Pajamas Media’s Martin Solomon reports on the Islamic Society of Boston’s extensive use of litigation to silence critics, ranging from moderate Muslims to a local interfaith group to local reporters and newspapers, who question whether the organization has ties to Islamic radicals. The David Project has a set of links to court documents. Daniel Pipes has also been covering the matter. ISB’s attorney is Howard Cooper, who recently won affirmance of a $2.1 million verdict against the Boston Herald, which had criticized a local judge (May 11). See also Jeff Jacoby, “New questions for the ISB”, Boston Globe, Apr. 25. Earlier on Overlawyered: Aug. 27 (ISB subpoenas talk show); May 19; Jan. 5, 2006.
Posts Tagged ‘libel slander and defamation’
“Publication of false information concerning the City of Pomona”
Eugene Volokh points out that you can’t be found liable for defaming a city, notwithstanding a nastygram sent by the Pomona, Calif. city attorney to the Foothill Cities weblog (May 11). The weblog has pulled down the posts in question, which reported on rumors involving the city manager and others in the city’s employ: “We’re going to let Goliath win this one”. (May 11).
Update: Boston Herald libel award upheld
“Massachusetts’ highest court on Monday upheld a $2 million verdict against the Boston Herald won by a state Superior Court judge who said the newspaper libelously depicted him as soft on crime and insensitive to the suffering of a 14-year-old rape victim.” Better be careful what you say about Judge Ernest Murphy in future. (AP coverage; Romenesko first, second posts; Dan Kennedy, Media Nation; Childs). Earlier coverage: Dec. 8 and Dec. 23, 2005.
“The Microsoft of kickball”?
Apparently kickball isn’t just for elementary school students anymore: the website DCist reports that a lawsuit filed last February by the World Adult Kickball Association (“WAKA”) against rival adult kickball league (I’m having trouble reporting this without snickering) DC Kickball is still kicking around in the federal courts a year later.
The original complaint doesn’t appear to be online, but the Washington City Paper provided more details last year, including:
The complaint accuses DCKickball founder Carter Rabasa of copyright infringement for unauthorized use of WAKA’s co-ed kickball rules, including “the clearly unique requirement that there be 4 men AND 4 women at a minimum to play” and for mandating that “players must be at least 21 years old.” No other specific rules or intellectual-property thefts are mentioned, but the suit points out that David Fischer, a volunteer director for DCKickball, was previously a player for the WAKA team “Scoregasm.”
The suit also accuses Rabasa of defamation, based on his calling WAKA “the Microsoft of kickball” in a 2005 Washington City Paper story (“Kickball Wars,” Cheap Seats, 5/13) and his additional comments in a subsequent Wall Street Journal article. Those comments, the suit alleges, incited a kickballer to post “WAKA bites it” on the DCKickball Web site.
To the extent this represents the entire complaint (there also seems to be an unspecified trademark claim as well), it appears utterly meritless. You can’t copyright the rules of a game (although you can copyright the specific wording used), and in any case, neither of the rules cited sound particularly original. And “the Microsoft of kickball” may be insulting to a Macintosh fan, but is not defamatory. These hurdles don’t seem to faze WAKA, though; the company is suing its much smaller competitor for at least $350,000.
But WAKA is apparently very aggressive; it has reportedly sent out cease-and-desist letters to at least two other competitors, according to the City Paper article, accusing them of violating its intellectual property, trade secrets (!), and a non-compete clause (for an unpaid volunteer).
And since “turn the other cheek” is not one of the canons of legal ethics, DC Kickball has countersued for violations of federal and DC antitrust law.
Seriously, adults play kickball? Seriously?
May 8 roundup
- Whoops! Insurer’s lawyer backtracks and scrambles for cover after saying some Miami/Dade judges “are being paid off” [Daily Business Review; possibly related, scroll to mention of Miami near end]
- Climate’s different up there: Google and Wikipedia sued for libel in Canada over user-generated content [Rob Hyndman]
- Lawyers implicated in Ky. fen-phen scandal are owners of Curlin, horse that placed third in Kentucky Derby [Courier-Journal, Sun-Times, Sports Network, WSJ law blog]
- “As a lawyer, I hear stories about lawsuit abuse all the time,” but Judge Pearson’s pants suit takes the cake [Nasty Brutish & Short; also lively discussion at Digg]
- Ramps of gold: serial ADA-suit filers George Louie, David Gunther and others launch wave of sidewalk suits against Northern California towns [Contra Costa Times]
- $250 fine for releasing a balloon into the air in New Hampshire? Criminalizing nearly everything [National Law Journal; also Ayn Rand]
- Helpful, if scary: “12 Important U.S. Laws Every Blogger Needs To Know” [Aviva Directory]
- U.K. lawyers ordered to pay back tens of millions of pounds in excessive fees earned for representing sick miners [Times Online Apr. 16, Apr. 25, Apr. 10; Telegraph]
- Did Rosie O’Donnell come out for loser-pays on ABC’s “The View”? Someone please get a transcript [Bill Boushka]
- Japan doesn’t furnish us with much material, but here’s one about magicians suing TV broadcasters for revealing secrets behind coin tricks [Above the Law]
- Sensitivity vs. sensitivity: female drummers allowed to sue over their (culturally authentic) exclusion from ritual drumming at Native American powwow [five years ago on Overlawyered]
April 27 roundup
- Big news: California judge: contingency-fee lawyers hired by state present inherent conflict of interest. [POL roundup; Santa Clara v. ARCO]
- Must-read post about Westrup Klick’s fishing for clients in class actions. [Cal Biz Lit; Lattman; Bodner v. Oreck Direct]
- Why not let the market decide the optimum level of securities litigation? [Jim Copland @ NY Sun; AEI event; 10b5 blog; W$J]
- More on subprime mortgages. [Frank @ POL; Michael Lewis @ Bloomberg via Kirkendall]
- Watch what you say about lawyers dept.: Filmmaker complains about lawsuit in memoir, gets sued by former opposing attorney for libel [Ferlauto v. Hamsher @ Don Murphy]
- Update on clinic sperm mixup case [On Point]
- Tunc pro nunc: Justice Roberts is a funny guy [Kerr @ Volokh]
- So is this Arkansas attorney. [Snopes]
- Seven years ago on Overlawyered, Pets.com sues Conan O’Brien show over sock-puppet dogs; ATLA tries to threaten senator. Three years ago: $3M verdict (including punitive damages) for failing to fire truck driver who had speeding tickets; also three years ago, motorcyclist runs from police at 130 mph, crashes, dies, family sues. Two years ago, blogger takes big paycut and gets new job.
Update: Maag drops defamation suit
Watch what you say about judges dept.: former Illinois judge Gordon Maag has dropped the $110 million defamation lawsuit he had filed against the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other defendants over campaign flyers he claimed were false and unfair. An appeals court in November upheld a lower court’s dismissal of the suit, and the Illinois Supreme Court declined to revive it. (Ann Knef, “Gordon Maag drops $110 million defamation suit”, Madison County Record, Apr. 12). Earlier: Dec. 23, 2004; Feb. 6 and Nov. 6, 2006.
John O’Quinn update
Judge Denise Page Hood has issued an order to show cause why the O’Quinn law firm (many entries; also POL Jul. 15, 2005, POL Jul. 10, and POL Aug. 3) should not be held in contempt for improperly withholding breast implant settlement money from their clients. There is no press coverage of this brewing scandal.
There has, however, been plenty of press coverage of one of O’Quinn’s other clients, Anna Nicole Smith’s mother. In that circus, O’Quinn finds himself a defendant in a civil defamation suit brought by Smith’s, er, widower, attorney Howard K. Stern, for going on national television and accusing Stern of murdering Smith. [AP/ABC News] The fact of having this client gave cause TMZ.com to dig up some of the more obvious scandals in O’Quinn’s past, though they still missed the more recent ones covered by Point of Law.
Elsewhere in O’Quinn news: the firm settled its $1 billion fen-phen verdict (Apr. 28, 2004) for an unknown amount on the eve of appeal as part of a global settlement of O’Quinn’s caseload of fen-phen cases. (Brenda Sapino Jeffreys, “$1 Billion Fen-Phen Case Settles Before Appellate Oral Arguments”, Texas Lawyer, Apr. 16). The verdict was tainted because the plaintiffs blamed fen-phen for Cynthia Cappel-Coffey’s PPH, but Ms. Cappel-Coffey had been taking four other diet drugs since fen-phen had been pulled from the market that had the known risk of causing PPH. Yet that evidence was excluded from the jury, though the Texas Lawyer coverage barely touches upon this outrage. The state court in judicial hellhole Beaumont also improperly applied Texas caps on punitive damages.
Complete text of the breast implant order after the jump, if you don’t want to read the order in PDF format.
What a patroon
Last month, Micheal Ray Richardson, the coach of the Continental Basketball Association’s Albany Patroons, lost his job after reports in the local paper, the Albany Times Union, that he had allegedly made anti-Semitic and anti-gay comments. Now Richardson, according to reports, is planning to file a lawsuit against the newspaper this week for $5 million for defamation for these news reports. Obviously, if the newspaper report was false, Richardson would have a strong case. But I think he may want to work on his arguments just a little bit:
Richardson, a former Knicks first-round draft pick, did not deny that he uttered the gay slur at a group of fans that were harassing him, but said that it was not meant as a homophobic slur.
Moreover, although he claims that his comments were mischaracterized, with one exception, he doesn’t seem to deny his remarks about Jews, either:
“Micheal recalls saying ‘Jewish lawyer,’ not ‘Jew,’ ” his lawyer, John Aretakis, told The Post.
Oh. I might have been inclined to take this lawsuit more seriously, except that the lawyer’s name struck my eye. It’s our old friend, John Aretakis. (I guess meritless lawsuits against the Catholic Church don’t pay all the bills.) But at least he doesn’t pretend it isn’t about the money:
“This is stupid political correctness gone mad,” said Aretakis, who told The Post that representatives from the Times Union asked him, “Would an apology make this lawsuit go away?”
“The answer is no,” Aretakis said.
Unfortunately for Richardson, if media reports are right, Aretakis — besides misspelling his own client’s name — seems to have misunderstood the legal standard for defamation, inventing a theory of “malice” (based on the notion that the reporter was getting revenge on the team because his car was towed by the team two years ago) that ignores the requirement that the story be untrue.
His reputation to protect
Defamation-suit Hall of Fame: a New Zealand prisoner serving a life sentence for the notoriously brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl has won cash compensation from newspapers which described him as a rapist. “Andrew Ronald MacMillan was granted legal aid – a government- funded scheme which allows people who cannot afford legal representation to get a lawyer – to sue Fairfax Media, publishers of New Zealand newspapers The Press and Dominion Post, for defamation and punitive damages.” The victim, whose body was discovered nearly naked, had suffered violence in intimate places, but authorities never charged MacMillan with rape in the case. (“Murderer gets compensation from paper over rape allegation”, DPA/MonstersAndCritics.com, Apr. 10). Two and a half years ago MacMillan won $1200 for hurt feelings and humiliation because the Corrections Department had not shown him the text of a letter accusing him of misbehavior while on prison furlough. (Bridget Carter, “‘Hurt feelings’ win killer $1200 compensation”, New Zealand Herald, Aug. 23, 2004).