A local jury awarded a $2 million libel judgment against the Daily Tribune Monday in a suit filed by a local businessman.
The jury award $500,000 in damages and $1.5 million in punitive damages to Harvey Segovia, owner of Segovia Lumber Co. Segovia had charged that the newspaper had damaged his reputation in a story, written by police reporter Mitch Sawyer, about a construction accident two years ago.
Banks Brookwood, a lawyer for the Tribune, said the newspaper will appeal the verdict, which he termed “outrageous.”
“We believe that the jury did not understand the real issues here,” he said. “They seemed to have it in for the newspaper.”
Segovia had the opposite reaction. “The jury got it exactly right,” he said, standing on the courthouse steps with his family after the verdict was announced. He blasted the newspaper’s “slovenly reporting methods.”
Segovia’s company was named two years ago in a story about a fatal construction accident in in the downtown area. Two workers fell from a 40-foot scaffolding; one was killed, and the other paralyzed. The story quoted the city building inspector as saying the accident had been caused by rotting wood and that whoever supplied the wood was responsible for the accident.
The newspaper story then quoted a construction company official as saying the Segovia Lumber Co. was the supplier of wood for the project.
During the trial, Segovia argued that his company was not the only one that supplied wood for the construction project and that the newspaper never called him to ask about the story. When he asked for a retraction, the editor of the paper, Abe Streeter, refused.
In one of the paper’s defenses, Tribune lawyers said that Segovia’s company had not suffered any damages. In fact, they said, the company’s business had increased during the past two years.