Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
Part of me thinks that it kind of follows that if the city is responsible for his defense, that they pay the penalty if he loses.
If they shouldn't be paying if he loses, then why are they defending him? Either they are responsible for his actions, or not.
Seems like a strange legal situation that would be created which is almost saying, "I am going to defend you, but I have no real incentive for you to win."
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Oh I agree, but that's what makes this such a confusing situation. I mean its debatable as to whether the comments here are made as mayor (I mean he was technically the mayor at the time), and in the normal course of his job, or whether they were made as a candidate? Clearly the comments and questions that Nenshi brought forward were as a candidate for re-election, and the video was really about the upcoming election. Does the city have to defend every potential candidate for election? (At that point no papers are filed, so technically there are no candidates until nomination day....just to muddy the waters further!). Its a complete mess in terms of the semantics.
As I mentioned earlier though, both Andre Chabot and Chris Harper said that the city would not be on the hook for legal costs due to defamation. Chabot made it clear that they were all told that this was the case during an orientation when they were first elected. I have no idea about whether that is the case, but it makes some sense.