{"id":1601,"date":"2016-06-04T14:03:37","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T14:03:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/?p=1601"},"modified":"2025-10-30T12:09:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T12:09:49","slug":"what-happens-when-a-waste-company-sues-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/2016\/06\/04\/what-happens-when-a-waste-company-sues-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens when a waste company sues critics"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ben<\/a>

Ben Eaton, Mary Schaeffer, Esther Calhoun, and Ellis Long (from left to right) successfully asked courts\u00a0to dismiss the defamation lawsuit brought against them for speaking out\u00a0about pollution in their town. (ACLU)<\/p><\/div>\n

In June 2016, four Alabama citizens asked their state courts to dismiss<\/a> a defamation lawsuit brought against them for criticizing the operations of a waste disposal company.<\/p>\n

The courts agreed with the motion to dismiss<\/a> in February, 2017.<\/p>\n

The initial lawsuit was filed April 2016 by\u00a0the owners of a Uniontown, Alabama waste dump, who alleged that the four citizens had hurt their reputation when they criticized the dump in statements to the media <\/a>and on\u00a0their Black Belt Citizens\u00a0Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among the things that Eaton, Schaeffer, Calhoun and Long \u00a0said about the landfill that allegedly harmed Green Group Holdings (according to their court filings<\/a>):<\/p>\n

1. I feel like I\u2019m in prison, we\u2019re\u00a0suffocated by toxic pollution and\u00a0extreme poverty.\u00a0Where are my freedoms? This is an environmental injustice & it\u2019s happening in\u00a0Uniontown and\u00a0\u00a0everywhere. Its a landfill, its a tall mountain of coal ash and it has affected us. It affected our\u00a0everyday life.\u00a0It really has done a lot to our freedom. Its another impact of\u00a0slavery.
\n
\n2. Cause we are in a black residence, things change? And you can\u2019t walk\u00a0outside. And \u00a0you can not breathe. I mean, you are in like prison. I mean, its like \u00a0all your freedom is gone. As a black woman, our voices are not heard. EPA hasn\u2019t listened and ADEM\u00a0has not listened. Whether you are white or black, rich or poor, it should still \u00a0matter and \u00a0we all should have the right to clean air and clean water. I want\u00a0to see EPA do their job.<\/p>\n

3. We are tired of being taken advantage of in this community. The living around\u00a0here can\u2019t rest because of the toxic material from the coal ash\u00a0leaking into creeks\u00a0and contaminating the environment, and the deceased can\u2019t rest because of\u00a0desecration of their resting place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Green Group Holdings<\/strong> says it its complaint (p. 11 -12)<\/a> that these and other statements are made “with malice by intentional action or with reckless disregard for the truth.”<\/p>\n

“By portraying Arrowhead Landfill as a facility that is a\u00a0corrupt, intentional polluter of the Uniontown community that\u00a0also desecrates cemeteries\u00a0and\u00a0is intentionally preying on that community to the extent that it calls to mind slavery\u00a0times and false imprisonment, the Defendants have through\u00a0the national and international\u00a0publication of such\u00a0sensational and defamatory\u00a0(though false) allegations permanently\u00a0injured and\u00a0damaged the business and reputation of Plaintiffs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The ACLU’s argument<\/strong> is that these statements\u00a0are rhetoric and hyperbole, well within the “breathing room” that is needed for the kind of full, robust discussion of public issues that is protected by the First Amendment.<\/p>\n

These are not statements of fact that the company can prove\u00a0to be false, the ACLU says.\u00a0 \u00a0(See p. 12 of the response<\/a>). \u00a0For example the words\u00a0\u201ctoxic\u201d and \u201ccontaminating” \u00a0should not be taken in context as a literal assertion of scientific or legal fact. “To conclude otherwise would be to stifle Eaton’s ability to engage in the political rhetoric that is at the core of the First Amendment’s protections.” (See p. 18 of the response<\/a>).<\/p>\n

On p. 19, the ACLU notes that Green Group Holdings is legally a public entity and that the Sullivan “actual malice” standard applies. “… Public officials and public figures cannot recover for defamation without\u00a0showing that the defamatory statement \u201cwas made with \u2018actual malice,\u00a0that is, with knowledge \u00a0that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Background on the lawsuit \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lawsuit was preceded by an interesting offer to “settle”<\/a> if Eaton, Schaeffer, Calhoun and Long \u00a0would agree to drop complaints of environmental racism to the EPA, never speak out\u00a0against them again, and turn over all their passwords and internet correspondence with others about the waste dump. \u00a0After they refused, \u00a0Green Group holdings went ahead with the suit.<\/p>\n

This kind of legal action is called a SLAPP<\/a> — a strategic lawsuit against public participation — and 30 other states have some form of protection against it. Alabama does not, but in its brief asking for the suit to be dismissed, the American Civil Liberties Union noted that the lack of SLAPP protection in state law does not mean that citizens lose First Amendment protections from the US Constitution.<\/p>\n

<\/a>

Coal ash surrounds this house in Kingston, TN, following the December, 2008 TVA disaster. The ash from coal-fired electric power plants contains large amounts of arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium and chromium and other toxic and hazardous chemicals. \u00a0Ash from the spill has been moved to the Uniontown AL waste dump at the heart of this defamation lawsuit.<\/p><\/div>\n

The waste dump is particularly controversial because it is handling coal ash that is loaded with carcinogens and\u00a0toxic chemicals Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston coal ash disaster of 2008.<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Dumping the ash in a predominantly African-American region has been controversial from the beginning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In June 2016, four Alabama citizens asked their state courts to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought against them for criticizing the operations of a waste disposal company. The courts agreed with the motion to dismiss in February, 2017. The initial … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-libel","category-politics-media-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6856,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/6856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}