Defaming people on the internet - Page 2

Well yeah anybody can hire a lawyer and sue you. Doesn't mean they will win. More judges are rolling their eyes and throwing these bullshit cases out, as to free up court rooms for real issues. As in the case posted above, the lady knows she wont get a damn thing. She was trying to make a point. Sure her lawyer saw dollar signs and took the case. She really didn't win anything however. Pretty stupid way to waste court time and your own $ if you ask me.

These cases are largely a reaction to previous "jackpot" lawsuits that have become the new American dream---"get rich quick by screwing someone(anyone) in court"

Sure any one can hire an attorney for petty things but for it to get to a trial and big $ is awarded ,without any evidence to your case you don't stand a chance that it will even be taken to a grand jury . NO cases with a high $ suit gets a trial without a grand jurys' approval . A grand jury decides if your case gets a trial and you must have some good evidence.

I'm with you on things likely being thrown out. However, not always. I have knowledge of cases in which it came down to a sympathetic jury, a flamboyant attorney, and an over sensationalized issue. Truth and justice are terribly vague and fleeting when it comes to the law.

Lots of web sites now allow you to post problems or complaints you have against people or business. One difference is if you are stating your expereince vs something you heard. Example is the recent post stating a man was trying to sell him a dog that another person owned. Now if he stated that about me then he could have a problem as it would be gossip and untrue.

I think many of you are focusing here on civil lawsuits which can be a crapshoot. In this case one side literally sued someone who didn't have enough money to defend themself, thus a forfeit occurred and the judge ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support early motion for summary judgement. These type of legal issues are troublesome but not unmanageable. If you are sued as a corporation in most states you must have an attorney. Otherwise you can represent yourself pro-se (hard to win but not imposasible if you are street-smart). In my opinion the real threat to those who communicate toward others ungracefully on the internet (folks such as mr. multiple, mr. spoof, etc., you know who you are--always trying to score stand up comedy points at someone's expense). There are new very draconian internet communication laws and other related laws not passed under cloak of "anti-terrorism, anti-stalking, homeland security, etc. In the USA This stuff is no joke and if one communicates in ways which are malicious, stalking, harrassing or villifying or exposes someone to risk, villification or harassment publicly then they may be liable to criminal prosecution at a gross misdemeanor or felony level with stiff fines (it matters not if what one says is true or not in relation to these draconian laws and their draconian interpretations under MJTF homeland security directives). All it may take is for some small minded person to make an anonymous or formal complaint to these draconian bureacrats at the fbi, tsa or homeland security that someone is a potential terrorist, harasser because they spoof under fake names, no names or multuiple identities in order to harass, terrorize or villify etc. Under the new rules specified under bills such as HS6166 the 1% rule applies (this means that if an agent goes to a judge (including magistrate or administrative) and claims there is at least a 1% probability that the subject is a domestic terrorist (and the definition is numbingly nonspecific and general), many of your rights can be instantly revoked and: your neighbors and employer can be contacted to inquire if you act in terroristc or antisocial ways; and/or you can be arrested;. The first thing you find out is that you have been mysteriously placed on a no fly list, or perahps you are sudddenly laid off of a great job with no explanation or cause. If you have posted a significant number of villifying, stalking or harrasing communications, you have created an instant set of evidence which can be used against you. Go ahead ridicule and laught at what I claim here, but it's no joke. The USA is technically listed as in "a state of war" which is an emergency state, allwoing draconian laws otherwise prohibited. If you spend the next 3-4 months reading and studying all of these new laws, regs, rules and their interpretations you will see that what I have stated here is probably accurate.

ACK9, civil lawsuits do not go before a grand jury. Only criminal cases go bfore a grand jury. They start out with claims made and then supported by "motion for summary judgement" before a judge after a certain general level of evidence is presented. Sufficient cause or some equivalent is used by the judge as the standard. If the plaintiff survives summary judgement and has at least one motion granted, then the case proceeds to trial by judge or jury.

Motions for Summary Judgment are discretionary motions that can be filed by either Plaintiff or Defendant and are not mandatory. The standard for granting Summary Judgment is that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law," after viewing the evidence presented in affidavits, depositions, interrogatory answers etc. in the "light most favorable to the non-moving party." That's a pretty high threshhold for the party seeking Summary Judgment to clear, and many such motions are denied because judges simply don't want to usurp the jury's role as trier of fact when the facts themselves are at least somewhat in dispute. The motion is usually expensive to prepare, because in essence the entire case gets laid out factually and a lot of supporting case law must be researched and cited as well. Generally it works best as a defense tool to dispose of frivolous or unsupported claims, but even then it's no slam dunk.

The lawsuit was a joke... The lady in Louisiana quite obviously did not have that $11.3M to give away but yet the floridan woman kept on, what a waste! What she could of done was file criminal charges against her instead... Just like http://crime.about.com/od/online/a/web_harass.htm including an interesting article at http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?id=30373&siteSection=18

>What she could of done was file criminal charges against her instead Posting defamatory statements in an internet chat room is not by itself a criminal offense. There's a big difference between the facts involved in the South Carolina criminal case (Defendant sent threatening emails, posed as victim and sending porn to co-workers, and defied a court order to cease any contact with victim) and the Florida civil one (Defendant supposedly caused commercial harm to Plaintiff by saying "She's a crook" - and then didn't have the resources to defend the lawsuit).