By Traci Chapman
Managing Editor
Canadian County District Judge Paul Hesse has effectively ended a decade-long defamation case against Jeff Williams, Williams Grocery and other defendants filed by Boevers Homes.
The judge on July 19 granted a summary judgment motion filed by Williams – personally and as owner of Wenjest Corporation doing business as Williams Grocery – the Piedmont Citizen (newspaper), Ron and Donya Hau and John Mike Simpson. Williams owned the Piedmont Citizen.
The judge’s action effectively ended a defamation case filed by Boevers against those individuals.
Boevers’ claims asserted in the 2012 lawsuit involved an alleged “defamatory campaign” he said Williams and the others launched against him by posting “false and defamatory statements about Boevers Homes on various blogs, websites and online forums using anonymous identifiers.”
Boevers raised in its 2012 petition three counts – defamation, tortious interference with business relations and false light.
The defendants filed their summary judgment motion in December 2021; Boevers responded Jan. 4, with Williams and the others submitting a final reply Jan. 21.
In granting the defendants’ request to dismiss the motion against them, Judge Hesse cited numerous requests the court made for Boevers to provide specific details about the alleged defamation – something the judge stated Boevers and his attorneys failed to do.
Click below to read Judge Hesse’s entire July 19 order on the Williams defendants’ summary judgment motion:
Hesse July 19, 2022 Summary Judgment Order
“The Plaintiff continues to simply allege generally that the defendants engaged in tortious activities without the specificity that would allow the court to evaluate the plaintiff’s claims,” the judge stated in his order.
One example cited by Hesse was an allegation made by Boevers concerning the long defunct Piedmont Citizen newspaper owned by Williams. In the January response to the summary judgment motion, Boevers’ attorneys stated, “The Piedmont Citizen consistently published false and defamatory articles about plaintiff and its principal ‘sometime after 2012’ to put a ‘harsh light on Boevers’ activities,’ including online publications.”
Neither Boevers nor his attorneys ever provided any specific examples of that alleged conduct, the judge said – despite several requests for that documentation.
“The court finds that the defendants have demonstrated that no controversy exists as to the material facts and that the defendants are entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law,” Judge Hesse stated in his order granting the motion Tuesday.
The lawsuit was initially filed against 16 defendants. The judge in October 2018 dismissed the case with prejudice against seven of the original defendants in the case. That dismissal meant Boevers could not bring the issue back against Ron Cardwell, Michael Fina, William Long, B&B Medical Services, Donnie Robinson, Government Consulting Solutions or Vernon Woods. A counterclaim filed by GCS against Boevers Homes was dismissed a few weeks later, court records showed.
It appeared the lawsuit remained active against a few of the original defendants as of press time; counterclaims filed by Ron Hau and Wenjest Corporation against Boevers also were outstanding, according to court records. While a July 20 hearing on the summary judgment motion was stricken as a result of Hesse’s July 19 ruling, a September pretrial conference and Oct. 31 jury trial in the matter were still scheduled as of Wednesday afternoon.
