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Jury Awards $11 Million for Internet Defamation
dptalia writes "A woman in Florida has been awarded $11.3 million dollars in a defamation case. Apparently the defendant was unhappy with the plaintiff's referral service and posted complaints all over the internet. In a chilling slap at free speech, the jury decided that not only was this illegal, but that it was worth over $11 million. The defendant can't pay the judgement — she can't even pay for an attorney. The plaintiff says she doesn't care, but sued for the principle of the thing."
Today's Lesson: If you can sue someone in your home state, who can't even afford a lawyer and is out of reach due to natural disaster, you too can win really big judgements!
Seems Ms. Sheff is no stranger to trashing others on web sites.
if you can't say something nice... sue.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
While it's true that slander/libel are not protected by the 1st Amendment, that's pretty irrelevant to what happened here. According to TFA, the defendant never showed up to offer a defense. The judge, without any other way to go, found a default judgment for the plaintiff. Only at this point was a jury called, and then only to determine damages. If you're a juror, and one attorney tells you, "In my long experience, this sort of pain and suffering (or whatever) is worth $11 million", and no one is there to tell you otherwise, there's a good chance you'll find $11 million in damages. Whether it actually was slander or libel doesn't matter. If there's no defense, the defense loses, regardless of the actual facts. Damned inactivist judges...
It turns out the defendant had her house flooded by Hurricane Katrina and had to leave... the legal notices that the plaintiff was required to send bounced back to the plaintiff and were never received. The defendant didn't show because she wasn't aware of when the trial was. Nor did she have enough money to hire a lawyer. So, odds are, had the case actually been defended, this thing would've either been thrown out or reached a defense verdict.
I'm just suprised that the judge didn't reduce the jury's damages... that said, because the defendant had no money for an attorney, it seems unlikely that this will be appealed (which it should be).
Chosing not to show up at all is throwing in the towel.
Actually, it stated in the article that she had to leave Louisiana when hurricane Katrina hit and never got the court documents with the date to show up. They were returned by the postal service to the plaintiff's lawyer in Florida.
So, apparently, the reason she didn't show up was not because she couldn't get an attourney. It was because she never got the summons.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
This seems to all have come out of a set of disputes over how to deal with troubled kids that led to them being placed in a school that is part of a group that has a long trail of allegations and convictions for child abuse.
Sue Scheff's site is here: http://www.helpyourteens.com/index.html
A google for "WWASP" and "PURE" "Sue Scheff" gives interesting information.
The original thread and allegations are here.
Members of that board don't have anything particularly nice to say about this event.