Schenk vs. Golding Suit Comes to Bitter End With Settlement

The four-year legal dispute between San Diego County Supervisor Susan Golding and her one-time challenger, Lynn Schenk, ground to an acrimonious end Wednesday when Schenk agreed to drop the remnants of her slander lawsuit in exchange for a $150,000 payment from Golding’s insurance companies.

The settlement, signed Wednesday by Superior Court Judge Michael Greer, ended the legal feud between Schenk and Golding that stems from their 1984 race for the 3rd District seat on the Board of Supervisors. Republican Golding beat Democrat Schenk, 55% to 45%, after a campaign that turned the one-time friends into bitter rivals.

Two days after her defeat, Schenk filed a $5-million lawsuit against Golding, her husband, her campaign manager and her political consulting firm, accusing them of libel and slander for a campaign mailer sent to voters the weekend and day before the November, 1984, election.

Golding’s mailer charged that the state auditor general was investigating Schenk, a Cabinet official in the Administration of former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., for claiming personal trips on her work-expense forms. The auditor denied the charge, but Schenk said the timing of the mailing left her no chance to rebut the allegations in a mailer of her own.

In 1986, a Superior Court judge dismissed the bulk of Schenk’s lawsuit. But he decided that a jury should be allowed to decide whether Golding and her campaign manager, Daniel Greenblat, had slandered Schenk by repeating to the media allegations about her trips.

The question of slander finally had been scheduled for trial next month. However, Wednesday’s announcement of a settlement has rendered the matter legally moot and left both sides declaring victory.

Wednesday, Golding said she opposed the settlement and urged her attorneys to move up the date of the hearing so she could have her day in court to contest the slander charges.

Despite objections, her insurance companies--obliged to defend the supervisor and her husband, Dick Silberman, under various homeowner and business policies--negotiated the settlement, Golding said.

The insurance companies involved in the settlement were State Farm, Chubb Insurance and United States Fidelity & Guaranty Co., said Greg Roper, one of Golding’s attorneys in the case.

“I have always objected to any payment because I thought any payment would imply that I did something wrong, which I didn’t,” said Golding, adding that she isn’t paying Schenk “one penny.”

“The real frightening thing is that everyone who runs for office can be subjected to this by bitter opponents who lost an election,” said Golding, who was reelected to a second term in June.

“They can sue and cause you to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend your reputation, especially if you are a public official. If you are a business, you can settle this out of court.”

Golding and Roper claimed that Schenk received no bargain by accepting the $150,000. They said the amount wouldn’t cover her legal bills, which they estimated to be in the “hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“I definitely feel vindicated that she did not have the courage to take this to trial,” Golding said.

But Schenk and her attorneys said the $150,000 settlement was a “large” and “substantial sum” that underscored the fact that they had a good case against Golding.

“I am very pleased to finally resolve this long drawn-out matter and to have vindication by a settlement of the matter and a sum of this magnitude,” Schenk said in a prepared statement released by her attorney.

“This kind of an action is never brought lightly, especially by a lawyer who knows the thick insulation surrounding First Amendment rights,” Schenk’s statement said. “That insulation can only be pierced by the most egregious actions on the part of a defendant. I believe that candidates in the future will be more careful in making unfounded charges because of what I have achieved today.”

Schenk’s attorney, Michael Thorsnes, said in his own prepared statement: “We are delighted that the matter has been resolved for a substantial sum and hope that this will serve to put all political candidates on notice that false charges in a political campaign cannot and will not be tolerated.”

Greer’s order not only provides for the payment to Schenk but dismisses, with prejudice, all of the litigation in the matter, including appeals of past rulings.

Even the way the settlement came about became a point of controversy Wednesday, with Schenk’s attorneys claiming that Golding at first agreed to the terms but abruptly changed her mind last week and refused to sign a legal release form. Greer’s order, they said, forced Golding to live up to her word, they said.

“At the last minute, Susan Golding attempted to create a smoke screen that the settlement was occurring over her objection by refusing to execute documents she had previously agreed upon,” Thorsnes said in his statement. Greer “didn’t let her get away with it,” Thorsnes said.

But Golding vehemently denied Wednesday that she ever favored the settlement or agreed to sign the documents. She said the insurance companies exercised their option to complete the agreement over her objections. She said a revised order will be filed with Greer soon to say that the settlement was made over her objections.