I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
Anonymous Internet Defamation And Journalist Shield Laws
Via TechDirt, I learned this week of an interesting defamation case in Indiana which tests the boundaries of “journalistic shield” laws. As The Indiana Lawyer describes it: The Marion County case involves newspaper coverage of Jeffrey Miller, the former president and CEO of a non-profit youth education group known as Junior Achievement of Central Indiana. In March 2010, The Indianapolis Star published an article about an audit the organization was facing and a reader, known as “DownWithTheColts” posted a comment on the online story, saying the state attorney general should investigate Miller about missing money. Miller and his wife, Cynthia, filed a ... Continue Reading
Jury Awards Law Professors $5 Million Against West Publishing For Defamatory Pocket Part
[UPDATE: Law Librarian Blog and 3 Geeks and a Law Blog both have detailed coverage of the case and what it means for the publishing industry, and Jonathan Turley has background on the Campbell punitive damages case.] [UPDATE II: As The Legal Intelligencer reported, and as I predicted below, Judge Fullam cut the punitive damages verdict, holding "the constitutional limit in this case should be set at $110,000 for each plaintiff. When combined with the compensatory damages, this would result in a recovery of $200,000 for each plaintiff." That's roughly a 1:1 ratio of compensatory:punitive damages, which is low under recent precedent, ... Continue Reading
Blog Defamation And The Discovery Rule: Do Plaintiffs Have Constructive Knowledge Of The Entire Internet?
As The Legal Intelligencer reported Friday: Aviation lawyer and seasoned pilot Arthur Alan Wolk knows quite a bit about the stratosphere and the troposphere, but he may have learned something new this week about the blogosphere when a federal judge tossed out his libel suit against the bloggers at Overlawyered.com. As U.S. District Judge Mary A. McLaughlin sees it, a blog is legally the same as any other "mass media," meaning that any libel lawsuit filed against a blog in Pennsylvania must make its way to court within one year. Wolk was hoping for a break on the strict time ... Continue Reading
Can Shirley Sherrod Sue Andrew Breitbart For Defamation?
Talking Points Memo reports the latest on the Shirley Sherrod fiasco: Shirley Sherrod said this morning on CNN that she would like to "get back at" Andrew Breitbart. Asked if she would consider a defamation suit against Breitbart, the conservative blogger who posted the edited clip that got her fired, she said, "I really think I should." "I don't know a lot about the legal profession but that's one person I'd like to get back at, because he came at me. He didn't go after the NAACP; he came at me," she went on. To recap the underlying facts here: ... Continue Reading
Why Mark Zuckerberg Won’t Sue For Defamation Over The Facebook Movie
[UPDATE: We've learned a bit more about what happened in the real life dispute, as I blogged about here, and the NYTimes has taken a stab at whether Zuckerberg could sue for defamation, concluding the answer is "maybe." UPDATE II: Six months after my post, long after The Social Network has been released to widespread acclaim, there's still been no lawsuit. Zuckerberg just went on Saturday Night Live to jokingly "confront" the actor who played him in The Social Network. Told you so!] Some time ago, I heard that this fall was the release of The Social Network, a movie based on the founding ... Continue Reading
The Problem With HR 4364, The Proposed Federal Anti-SLAPP Law
Via Overlawyered, Eric Goldman and others favor HR 4364, the “Citizen Participation Act of 2009,” which would establish a federal anti-SLAPP law. Around half the States have anti-SLAPP (i.e., Anti-"Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation") statutes which make it easier to dismiss suits allegedly filed to chill freedom of speech. If the lawsuit arises from the Defendants' exercise of their rights to free speech — which in the post-Citizens United era means virtually every time a corporation advances an agenda — then the Defendant can file, at the very beginning of the lawsuit, a "special motion" that requires the Plaintiff show concrete evidence ... Continue Reading
A Detailed Look At The Hurt Locker Lawsuit
The producers of the Oscar-nominated The Hurt Locker, which Roger Ebert* deemed the second best film of the decade, were just sued by Sgt. Jeffrey Sarver, a former explosive ordinance disposal technician with the 788th Ordinance Company, with whom journalist Mark Boal — the writer of The Hurt Locker — was “embedded” on assignment for Playboy Magazine. The complaint, filed in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (where Sgt. Sarver lived during the relevant times), gives some examples of the similarities: The title “The Hurt Locker” – Plaintiff originated this term and said it often around ... Continue Reading
Third Circuit Dismisses Suit By Arbitrator Against Law Firm For “Scorched Earth” Tactics
All's fair in love, war and litigation: An arbitrator cannot sue a lawyer for wrongful use of civil proceedings, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled, even if the lawyer allegedly lodged false accusations in court papers to have the arbitrator disqualified, because lawyers enjoy an "absolute privilege" that immunizes them from liability over any communication made in the course of litigation. The five-page unpublished opinion is available here. It says: The underlying litigation in this case began in 1995 when Anthony Patterson, a member of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ of the Apostolic Faith in ... Continue Reading
Can I Set Up An LLC To Avoid Personal Liability In A Lawsuit?
Among the many creative “legal” ideas floating around on the internet is: If you set up an LLC for yourself and conduct all your business through it, the LLC will be liable in a lawsuit but you won't. Last week, I was asked if this "asset protection strategy" worked. No, it doesn't. Conducting your personal business through an LLC provides no protection against a tort verdict, the type of liability that most people are worried about. The use of corporate forms -- like LLCs, S-Corporations, or Incorporation -- has many important purposes, but avoiding personal tort liability for your own conduct ... Continue Reading
Third Circuit Predicts Pennsylvania Supreme Court Would Require Independently Actionable Conduct To Prove Tortious Interference With Contractual Relationships
Fresh off the presses is Acumed LLC v. Advanced Surgical Servs., 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 5854 (3d Cir., March 20, 2009), a charming setup in the insanely hostile and competitive world of medical devices: Acumed is a manufacturer of surgical implants and related devices, and appellant [Morris] and [Advanced Surgical Services] are in the business of distributing surgical implants and other medical devices for various manufacturers, including Acumed, to hospitals and surgeons. ... At the trial, Ryan Crognale, a sales representative for appellant, explained his view of the events that Casey described at Nazareth Hospital. Crognale testified that Morris directed him ... Continue Reading
