Earlier today, Thomas More Society attorneys delivered another, apparently final win for an Ohio-based pro-life advocacy group, Created Equal, and its National Director, Mark Harrington, in a lawsuit they had vigorously contested as an effort to suppress the defendants’ 1^st amendment rights.

On November 10, 2016, Thomas More Society clients Created Equal and Harrington were vindicated when Stericycle, Inc. and its CEO, Charles A. Alutto, moved to dismiss their own lawsuit. Stericycle and Alutto had charged the defendants with a medley of law violations including defamation, false light invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after Created Equal conducted a protest campaign in Lake Forest, Bannockburn and Lincolnshire, Illinois, urging Stericycle’s CEO, board members and the public to cease handling the disposal of “medical waste” for Planned Parenthood affiliates around the United States. Today’s dismissal, follows in the wake of the September 28, 2016 decision handed down by Judge Margaret A. Marcouiller of the 19th Judicial Circuit Court in Waukegan, Lake County, Illinois, dismissing all counts asserted in the lawsuit, with prejudice, but for the emotional distress claim, which was stricken with leave given to file an amended claim if buttressed with more detailed factual allegations.  Apparently, the reputed Fortune 500 multinational waste hauling company, headquartered in Lake Forest, and its CEO, himself a Lake Forest resident, chose rather to drop this last part of their lawsuit.

Created Equal and Harrington were sued, together with unnamed “John Doe” defendants, after they carried on an aggressive publicity or “awareness” campaign against Stericycle, which they targeted as an alleged “weak link” which enabled Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, to “dispose of the babies they kill” by handling waste disposal for abortion providers around the U.S.  Stericycle had been criticized in a report issued by Ohio’s Attorney General in December, 2015, which identified a Planned Parenthood provider as the source of “medical waste” handled by Stericycle, which included aborted babies’ body parts found in a local landfill.

The courtroom confrontation matched the small pro-life advocacy group, defended by the Chicago-based public interest pro bono law firm, against the reputed Fortune 500 multinational waste hauling company, a corporate behemoth represented by a  team of litigators, headed by Chicago’s former chief U. S. Attorney, Scott Lassar, of Sidley Austin LLP.

Created Equal’s campaign included such aggressive tactics as door-to-door distribution of graphic abortion flyers in Lake Forest and its environs which depicted Alutto’s and directors’ photos, juxtaposed with gruesome images of aborted babies’ remains, and slogans such as “Killers among us” and “Stericycle enables killing children.”  In addition, post cards were sent to Stericycle officials’ homes, while other citizens were urged to contact Alutto’s corporate office to demand cessation of the company’s business ties with Planned Parenthood.  Finally, mobile billboards depicting Stericycle officials’ images, including Alutto’s photo, name, and office phone number, side by side with graphic images of mutilated fetuses and the hash tag, “#killersamongus,” were driven about Lake Forest, Bannockburn, and Lincolnshire earlier in 2016.

Judge Marcouiller cited and extensively discussed the ruling of the Illinois Appellate Court in Van Duyn v. Smith, 173 Ill.App.3d 523 (3d Dist. 1988), leave to appeal denied, 124 Ill.2d 562 (1989), cert. denied, 492 U.S. 906 (1989), and she held that precedent dispositive of both the plaintiffs’ defamation and false light claims, as Created Equal’s statements – equally as the defendants’ “Wanted posters” in Van Duyn – were mere opinions, not false assertions of fact, especially when read in the context of the nation’s ongoing abortion debate.

Mark Harrington, National Director of Created Equal, said: “The dismissal of the claims against Created Equal are not just a huge victory for free speech but for also equal protection, in that huge multinational companies cannot be insulated against criticism for their corporate behavior. Stericycle now needs to dump Planned Parenthood as a client and get back to delivering legitimate waste services to authentic health care providers, not for these merchants of death.”

Tom Brejcha, President and Chief Counsel of Thomas More Society, commented: “We are pleased to have successfully defended the vital First Amendment rights that were at stake in this case.”

Read the Stericycle, Inc. November 10, 2016 voluntary motion to dismiss here.