Bojko v. Lima: Don't Call Your Kid's Coach a Pedophile

Over on Connecticut Sports Law, Dan Fitzgerald has a really good piece on a Connecticut coach who was awarded $88,000 in damages in a libel lawsuit against a parent who defamed the coach. Dan has the details on Bojko v. Lima, a Connecticut case:

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In Bojko v. Lima, Mary Anne Bojko, coach of the East Hartford High School girls’ Swim Team sued Laurie Lima, the mother of the team’s captain, Hope Lima. The dispute started with a disagreement between Bojko and Lima over a team banquet and disintegrated into Lima calling her daughter’s coach a pedophile. According to the Court’s decision, Lima didn’t stop there:

[T]he defendant embarked on an absolutely unbelievable e-mail campaign against the plaintiff in which she repeatedly used the term “pedophile,” demanded that the plaintiff be fired from her coaching position, alleged that the plaintiff was “dangerous” to children, demanded a background check on the plaintiff, demanded an investigation by the State Board of Education and an investigation by the Department of Children and Families.

During the bench (as opposed to jury) trial in which she represented herself, Lima admitted that she had no evidence that Bojko was a pedophile. The court even cited evidence that Lima’s daughter didn’t support her mother’s allegations. In an email to the school’s principal, Hope Lima wrote “I told my mom that she may have misunderstood me (or else she just likes to lie for the hell of it).”

With a complete lack of evidence supporting Lima’s claims, the Court ruled in favor of Bojko, on all of her claims: libel, intentional infliction of emotional distress, tortious intererence with business expectancy, false light invasion of privacy, and vexatious litigation (on account of Lima’s admittedly baseless counterclaim).

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To read the rest of the post, click here.