A former local NAACP leader lost a shot at suing a New Jersey politics news website for defamation in part because he didn’t check his email, a state appeals court ruled Monday.
Jeffrey Dye, who was president of the Passaic NAACP, appealed a lower court ruling rejecting a rehearing in his defamation case against the New Jersey Globe, which had reported on various comments Dye posted to
The litigation, however, was more about procedural blunders than social media misconduct. Dye, who failed to get an attorney, routinely missed court deadlines, leading to the dismissal of his case. He then requested a rehearing, at which he told the court that he failed to monitor his email for dates in his case. The New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division said the lower court was right to toss his lawsuit.
“A motion for reconsideration is meant to ‘seek review of an order based on the evidence before the court on the initial motion … not to serve as a vehicle to introduce new evidence in order to cure an inadequacy in the motion record,’” the appeals court said in an unauthored opinion.
Dye claimed that the Globe’s reporting of his comments led to him losing his job, public leadership roles, and future income. He said he’d lost out on “earnings on campaigns of other elected officials and myself as a paid consultant on various campaigns.”
But Dye didn’t follow through on his claims.
“Plaintiff had ample opportunity to present arguments in opposition to the merits of defendants’ motion to dismiss his complaint,” the appeals court said. “He simply failed to do so.”
The case is Dye v. Wildstein, N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div., No. A-3376-21, 12/18/23.
