Jury rules against CR council member in slander suit

CEDAR RAPIDS - As a City Council member in 2011, Don Karr slandered a local homebuilder during a vigorous council debate on the construction of pier-built homes, a Linn County District Court jury decided late Friday afternoon.

The verdict in the weeklong civil trial awarded builder David Stutzman $140,000 in total damages -- $50,000 for damage to reputation, $40,000 for loss of income and $50,000 for emotional distress.

Mayor Ron Corbett said last night the city represented Karr at the trial because Karr's comments came at a City Council meeting, and the city taxpayers will pay the $140,000 slander award, the mayor said.

'As far as what does this mean for public debate and public discourse, I think elected officials most of the time are pretty guarded about what they say,” Corbett said. 'And this probably will just make everyone even more guarded.”

Stutzman, 51, said he was pleased with the jury's verdict, adding that Karr's comments about him cost him three years of business.

'If the jurors say that's worth $140,000, I'll have to take it and run and keep going,” Stutzman said. As for damage to his reputation, he said, 'I'm Czechoslovakian. I'll earn it back.”

Karr, 69, said he brought up Stutzman's name in the council debate over pier-built houses because Stutzman was the only one he knew who had built such homes in the Cedar Rapids area.

'Evidently, using his name was wrong,” said Karr, who served as an at-large council member from 2010 through 2013 but chose not to seek re-election in 2013. 'It was stupidity on my part. I meant him no harm.”

In closing arguments on Friday morning, one of two attorneys for Stutzman, Richard Pundt of Cedar Rapids, suggested that the jury consider an award of $90,000 for damage to reputation and between $46,000 and $133,333 for loss of income. He further suggested that the jury might consider a range from $50,000 up to perhaps $250,000 for emotional distress.

Assistant City Attorney Mo Sheronick, who represented Karr, began his closing arguments Friday morning with the assertion that the case was 'significant” and had 'some real meat to it.”

Sheronick said Karr's comments about Stutzman during an Oct. 25, 2011 council meeting were permissible opinion from an elected official. He said calling the comments slander would have a chilling effect on the debates by government bodies in Iowa in the future.

'It would really not be an encouraging sign for our society to give somebody money under these circumstances,” Sheronick said at the end of his closing remarks. 'Do we want elected officials to just vote ‘Yes' or ‘No' and then shut up?

'And then John Q. Public asks … ‘Why did you vote this way? I'm one of your constituents. I want to know.”

Sheronick said a council member would be left to answer, 'I can't tell you because the person who is on the losing side of that vote might sue me.'”

Pundt told jurors that he was all for robust City Council debate. He said the Cedar Rapids council displayed appropriate decorum during the debate on the city's housing construction ordinance at the October 2011 council meeting, until the matter turned to Karr.

Karr's lengthy comments at the meeting began with a 'tirade” against builder Stutzman that was 'completely unfounded,” Pundt said.

To win a slander verdict, Stutzman had to prove that Karr acted with malice, and Pundt said Karr's comments about Stutzman came with 'such anger and such viciousness” that they proved he spoke with malice and with reckless disregard for what is true or false.

'He got so animated that it sounded like he hated Mr. Stutzman,” Pundt said.

As he did at the start of this week's trial, Pundt started his closing arguments by showing jurors a video of the City Council debate on the city's current prohibition against pier-built homes without continuous frost-free foundations.

In the video, Karr spoke about his own personal experience with Stutzman and a pier-built home that Stutzman built outside of Cedar Rapids in Linn County back in 1998. Karr said Stutzman built the home without proper permits, that the county told him to tear it down, and that, ultimately, the house burned down. He suggested that heat tape on a pipe may have played a role in the fire, but he didn't know. Karr also said that Stutzman built a pier-built home in Cedar Rapids without proper permits.

None of what Karr said about Stutzman was slander, Sheronick said. He said all of it was an opinion that voters elected Karr to express.

Instructions to the jury from Presiding Judge Patrick Grady, chief judge of the Sixth Judicial District, asked jurors to determine if Karr's comments were slander per se, slander not per se, slander by implication or not slander. A finding of any of the first three verdicts would qualify Stutzman for damages, according to the instructions.

The jurors found that Karr's comments met the definition of all three forms of slander, all of which required that jurors to conclude that Karr's comments were made with malice and injured Stutzman's reputation or business.

Last night, Stutzman said he plans to start building homes outside of Cedar Rapids for now, and eventually will make another attempt to get them built in Cedar Rapids.

He said the slander verdict in his favor won't stop future City Council debates.

'But they've got to stay professional,” he said.