A lawsuit by the publisher of Delhi-based newspaper The Reporter against Delaware County is headed to trial.
Judge Anne M. Nardacci, presiding over the federal lawsuit in the Northern District of New York, denied requests for summary judgment from both parties in a Tuesday, July 21 opinion. The case now heads to trial.
Publisher Decker Advertising’s December 2023 complaint alleged that Delaware County officials retaliated against the newspaper for its coverage by removing its designation as a paper of record for Delaware County in March 2022. With the decision, the paper lost revenue from publishing the county’s legal notices.
The complaint, which was filed against the county, most members of the county Board of Supervisors and County Attorney Amy Merklen, included further claims that Merklen violated the First Amendment by ordering county employees not to speak with The Reporter after The New York Times covered the designation removal in a June 2023 story titled “How Local Officials Seek Revenge on Their Hometown Papers.”
A county statement emailed Wednesday by public information officer Shelly Johnson-Bennett stated that the county disputed Decker Advertising’s allegations and claims.
“The County will vigorously defend at trial and looks forward to a successful result,” the press release stated.
In the opinion, Nardacci rejected prior arguments from the county that she should issue partial summary judgment on issues related to the supervisors and designation removal, and the county and attorney related to the communications directive.
Nardacci also rejected a partial summary judgment request from Decker Advertising pertaining to the First Amendment violation claim. She wrote that Decker Advertising’s request relied heavily on a March 2023 letter from county officials as evidence of retaliation for designation removal.
That letter — signed by 39 county staff and elected officials, including a majority of supervisors — demanded that the publisher of The Reporter “make immediate changes” to its coverage of the county and said The Reporter’s stories are “written in an inflammatory manner” with facts omitted or incorrect. The letter, which was included in the complaint, stated that “flagrant manipulation of the facts and the manner in which [the] paper reports county business was one of the reasons the Board of Supervisors opted to change the official county paper to the Hancock Herald in 2022.”
“A jury may well agree” that the letter is evidence of retaliation, Nardacci wrote in her opinion. “But that factual conclusion is not inescapable,” and therefore it is not appropriate for the court to issue a decision at this stage, she wrote.
The county has said in legal filings that its reason for removing The Reporter’s designation was due to the publication’s increase in cost for publishing legal notices.
The Reporter could not be reached for comment by press time Wednesday.