3 Farmers Win $10.5 Million in Countersuit Over Libel Charge

BAKERSFIELD — An unusual trial involving a libel countersuit has ended with a jury ordering the giant J. G. Boswell farming company to pay three farmers $10.5 million in punitive damages.

The same Kern County Superior Court panel that earlier ordered Boswell to pay $3 million in general damages also awarded the massive punitive damages on a 10-2 vote.

The winning plaintiffs--Arvin-area farmers Jack and Jeff Thomson and Ken Wegis--claimed that Thursday’s punitive award could have national significance.

“It’s a real winner for the American system,” said Jack Thomson, also a member of the California Water Commission.

“Let’s hope this is the beginning of the end of a nasty political trend,” said their attorney, Ralph Wegis.

The jury first ruled on July 8 that a libel suit Boswell filed against the three farmers was an attempt to silence their support of a 1982 statewide proposition to create the Peripheral Canal around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Boswell, the state’s biggest grower, spent more than $1 million in the successful campaign to defeat the canal initiative.

Boswell’s suit, which later was thrown out of court, charged that an advertisement the pro-Peripheral Canal farmers published was libelous.

Ralph Wegis, who is a distant relative of farmer Wegis, claimed in a countersuit that Boswell misused the legal system by filing a libel suit.

“The sad fact of the matter is Boswell is an entity that has a conscious disregard for the rights of free Americans,” Ralph Wegis told the jury. “It’s conduct which, if allowed to continue, goes to the very heart of ability to continue as a free country.”

A Matter of Rights

The jury found that Boswell had been malicious and oppressive, and had interfered with the constitutional rights of the family farmers.

The $3 million was awarded to compensate the farmers for losses stemming from the libel suit, and an additional $10.5 million was awarded to punish and make an example of Boswell.

Boswell attorney Harvey Means told the jury that the company was punished enough by the $3 million verdict and asked jurors to return only a nominal punitive award.

Means said he will ask for a new trial.