Jury awards $11.3M over defamatory Internet posts
From the story:
A Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud."
The full story is over at the USA today..
- Y! MyWeb
Well Well Well.....
Just maybe *that* thread was a bit risky after all.
It's interesting to note
It's interesting to note that it was the *poster* who was sued, not the venue that hosted the posts.
It Depends
From memory in the UK Demon case it was dependent on the speed of reaction. i.e how long did it take the forum owner to remove the post after receiving the complaint from the potential claimant. Different countries have different rules but I seem to recall a German(?) case recently where the forum owner was absolutely liable come what may.
hmmmmmm
So those derogatory comments by Aaron my make me some money.... no wait that was me talking about him :)
In both cases...
Truth is usually a full defence.
What does this mean for...
What does this mean for Kimberly Williams of the Boston School Of Electrolysis?
Defendant Didn't Show Up To Defend
No one showed up to defend the case, and so this was basically a default judgment. I wouldn't attach a lot of significance to it.
Boston School Of Electrolysis
Holy crap! I've never read all that mess before and that's some truly disturbing stuff.
I think in that situation I would bounce the emails and block the phone # to stop the calls just for starters, probably consider a restraining order.
I've only had one case of someone going off on me like that and it was some guy thinking I had his copyrighted and trademarked image on my server which was never the case. He was firing up his lawyer to sue over an image I'd never seen, even the lawyer couldn't see it, all over a problem with his local BROWSER CACHE....
Boston School in Phoenix
Wow. A good reminder of how things can go when dealing with the public. You know where she go the "pagejack" phrase. Some SEO web site. Another example of a little bit of knowledge...
It's interesting to note
In the US, perhaps, but in the UK, it's the forum owner - classed as a publisher, and therefore liable unless they make no editorial decisions on forum content.
Interesting Roundup of Blogger Defamation Cases
The Media Law Center has a round up of cases involving bloggers. They also have some pretty extensive resources on defamation law aimed at lay people.
http://www.medialaw.org/Template.cfm?Section=Home&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=4463