Don't worry. It's nothing $1 million can't cure.
Baltimore City Councilwoman Belinda Conaway says in her lawsuit against Examiner columnist Adam Meister that his March column, which accused her of living in Baltimore County instead of in an extended-family household in the city, has taken an emotional toll on her.
Conaway has been "having trouble sleeping at night, having difficulty dealing with some others, and became short-tempered and ill because of the stress and distress caused by Defendants' article," says her suit, which also names Denver-based Examiner newspapers and owner Philip Anschutz.
The suit seeks $1 million in damages for all that, under a claim of intentional infliction of emotional distress. (It also seeks $10 million for alleged defamation and another $10 million for alleged libel.)
While the residency questions seem to have unsettled the councilwoman, it takes more than a $21 million lawsuit to get Meister flustered.
"If they're trying to intimidate someone, they're messing with the wrong person," Meister told me in an interview Tuesday. "There's a lot of frustration out there in Baltimore with politicians trying to intimidate people, and politicians don't intimidate Adam Meister. There you go. That's a quote."