Settlement reached in Buck lawsuit

December 16, 2015 · 0 Comments

By Brock Weir

A settlement has been reached in the long-running defamation lawsuit between former Aurora mayor Evelyn Buck and several members of the 2006 – 2010 Council term on which she served.

The settlement was endorsed by Justice M.L. Edwards on Monday.

“The parties and their counsel should be commended for working out a consent with respect to the question of costs,” ruled the Judge. “This now brings this matter to a conclusion.”

In the terms of the settlement, Ms. Buck will be required to pay costs in the amount of $100,000 within 120 days. A condition of the settlement, according to David Boghosian, lawyer for the defence, is the abandonment of the appeal Ms. Buck filed earlier this fall after her lawsuit against former mayor Phyllis Morris, former councillors John Gallo, Stephen Granger, Evelina MacEachern, and Al Wilson, and currently serving Councillor Wendy Gaertner was dismissed.

That decision was handed down in September after more than five years in the court system.

Ms. Buck claimed statements published by the Council of the day, regarding her blog posts they argue were “highly critical” of Town Staff, damaged her reputation in the eyes of the public.

It was an argument dismissed by the judge, who ruled the defendants “had a duty and a responsibility to set the record straight.”

Before Ms. Buck filed her application to appeal, Justice Edwards’ decision seemed to be the end of a prolonged and eventful journey which had been before the courts since 2009, been the subject of a five-week-long trial, and saw a jury dismissed during closing arguments after the Judge deemed the final submission of Ms. Buck’s lawyer, Kevin MacDonald, to be improper, suggesting costs they could award the plaintiff had jurors found in her favour.

Calls to Mr. MacDonald were not returned at press time while Mr. Boghosian, declined to comment on the cost endorsement on behalf of his clients.