Hughes pays price for win over Vander Zalm

Judge rules against former conflict- of- interest commissioner, whose legal bill will exceed his award

FCoupled with the pre- trial costs, the expense of the trial would normally push the final bill for Hughes to over $ 100,000.

ormer conflict- of- interest commissioner Ted Hughes has won $ 60,000 in damages for libel from ex- premier Bill Vander Zalm, but it won’t cover his legal bill.

In a not- unexpected decision Tuesday, B. C. Supreme Court Justice Laura Gerow refused a request that she force Vander Zalm to pay twice the normal legal costs for spurning a pretrial settlement offer.

The ruling means Hughes will be out of pocket because even with the damage award, he is unlikely to recover the cost of suing his longtime foe.

Before this month’s weeklong hearing, the 84- year- old was prepared to drop the defamation lawsuit over his 77- year- old adversary’s self- penned 2008 autobiography, Bill Vander Zalm: For The People.

Hughes wanted $ 25,000 in damages, his legal costs paid and an apology published in four major newspapers.

Vander Zalm balked and forced Hughes to incur extra expenses by taking him to trial, which is why when Hughes won his lawyers asked the judge for double costs.

But the settlement proposal was too ambiguous, Justice Gerow said, adding that the requested act of contrition and the requirement that Vander Zalm cease distribution of the book went beyond what the jury ultimately decided on Feb. 9.

She said Hughes deserved only normal costs.

After deliberating for 14 hours, the five men and two women on the jury said only eight of the 11 passages Hughes cited in his claim were libellous.

“In my view, given the uncertainty of the amount of the offer, the broad nature of the apology, including the complete restriction on Mr. Vander Zalm of distributing the book regardless of whether he removed the statements found to be defamatory, and the very limited time that the offer was open, the offer is not one that ought reasonably to have been accepted,” Justice Gerow said.

“Accordingly I have concluded that it is not appropriate to exercise the court’s discretion to make an award of double costs from the date of Mr. Hughes’s offer Jan. 24, 2012.”

Geoffrey Gomery, a lawyer for the former Saskatchewan judge and ex- B. C. deputy minister, said his client could expect to recoup between $ 35,000 and $ 40,000 under the court- approved rates used to determine legal costs. As of December, however, the court heard Hughes had already incurred $ 80,000 in legal fees.

“That submission was a reference to something contained in an earlier offer that frankly shouldn’t have been before the court,” Gomery said outside the downtown Vancouver courtroom.

“Because it was a private offer, I don’t think I should comment on it.”

Coupled with the pre- trial costs, the expense of the trial would normally push the final bill for Hughes to over $ 100,000.

“What have the legal fees been?” Gomery asked rhetorically when pressed by reporters. “I’m not going to talk about that; it’s a privileged matter. It’s a private matter between him and I.”

He said Hughes was satisfied with the result.

“There was a trial with frontpage headlines, which served as a public apology,” Gomery maintained. So Hughes bought an apology? “I suppose you could look at it that way,” the lawyer replied. “I’m not sure that’s the best way to look at it. Mr. Hughes brought a case based on a point of principle and the jury found that he was right.”

When the trial wrapped earlier this month Vander Zalm remained unrepentant, thumbing his nose at the verdict and telling reporters: “I stand by what I said in the book.”

Hughes earlier told the court he was shocked to find himself falsely portrayed by Vander Zalm as a Janus- faced bureaucrat who schemed to sink the former Social Credit Party leader two decades ago.

Hughes said he was wrongly accused of being self- interested, biased and politically motivated in conducting a 1991 inquiry into the $ 16- million sale of Vander Zalm’s theme park, Fantasy Gardens, which forced him to resign as premier.

As long as the eight sections ruled defamatory are removed, the charismatic populist may continue distributing his book. It has sold about 1,200 copies. Vander Zalm, who led the successful fight to repeal the harmonized sales tax, does not have to say he is sorry, though in pre- trial discussions he offered a “mealy- mouthed apology,” Gomery said.

Neither of the old antagonists was in court for the ruling.