Felix Salmon doubts things will turn out entirely as hoped for Charles Smith, the one doing the suing.
Posts Tagged ‘online speech’
October 7 roundup
- Lawsuit of the Day: Partner Booted From Three Firms Sues ‘Em All! [Legal Blog Watch]
- Drawing wrong lessons from the Rutgers suicide [Greenfield and more (proposed “Tyler’s Law”), John Schwartz/NYT (quoting Orin Kerr), Volokh and more, Above the Law]
- John Sullivan leaving after 15 years at helm of Civil Justice Association of California [L.A. Times]
- Maybe consumers don’t feel so victimized by overdraft “protection” after all [Bank Lawyer’s Blog]
- Yes, it’s another dust-up pitting all sensible Supreme Court commentators against Dahlia Lithwick, if you like that sort of thing [Kerr, Bodie/Prawfs, Ponnuru, Frank; bonus, Richard Epstein on Erwin Chemerinsky and Hans Bader on a prize flight of Lithwick fancy]
- Blog post relatively sympathetic to Righthaven copyright trollery draws many responses [Robert Zelnick, Patently-O]
- “Should they have let the guy’s house burn down?” [Tyler Cowen; Firey, Cato]
- “Drunken man passes out, wins $850K from police” [six years ago on Overlawyered]
Online sockpuppetry: when is it criminal?
Scott Greenfield has some questions following the conviction of a New York lawyer who impersonated a scholar online “in a heated academic debate over the origins of the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
“People are shocked to learn they can be sued for posting, ‘My dentist stinks.'”
No disrespect to any actual dentists intended, honest. It’s just an example (from Eric Goldman) from an article on the proliferation of suits charging online defamation. “‘It was probably inevitable, but we have seen a steady growth in litigation over content on the Internet,’ said Sandra Baron, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York.” [L.A. Times]
P.S.: “A Duluth physician is suing the son of a former patient for publicly criticizing his bedside manner.” [Duluth News Tribune via Citizen Media Law, McKee v. Laurion]
July 27 roundup
- Dodd-Frank major oops: Faced with new liabilities, agencies refuse to let their ratings be used in bond issuance [WaPo, Salmon] SEC scurries to suspend requirement for six months while it figures out what to do [Salmon]
- Left-leaning law lectern: study of newly hired lawprofs identifies 52 liberals, 8 conservatives [Caron, ABA Journal, Lindgren/Volokh]
- “Progress in protecting gripe site owners against silly trademark claims” [Levy, CL&P]
- “Congress Investigates Beck, Ingraham Advertisers” [Stoll]
- “Uncle Sam Kicks Out Legal Immigrants for Down Profits in Recession” [Shapiro, Cato]
- Judge punishes Goodyear for discovery heel-dragging by denying it chance to disprove liability in $32M case [Las Vegas Sun]
- “$2.3M verdict against Dole thrown out on fraud grounds” [PoL, background]
- Paul Campos vs. Elena Kagan: this time it’s personal [Lawyers Guns & Money]
UK historian who salted Amazon with self-serving reviews loses legal case against rivals
It is unclear from the BBC’s account whether the sock-puppetry amounted to anything that would have been actionable in an American court. A detail worth noting, though: “Initially, when confronted by the allegations of his involvement, Prof Figes instructed his lawyer to threaten legal action.”
The cry of “cyber-bullying”
Watch out, warns Eric Scheie: it can be a cover for legal efforts to silence online critics, as with a religious group leader’s nastygram aimed at blogger Joy McCann (Little Miss Attila).
“Venting Online, Consumers Can Find Themselves in Court”
The Times’s Dan Frosch takes note of litigation aimed at silencing online critics, including the much-discussed T&J Towing and Route 6 Hyundai cases.
May 24 roundup
- Pennsylvania attorney general subpoenas Twitter in search of critics’ identities, then backs down [Volokh and more, Levy/CL&P, Romenesko, Wired “Threat Level”]
- Letting kids have unsupervised time in NYC park not actually against the law [Free-Range Kids on “Take Your Kids to the Park, and Leave Them There Day”] Related from Lenore Skenazy: Spiked Online and Salon, “The War on Children’s Playgrounds”
- Uh-oh: New York chief judge Jonathan Lippman endorses massive new Civil Gideon legal-aid entitlement [ABA Journal, and the NYT cheers]
- “Novartis Hit With $250 Million in Punitives in Gender Bias Case” [NYLJ, WSJ Law Blog (blaming bad defense trial strategy) and more, ABA Journal, Hyman]
- Med-mal law has done very well for two attorney brothers in Georgia [Atlanta Journal-Constitution via Pero]
- Kagan’s Oxford thesis revealed: judges shouldn’t make it up as they go along in quest of social justice. Sensation ensues! [WSJ Law Blog, related on political-branch deference] And were the SG’s judicial-restraint principles activated by Graham v. Florida? [Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal]
- Federal Elections Commission as net regulator: “How the DISCLOSE Act will restrict free speech” [Brad Smith/Jeff Patch, Reason]
- “Law Professor Confesses ‘I’m a Criminal’” [Tim Lynch, Cato]
- Argentina: “Parts of Anti-Plagiarism Bill Lifted from Wikipedia” [Lowering the Bar, TechDirt]
Remove that criticism, our name is trademarked
A Cook County judge issues a remarkably sweeping temporary restraining order against an online forum over its contributors’ criticisms of a cold-calling financial services firm. The plaintiff’s luck changes when things reach federal court, however. [Levy, Consumer Law & Policy via Popehat]