In the defamation lawsuit filed by John King and Karen Woodson against Bill Veach and Ray Murphy over the recall allegations, Veach and Murphy have appealed Judge Kyle’s refusal to dismiss the case.
The appeal will be heard by the 6th District Court of Appeals. Veach and Murphy now have 70 days to get the actual appeal record together. Then, the back-and-forth of document filing could take another 90 days. After that, the court could take 3-4 months to set oral arguments.
If the appeal is denied, and the two sides continue to stand their ground and not come to terms on a settlement, the case will go to trial where it’s expected to cost both sides tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, according to Judge Kyle.
My problem is that at least one of the two, not mentioning the name, made up their mind waaay before public comment. I heard one say something that triggered me, and I was at the meeting. I wish I could find that comment in the meeting. I searched, but couldn’t manage to get through the hours and hours of the meetings to pinpoint. It really bothered me, though. This council member fully endorsed Matt and Seagate, and did not listen to the public, IMHO, nor the LPA….and that was enough for me.
it doesn’t matter what bothered you. it does not give murphy & veach the right to publish FALSE allegations of malfeasance.
do you understand that defamation is NEVER OK regardless of what you think about seagate ?
Did not vote for anyone in this lawsuit when given the chance. I did vote King and Woodson out when given the chance just like the overwhelming majority. In my opinion (and everyone has one). Simply put, King and Woodson failed by not listening to their constituents and they were voted out as a result just like they were voted in. Woodson is gone but King is still around like a bad cold that won’t go away.
They aren’t suing for the recall. They are suing for the LIES told that defame them. Anyone, regardless of the situation, wouldn’t sit around and allow blatant lies to be used to destroy your character.
Vendetta Veach and Murphy ‘s Law will wish they never set course to try and destroy two elected officials that did nothing but to make FMB a wonderful and beautiful beach for its residents and tourists. It’s a shame that it lead to this place, instead of trying to work together to make this area recover.