Defamation Libel
- Thread starter paindonthurt_
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It may or may not be a medical professional out of Jackson who may or may not have said something abt Jeffrey Simmons.
He may or may not be an Ole Miss fan.
There may or may not have been a thread on the Internet abt leaving him reviews.
He may or may not be an Ole Miss fan.
There may or may not have been a thread on the Internet abt leaving him reviews.
I don't have a dog in this hunt, but I do have a question for the legally-minded folks on the board...Assuming a satire defense, is there such a thing as a meta-evaluation of the totality of the posts? For instance, a while a single post could be construed as defamation by a reasonable person, when that post is taken together with all of the other posts that occurred on the same day and all alleging various acts of shin-diggery, do all offending posts become satire by default?
Is an online "review" any different than a personal opinion? If I say I despise that latest rap release by (name any "artist") because it sucks and is a pitiful excuse for music, am I liable because that's my opinion? Is that different than saying some medical professional sucks at what he or she does?
Yeah I remember that brew ha ha. State fans were plain wrong for trying to ruin his business because he's an Ole Miss jerk. I sell insurance and very few homeowner's policies cover Personal Injury Liability (libel, slander, invasion of privacy, etc.) It's unfortunate and a bit juvenile but how is someone who reads the reviews supposed to know he's an OM jerk, but perhaps a decent doc. Certainly his partners can show financial loss. Gotta be careful on-line in today's world.
I've heard that in general you cannot make claims in reviews that extrapolate beyond your experience (or experiences you know about). You can claim the salmon you got at a restaurant was the worst you've ever had, but you can't say that they let the fish sit out at room temperature for a few days and let the rats in the kitchen piss on it since that would be claiming the restaurant is violating the health code. Same with doctors and other professionals. If a lawyer is expensive and not worth the money you're paying, it's fine to say that. If your review states that he's charging way more hours than he's working, then you better have evidence. Or if you say the doctor had to have cheated his way through med school.
Some Chinese restaurant got in trouble here because someone filmed them washing dishes in the lake and that put it on Facebook.
Not a legal professional, but I would think the satire defense would probably work. The real issue is, these guys are going to have to hire lawyers and pay a lot of money to defend a nuisance lawsuit. The moral of the story is be careful what you post online, even if it's supposedly anonymous.
I've also heard about businesses successfully defending against false claims made on internet review sites, but I'm skeptical of the amount of damages that can result.
Probably good practice to never write anything in an email, text, tweet, post-it note, or message board post that you wouldn’t want to have read back to you verbatim in a court of law.
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Then it would be best not to write anything on a message board, post, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et al.....
The 1st amendment only protects you if what you say is 100% truth and provable in a court of law.
The 1st amendment only protects you if what you say is 100% truth and provable in a court of law.
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There are a lot of instances of businesses defending themselves against falsified online reviews. I read an article a few weeks ago warning about online reviews and gave a large list of examples of these types of cases. Poster beware.
Not related but had to share.. So I just got through a case where I had an employee sue me and the company over a review I gave them. Wish this were a joke...
Can the defense be handled as a group so only one law firm is necessary? If so, might consider a Go fund me - some fellow fans might kick in.
Thanks to the 5th and 14th amendment, they seem to be in the clear at the Southpark production studios.***
Sounds similar to the basketball ref and the Kentucky fans a few years back. He blew a call and they went to his personal business Facebook page and left a ton of negative reviews, to the point he had to take it down. I don't know whatever came of it though.
Companies are suing for negative reviews whether they’re accurate or not.
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The civil court system in this country is a travesty. I think there should be a penalty for lawyers that take on ******** cases and lose. If the scumbag lawyers spent a few years turning big rocks into little rocks for fraud, it would put an end to this ****. Makes my blood boil.
That or we go all Game of Thrones and have the right to challenge the plaintiff and or his ***** lawyer to trial by combat... No champions though.
That or we go all Game of Thrones and have the right to challenge the plaintiff and or his ***** lawyer to trial by combat... No champions though.
The simple solution is the losing party pays the winning party's reasonable legal fees. You'd see a lot less ******** lawsuits, and a lot more of the legitimate ones would get settled out quickly because the defendant would rather pay the damages than the damages plus their legal fees plus the plaintiff's legal fees.
Was he my neighbor? He's a number one ole miss fan, and seems like the kinda guy that would do such a thing. And he's a lawyer, and has been for a few years so it prolly ain't him. But still...
If I knew that ALL judges had some common sense, I'd be in favor of instant disbarment for bringing frivolous lawsuits. I mean right there during opening arguments, the judge gets to berate the lawyer, point out that he is a money grabbing buffoon and suspend his practice for X number of years AND fine the person bringing the suit substantially or prevent them from ever suing again. The definition of "frivolous" is the obvious reason this couldn't happen, along with lawyers being the primary law makers, etc. But it's fun to think about!
Loser pays sounds nice and all, but it would really be a detriment to low income plaintiffs who have legitimate cases against deep pocket defendants. The defendants would be able coerce law ball settlements based on the fear of losing. And just because you have a legitimate case that does not mean you will win in court.
What we need in our legal system are judges who are not afraid to use their power to toss out truly frivolous cases, and to fine attorneys who take outrageous positions. Judges already have the power to do this, but too many of them would rather "give the plaintiff their day in court" than risk getting reversed by an appellate court. And it is worse in State court where the judges are elected and cannot afford to piss off the plaintiffs' bar.
I used to practice in front of a federal judge in Texas who ran his courtroom like a little kingdom. He would fine attorneys for even the smallest transgressions, and once he decided who was going to win a case, he would rule in their favor and give them everything they were asking for (attorneys fees, treble damages, whatever). He was eventually disbarred, but not for the way he was running his courtroom.
But none of this is really related to the OP.
What we need in our legal system are judges who are not afraid to use their power to toss out truly frivolous cases, and to fine attorneys who take outrageous positions. Judges already have the power to do this, but too many of them would rather "give the plaintiff their day in court" than risk getting reversed by an appellate court. And it is worse in State court where the judges are elected and cannot afford to piss off the plaintiffs' bar.
I used to practice in front of a federal judge in Texas who ran his courtroom like a little kingdom. He would fine attorneys for even the smallest transgressions, and once he decided who was going to win a case, he would rule in their favor and give them everything they were asking for (attorneys fees, treble damages, whatever). He was eventually disbarred, but not for the way he was running his courtroom.
But none of this is really related to the OP.
Legal fees plus compensation for the time, stress, loss of productivity, etc., caused by having to defend a frivolous lawsuit.
UNFORTUNATELY, the group of folks who write, present, and pass the laws is largely populated by those who make their living in courtrooms.
UNFORTUNATELY, the group of folks who write, present, and pass the laws is largely populated by those who make their living in courtrooms.
I don't know if the satire defense would work or not. What was written in the review may have clearly been satire, but I would think that the 1-star rating is what could really hurt the business. If you type the name of a business into google, the star rating is one of the first things that you see. And if I were looking for somebody to operate on me, I wouldn't even considering a doctor/practice with a solid number of reviews and a low rating. I wouldn't dig into the reviews enough to see that they clearly weren't legit....I would simply move on to the next doctor.
All that said, it's hard for me to call this a nuisance lawsuit. If I tweeted something negative about Damore'ea Stringfellow hitting that chick while he was at Washington, and a large group of OM fans responded with a smear campaign that was based on outright lies and threatened my livelihood, I can't say that I wouldn't respond in a similar manner. And I would feel justified in doing so.
Again, its not the laws that are the problem so much as the judges. The Mississippi Litigation Accountability act already provides for an assessment of fees and costs against any attorney or party for filing a meritless action, claim or defense, or for unwarranted delays or unnecessary proceedings. We just need to elect judges who will enforce those laws.
There is a massive difference in risk profile between losing the value of your time for a case versus losing the value of your time plus being responsible for a few hundred thousand dollars of legal fees. But I think most people, when they consider loser pays, are assuming the party, not the lawyer, pays, in which case people that are already basically judgement proof could file whatever frivolous suit they want, while middle class are basically priced out of the justice system because they can't put their house on the line for an uncertain case.
This is the thing: most cases that actually go to trial are close calls one way or the other. If they weren't close calls, then they would most likely settle. An attorney who knows he has a bad case is just doing what he needs to do to negotiate the best settlement he can for his client. If a plaintiff's attorney has a 50/50 case -- or really even a 70/30 case that he knows he could lose -- he may not be able to afford litigating it if losing means owing legal fees and costs to the Defendant. That seriously hampers your negotiation position in settlement talks against a deep pocket.
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