Appeals Court rejects city contractor’s defamation lawsuit against The Review

City contractor Omar Nakash, the owner of Platinum Landscaping, Inc., was unsuccessful in getting his defamation lawsuit filed against Review Publisher John Ulaj to go to trial. Two courts have rejected his lawsuit.

By Charles Sercombe
A city contractor’s libel lawsuit against The Review Publisher John Ulaj and the newspaper was thrown out twice, once in Wayne County Circuit Court and again recently by a state Appeals Court.
The lawsuit was filed by Omar Nakash, the owner of Platinum Landscaping, Inc., who provides tree cutting service to the city.
It was filed in 2013 after Ulaj criticized the company’s billing to the city while he was a candidate for mayor. At a candidate forum, Ulaj said that Platinum Landscaping was “ripping off the city,” and he would fire the company if elected.
The Review published that remark.
Ulaj, who did not win the mayoral election, said he based his remarks on an audit report by Stout Risius Ross, Inc. (SRR) that was performed for the city in 2012. Out of $40,000 worth of invoices submitted by Platinum, only about $4,000 could be accounted for, the report found. That means about $36,000 could not be backed up, the report said.
For a period that Nakash’s company was working for the city, the Director of Public Works was Steve Shaya. Unbeknown to city officials at that time, Shaya was the uncle of Nakash, and it was Shaya’s job to assign work to Nakash and oversee his billing.
At the time Platinum was doing a wide-variety of work that included cleaning up city lots and snowplowing.
During one winter season Platinum was paid $800,000 to plow and salt the city’s major streets and emergency lanes.
Several weeks after Shaya admitted he was related to Nakash, former Hamtramck Emergency Manager Cathy Square fired him. Shaya has since filed five lawsuits against the city, one of which alleges city employees called him ethnic slurs.
Shaya is a Chaldean-American.
Nakash sued Ulaj claiming his comments were defamatory and had harmed him and his company. Nakash’s company never lost its contract with the city after the SRR report was released nor after Ulaj’s comment.
In 2015 Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Ryan ruled that the lawsuit was without basis.
“This is a clear attempt to silence … to intimidate these people,” said James Raftery, the attorney at the time for Ulaj, about Nakash’s lawsuit.
In the same vein, Judge Ryan said it is lawsuits like Nakash’s that create a “chilling effect” on a newspaper’s ability to report the news.
Nakash challenged that ruling and appealed with the State Court of Appeals.
The panel of three judges didn’t buy Nakash’s challenge either, saying he failed to prove he was harmed in any way by the comment.
The court also acknowledged that Ulaj’s comment was protected speech.
The deadline for Nakash to appeal to the State Supreme Court has expired.
Ulaj applauded the ruling, saying it was a “victory for the public.”
“It is not only a victory for free speech, it’s a victory for the city taxpayers who have to live within their means,” Ulaj said. “That’s why this newspaper will continue to be a watchdog on how the public’s money is spent.”