Among those to experience the legal hazards of doing so: photographer Michael Gabor and others, facing a suit for $5 million after they posted online comments blasting the developers of a project in the historic section of Newburgh, N.Y. (Oliver Mackson, “Trouble brews in cyberspace over Newburgh blog”, Times Herald-Record, Oct. 15).
Posts Tagged ‘online speech’
“Crook”, “con artist”, “fraud”
Bloggers and blog-commenters might want to think very carefully before employing those epithets. Sue Scheff of Weston, Fla. obtained an $11 million default verdict in her defamation lawsuit against Carey Bock of Mandeville, La., who’d used the expressions in denouncing Scheff. (Laura Parker, “Jury awards $11.3M over defamatory Internet posts”, USA Today, Oct. 11). David Lat writes, “Eleven million dollars? You can call us whatever you like for that kind of money. … Most wrongful-death awards that are smaller than that.” (Oct. 11).
Sued over blog posts
USA Today has a survey of cases filed against bloggers and commenters. A religious broadcaster and publisher has sued over a description of its president as “a shark” who comes from a “family of nincompoops.” And an ad agency that produced a tourism campaign for the state of Maine filed, but soon dropped, a suit against a critic who ridiculed the ads as a waste of money. (Laura Parker, “Courts are asked to crack down on bloggers, websites”, Oct. 3). More: Sacha Pfeiffer, “In court, blogs can come back to dog the writers”, Boston Globe, Sept. 28.
Oprah for President? Cease and desist
Attorneys for the talk show host have fired off a cease and desist letter to retired Kansas City teacher Patrick Crowe, 69, over his efforts to draft her as a presidential candidate. In addition to demanding that he surrender his website oprah08.net (which lands visitors on this site) and give up his toll-free number 1-866-OPRAH08, the letter (courtesy Smoking Gun) insists (p. 2) that Crowe “refrain from using any and all references in any vehicle (including, without restriction, websites), for any reason, to Ms. Winfrey” or her properties. (Matt Campbell, “Quest to elect Oprah becomes publicity opera”, McClatchy/ Seattle Times, Sept. 23; Andrew Buncombe, “Oprah blocks bid to make her President”, The Independent (U.K.)/Belfast Telegraph, Sept. 22). Ann Althouse comments: “would Oprah be a good President? I think she’s too litigious.” (Sept. 24).
DontDateHimGirl.com
The website invites women to post negative “reviews” warning others against men who are poor dating material. Now it’s being sued by Pittsburgh criminal defense lawyer Todd Hollis, who says false and defamatory material about himself appeared on the site. (Moustafa Ayad, “City lawyer sues ‘don’t date him’ Web site”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Jun. 30; Carl Jones, “Scorned Attorney Sues Kiss-and-Tell Web Site”, Miami Daily Business Review, Jul. 5; Robert Ambrogi, Legal Blog Watch, Jun. 30; Lattman, Jul. 3; Evan Brown, Jul. 1.
Craigslist classifieds suit
Google, Amazon, AOL and Yahoo are all defending Craigslist in the suit demanding that it censor its housing ads so as to prevent users from requesting “gay Latino sought for roomshare” and the like (Lynne Marek, “Online Peers Stand Up for Craigslist in Lawsuit”, National Law Journal, Jun. 28). Earlier coverage: Aug. 10, 2005; Feb. 9, Feb. 20, Mar. 6, 2006. Craigslist’s defense, by CEO Jim Buckmaster, is here.
Gambling advice columns
It could be dangerous to publish them in the state of Washington, which has passed a new statute barring the use of the Internet to transmit “gambling information”. “”My suggestion to you is to remove from your paper any advice about online gambling and any links to illegal sites,” state gambling commission director Rick Day told a Seattle Times columnist. (Danny Westneat, “This column may be illegal”, Seattle Times, Jun. 15)(via Balko). Related: Apr. 21 and Aug. 9, 2004; Nov. 18, 2005.
“New Year’s Eve party from Hell”
On TuckerMax.com, anonymous participants used harsh language in deriding a holiday party thrown by a Philadelphia-based publicity firm. Its operator sued for defamation, and U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell ruled that under federal law a blogger cannot be held legally liable as the “publisher” of anonymous comments. And no, this does not mean that participants in our comments section should from now on assume that anything goes. (Shannon P. Duffy, “Judge: Bloggers Entitled to Immunity Under Communications Act”, Legal Intelligencer, Jun. 2).
Blogosphere libel standards
As pointed out by commenter Scott McDonald in our earlier thread, an editor/commentator at NetworkWorld thinks Eric Goldman’s animadversions on lawyers suing Yahoo might strike those lawyers as itself cause for legal action (Paul McNamara, “More blogging off the cliff … lawyer-style”, May 12). Glenn Reynolds takes note of the controversy (May 12) and points to an SSRN paper of his own entitled, “Libel in the Blogosphere: Some Preliminary Thoughts“. Comments on the Goldman/Yahoo case: Denise Howell, Evan Schaeffer.
Dept. of Intimidating the Little Guy: Maine Board of Tourism
Lance Dutson of the Maine Web Report had the temerity to note that an expensive advertising agency published a phone-sex number instead of the correct line for the Maine Office of Tourism. For this, and other criticisms, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising is suing Dutson for millions. The plaintiff’s lawyer is Portland attorney Alfred Frawley III, who alleges that an opinion that a state agency is “pissing away” money is legally actionable. Dutson has numerous links for this ludicrous lawsuit. Greenberg Traurig is once again stepping up to protect free speech in defense, in conjunction with the Media Bloggers Association. (via Lattman)