice Schostok writes,

As the plaintiffs’ complaint was meritless and retaliatory, the burden thus shifts under the Act to the plaintiffs to demonstrate that defendants’ acts were not solely aimed at procuring favorable government action.

Once again, however, the plaintiffs have not presented any cogent argument that the defendants’ political flyers were not solely aimed at procuring favorable government action.

As such, any challenges to the trial court’s ruling on this point is forfeited.

Accordingly, as the plaintiffs have not proved by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants made their statements for any reason other than to procure a favorable government outcome, we conclude that the defendants were immune from suit under the Act and the trial court did not err in dismissing the plaintiffs’ complaint.

And Judge Busch was affirmed.