T & J Towing of Kalamazoo, Mich. has filed a lawsuit demanding $750,000 from the Western Michigan University student who started the Facebook page “Kalamazoo Residents Against T&J Towing“. [WOOD and Consumerist via Switched; Kalamazoo Gazette (Facebook group reaches 10,000 members); & welcome Kashmir Hill/Above the Law readers]
11 Comments
I think the towing company may have a valid case. I don’t think they will squeeze any money out of the kid, but Facebook is not the place to air your legal grievances.
Facebook is the perfect place if you want to bring attention to your situation. If the guy’s being untruthful it’s up to the towing company to specifically respond to his allegations and defend themselves. Sorry, that’s life. Suing the man certainly isn’t going to convince anyone that they’re on the up-and-up.
Umm, FB is full of this kind of stuff and so is the internet. That is generally one of the better uses of the internet. It allows you to propagate you grievances against someone. Of course, if your slandering someone, you should be prepared for a legal action. The fact, that this person now has 10,000 fans tells me that their maybe something to this.
Now that I read some of the discussion of FB, my answer still stands, but I think you want to annoy the businesses who employ the tow truck in addition to the tow operator. It looks like the operator loiters nearby and waits for someone to walk across the street to the courthouse and nails them.
This is one person’s account of their experience with a particular business. The towing company couldn’t have sued them for vocally saying the same things to their friends and family, so why should this be any different?
I wonder if the company is going to sue all the other folks making similar complaints on the Facebook site?
Better yet, will the towing company sue the Better Business Bureau for reportedly keeping all those slanderous complaints about the company?
The kid accused the company of a dishonest act, without proof:
‘It is my firm belief that my car was recently “broken into” but all that was stolen was my arboretums parking pass. This was an act by T&J so that they could charge me $120 to get my car out of impound. Please invite your friends to get justice against T&J!!!’
So you folks supporting him would have no problem with someone creating a FB page that claimed you had committed crimes but provided no proof?
Jack, this kid is giving his eye-witness testimony that a crime occurred. If his testimony is truthful, and it’s being ignored by the authorities, why shouldn’t he say it in public?
I see the phrase ‘firm belief’. That doesn’t sound like eye-witness testimony. Maybe I missed something.
[…] Olson at Overlawyered dug up another example from Kalamazoo Michigan, where T & J Towing is suing a college student for $750,000 for starting the Facebook page […]
[…] The lawsuit against Justin Kurtz over his Facebook page “Kalamazoo Residents Against T&J Towing” hasn’t been working out so well for T&J. [Detroit Free Press, earlier] […]