"After nearly four months of consideration, a Charlottesville judge has decided that a $10 million defamation award against WVIR-TV is excessive, and has set aside the verdict in the case.

Now Judge Edward L. Hogshire is giving Stanardsville resident Jesse Sheckler until Nov. 21 to decide whether to accept a revised $1 million award or to receive a new trial limited solely to determining damages. The judge said that Channel 29’s liability was clearly established in the previous trial.

“In essence, the jury clearly misperceived its role and awarded a sum far in excess of an amount reasonably calculated to compensate for any proven losses,” Hogshire wrote in the opinion, dated Nov. 7.

Sheckler, 52, sued the NBC affiliate over a 2001 news report about a federal drug case in which a reporter incorrectly stated that authorities had confiscated cocaine at Sheckler’s residence. The Greene County mechanic had been charged with helping to finance since-convicted drug dealer Samuel Rose after having loaned the man thousands of dollars. Sheckler was acquitted and has maintained that he was unaware of Rose’s illegal affairs.

Sheckler’s lawyer, Matthew B. Murray, told a Charlottesville jury in May that “a $10 million verdict will travel just as far, just as wide and just as deep as the lies, the poisonous lies spread by 29.”

Hours later, the jury found that WVIR defamed Sheckler and awarded him the full amount sought in his suit.

Attorneys for WVIR filed a motion to set aside the verdict and argued their case before Hogshire in July. Thomas E. Albro, attorney for WVIR, received Hogshire’s opinion Monday.

“Channel 29 is pleased and grateful the court set aside this verdict on the grounds that it is excessive,” Albro said. “The court correctly ruled the verdict bore no reasonable relationship to any damages Mr. Sheckler claimed in the case. Since Mr. Sheckler never proved any malicious conduct on the part of Channel 29’s reporters and editors, a verdict so out of proportion to any alleged harm had serious First Amendment implications.”

Hogshire noted that WVIR’s arguments raise “new issues and present serious concerns regarding the legal viability of the jury’s award.”

The judge cited state and federal court precedent in his 12-page decision, including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that warned of awards that could inhibit First Amendment freedoms.

“The excessiveness of this award may, whether intended by the jury or not, be punitive in effect,” Hogshire wrote.

Hogshire pointed out that Sheckler offered no medical expenses into evidence and that his lawyer conceded that Sheckler’s income did not suffer after the news broadcasts.

“While as a general rule, a trial court should not disturb a jury award that has been fairly rendered and based upon competent evidence, ‘a jury is not beyond the control of the courts. Courts have a duty to correct a verdict that plainly appears to be unfair or would result in a miscarriage of justice,’” Hogshire wrote, citing an opinion from a previous Virginia defamation case.

Reached at his garage Monday, Sheckler declined to comment on Hogshire’s ruling.

Murray could not be reached for comment. At a motions hearing in July, Murray had defended the conclusion of the seven-member jury and said it should not be second-guessed.

In his opinion, Hogshire said that the jury “appeared to have conducted itself with attentiveness, diligence and integrity; but the size of the verdict is so disproportionate to the plaintiff’s defamation-related injuries as to shock the conscience of the court.”

The judge made note that the $10 million award in the Sheckler case was five times larger than the largest verdict approved by the Virginia Supreme Court in a previous defamation lawsuit.

Albro said WVIR has not decided whether to appeal Hogshire’s recent decision and seek a further reduction in the award, or to ask the Supreme Court to set aside the entire verdict and order a new trial on all issues." (Liesel Nowak, The Daily Progress, November 11, 2003)

Contact Liesel Nowak at (434) 978-7274 or lnowak@dailyprogress.com.

Editor's Note: For more, see Index for Defmation Suit Against WVIR as Covered on Loper Website.