Poplar Bluff mayor ordered to supply more info in defamation case

EMINENCE, Mo. -- Presiding 37th Judicial Circuit Judge David Evans has ordered Poplar Bluff, Missouri, Mayor Angela Pearson to provide additional information in the defamation case filed against her by former city manager Doug Bagby.

"The defendant is ordered to fully answer discovery requests within 30 days, or sanctions will be considered," Evans wrote in the court order.

Bagby's attorney, Daniel Moore of Poplar Bluff, filed a motion for sanctions May 23 and Evans conducted a hearing June 23. He took the motion under advisement for a week before entering his order.

Pearson had been given 20 days to respond to interrogatories submitted by Moore, according to the motion.

"Although they were not answered within 20 days, the plaintiff is not complaining about the late answers, but that the answers were nonresponsive, vague and in fact do not answer the questions asked," Moore said in the motion for sanctions. "The delaying tactics on behalf of the defendant are contrary to the rules made and provided."

Bagby filed the lawsuit in October, alleging Pearson published defamatory statements about him in August.

Evans ordered Pearson to answer Question 4 "with particularity by identifying each person that you published, forwarded, gave a copy to or sent the statements."

She also was ordered to fully and completely answer questions 5, 8 and 11.

A defamation lawsuit filed by the Morse Harwell Jiles Insurance Agency of Poplar Bluff against Pearson is pending in Carter County Circuit Court in Van Buren, Missouri.

Pearson, who is being represented by the Brown & James law firm in St. Louis, has filed counterclaims to both lawsuits, denying she made any defamatory statements.

She is seeking compensation from Bagby and MHJ for the stress of dealing with the defamation lawsuits.

Pearson was elected to a three-year term as a Ward 1 city council member in April 2013. She was elected mayor in April 2014.

Moore's questions and the answers provided by Pearson's lawyers are:

4. Please state whether you are the author of a statement attached to Plaintiff's Petition, marked as Exhibit "A1," consisting of two pages. If yes, please state each and every person that you published, forwarded, gave a copy to or sent said statement.

ANSWER: Defendant admits she authored the letter attached to Plaintiff's Petition as Exhibit A1. The email speaks for itself with respect to the recipient.

5. Please state specifically, giving dates and amounts of the millions of dollars in city revenue that the city manager steered to the coffers of Southern Bank, as alleged in Exhibit "A."

ANSWER: At this point in discovery, defendant does not have the full calculation, including the dates and amounts of millions, that serve as the basis for her opinion regarding the amounts of city revenue that the city manager steered to the coffers of Southern Bank. Investigation continues and once that information is obtained from Southern Bank and others this interrogatory will be supplemented ...

8. Please state each and every incident of city business that you contend the plaintiff had a conflict of interest in and used his role to influence where the city business was given.

ANSWER: Mr. Bagby generally is intimately involved when bids are solicited, who is asked to solicit a bid, who sits on boards to rate potential applicants, etc. As such, my opinion is that this is a conflict of interest for Mr. Bagby because he influences who receives city contracts. Many of these businesses bank at Southern Bank, and many of these businesses owners/shareholders/members/partners are on the Southern Bank Board. Bank share value would be based on performance, as identified by Southern Bank's proxy statements. Mr. Bagby himself is on the Southern Bank Board. As such, it is my opinion this places Mr. Bagby in a conflict situation.

11. Please state each and every local businessman who has made hundreds of thousands of dollars during Bagby's tenure as city manager, all awarded without a single competitive bid. For each such businessman, please state:

a. The amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars the businessman made;

b. Under what circumstances the businessman made the hundreds of thousands of dollars; and,

c. Describe competitive bids should have been made.

ANSWER: The basis for many of my opinions were from the substantial stack of research performed over many hours by defendant (prior to making any alleged statement), attached as bates numbers Pearson 00004-Pearson 1302. Further, the owners/members/shareholder/partners would be those associated with the entities referenced in answer to interrogatory No. 6. The answer's subparts, a-b, will be supplemented. Competitive bids should have been obtained for the city's insurance agent/broker contacts and auditing services. Moreover, a fairer system for choosing engineer contracts should have been implemented, rather than the system in place under Mr. Bagby's tenure of nearly unanimously choosing Smith & Co. Engineering for all city contracts.