Langley Township’s mayor and two councillors have filed a legal response to a countersuit launched by another councillor, part of a court battle over allegedly defamatory statements posted online.
Mayor Eric Woodward and Councillors Rob Rindt and Tim Baillie have filed a response to the countersuit filed earlier this fall by Coun. Kim Richter and her husband Bob Richter.
Their countersuit was in response to the initial defamation suit that Woodward, Rindt, and Baillie launched against the people behind posts on a website called Langley Monitor and the Langley Township Watch Facebook page in 2024 and early 2025.
Woodward, Baillie, and Rindt claim they were defamed by claims that a “political insider” got a special deal when the Township bought new fire trucks in 2024. They are suing the Richters, former MLA and mayoral candidate Rich Coleman, Langley businessman Thomas Martini and his firm, and Micah Haince, Kalim Kassam, and Jean Francoi Louis Hardy.
Neither the allegations in the statement of claim, nor in recent responses or counter-responses, have been tested in a court of law.
Several defendants, including the Richters, Coleman, and Haince, have already filed responses denying any responsibility for the allegedly libellous videos, or that they were libellous at all.
The Richters have specifically denied any involvement in a libel campaign against the three plaintiffs, or that they had any hand in creating the videos at all.
In their response to the original lawsuit, they claimed that the defamation lawsuit was “part of a campaign by the plaintiffs using public funds” to deter the Richters from participation in public affairs.
The countersuit went on to allege that the lawsuit was part of a campaign against them, saying the mayor and other plaintiffs had launched “a series of formal investigations” against Kim Richter, “numbering three at the present time,” causing her “to be mired in overlapping processes and causing the Richter defendants to incur substantial expense including legal fees…”
The response by Woodward, Rindt, and Baillie denies that the defamation suit was launched for any “improper purpose.”
Their countersuit states that it was launched “for the legitimate purpose of vindicating their reputation and obtaining the appropriate remedies for the harm caused by the said defendants’ defamatory expression.”
There has been no date scheduled for a trial in the case.