Judge seals suit against regents chairman

A prominent Gwinnett County businessman who is also chairman of the Georgia Board of Regents is facing allegations in a lawsuit that are defamatory and embarrassing, according to the judge in the case.

What is Richard L. Tucker accused of? Only the parties in the lawsuit know. That’s because Gwinnett Superior Court Judge Ronnie K. Batchelor has issued a rare order to shield virtually every document in the court file from public view.

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BITA HONARVAR / AJC file

Gwinnett businessman Richard Tucker is being sued by Union Community Bank.

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Tucker and several business entities he controls are being sued by Blairsville-based United Community Bank. Tucker sought to have the case sealed because disclosure of the allegations would cause him to suffer “intimidation, insult and embarrassment,” according to Batchelor’s order.

The judge agreed that the allegations in the lawsuit are “of a defamatory nature” and would cause “embarrassment and annoyance” for Tucker if disclosed.

Batchelor sealed even his own order laying out why Tucker’s case merits the cloak of secrecy. The Journal-Constitution obtained a copy of Batchelor’s order from a filing at the Supreme Court of Georgia.

In the order, Batchelor said potential harm to Tucker’s personal privacy outweighs public interest in the case.

“It is the Court’s opinion that because of who he is, the information … would in fact cause Mr. Tucker, his family and the other Defendants to suffer from a greater degree of embarrassment than that of other parties in other civil matters,” Batchelor wrote. “The Court also finds that this embarrassment would extend to these public entities and organizations with which Mr. Tucker is recognized readily.”

Both Tucker and representatives of United Community Bank declined to comment, citing the judge’s order. Batchelor also refused to be interviewed.

According to Batchelor’s order, Tucker has filed two affidavits describing the bank’s allegations as “factually unfounded and untrue.”

The order seals the file until discovery concludes. It would then be unsealed, according to the order, and any trial would be open to the public.

Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed Tucker in 2005 to the Board of Regents, which oversees the University System of Georgia. The board elected Tucker to serve a one-year term as chairman last June.

Tucker is a past chairman of the Gwinnett Convention and Visitors Bureau, past chairman of the University System of Georgia Foundation and past president of Gwinnett’s private 1818 Club. He was president of the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce from 1996 to 2003 and its chairman in 2005. He’s a director at the Brand Banking Co. and on the board of trustees at Georgia Gwinnett College.

Tucker invests in real estate and is co-owner of Suwanee’s Beverage SuperStore, one of the highest-volume liquor stores in the state. He is managing partner of Arlington Capital LLC, a real estate equity lending fund, also a defendant in the lawsuit.

Georgia Trend magazine has repeatedly named Tucker to its list of the 100 Most Influential Georgians.

Some experts say Tucker’s public positions should actually tilt a judge’s decision toward openness.

“The conduct of public officials is a matter about which the public has a greater need and a greater right to know what is going on,” said Gerry Weber, an Atlanta attorney who litigates cases involving constitutional issues.

Legal experts said the vast majority of court documents are open to the public, even those involving divorce cases and business disputes that are sensitive in nature.

Nancy Owens, the chief deputy clerk of Gwinnett Superior Court, said in the cases that court files are sealed, a judge usually selects individual documents within a case to be closed.

“We do occasionally have a complete file sealed, but that’s a rare occurrence,” she said.

Court hearings and court documents must be kept open to the public unless a judge finds disclosure would cause significant harm that outweighs the public’s interest.

“For a public official to assert that because they are well known their embarrassment is more important is wrong and not borne out by the case law,” Weber said.

Weber said Batchelor appeared to overreach in sealing the entire file.

Weber represented a complainant last year who objected to a judge’s order sealing the divorce case of Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson. A Paulding County judge who was Richardson’s former law partner sealed the file on the day the divorce case was filed. A Floyd County judge later unsealed significant portions of the file in response to a complaint by ethics activist George Anderson.

United Community Bank asked the Georgia Supreme Court for an opportunity to appeal Batchelor’s order sealing the file. The court declined to hear the case.

Tucker’s relationship with United Community Bank is unclear. The bank is an $8.1 billion multibank holding company with offices in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee.