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Angler sues LPOIC for defamation, negligence

KEITH KINNAIRD | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 6 years, 8 months AGO
by KEITH KINNAIRD
News Editor | November 15, 2018 12:00 AM

SANDPOINT — A Panhandle angler is suing the Lake Pend Oreille Idaho Club for defamation and other claims.

Calvin Nolan’s lawsuit against the fishing club alleges his membership was revoked and he was disqualified from competing in fishing derbies after requesting meeting minutes and financial records. The 12-page complaint was filed in 1st District Court on Wednesday.

Nolan describes himself as a professional angler and a disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran who uses fishing on Lake Pend Oreille as a therapeutic exercise to address his unspecified military disability, according to the suit. Nolan said he typically placed in categories with cash payouts, which he used to support himself and his family.

“Calvin’s placement has resulted in him being awarded significant cash prizes. Calvin’s success in the fishing derbies held by LPOIC is a source of great emotional pride for him,” Nolan’s counsel, Coeur d’Alene attorney Kinzo Mihara, said in the complaint.

Norton contends his trouble with the club started in 2017, when he asked the club for meeting minutes and financial records to determine if LPOIC was using funds it collected for the club’s stated goals. The request coincided with LPOIC’s decision to shift its derbies to a challenge format in the adult and junior divisions of the rainbow trout competition. Under the challenge format, derby competitors were only allowed to enter one fish and it had to be at least 31 inches long.

The challenge format was meant to aid in the restoration of the lake’s trophy rainbow trout population, LPOIC officials said.

Norton said Clint Nicholson, the club’s board vice president, published a series of statements over email which painted Norton and others who disagreed with the derby format change as malcontents who were new to the area, inactive in club affairs and either disagreed with the club’s conservation goals or were unaware of them.

Norton said his club membership was revoked in 2018, which barred him from participating in LPOIC derbies. Norton also contends the club hijacked a Halloween fishing derby, an event that LPOIC was neither historically nor traditionally associated with, in order to bar his participation, according to the suit.

Norton argues the statements made against him were defamatory and subjected him to contempt and ridicule. The suit seeks damages for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence. The suit also seeks injunctive relief to restore Norton’s membership in the club.

A message seeking comment from the club was not immediately returned on Wednesday. The club has 21 days to answer to the allegations raised in Norton’s complaint.

In addition to making headlines for his derby finishes, Norton was in the news in 2012 after catching a lake trout at Priest Lake that had consumed a severed human finger which was determined to belong to a 31-year-old who lost four digits in a wakeboarding mishap involving a tow rope two months earlier.

Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.

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