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."

Comments

Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[jellomizer]

Now both sides have lost. First the defendant who has to go into bankruptcy and the plaintiff who now because of the trial got national attention for being a litigious bastard. Who most people will be afraid to do work with because she will take any negative comments towards her and sue the pant off people. If she just sucked it up, explained her side on the net as well anyone the damage will be limited to a couple of Blogs which no one reads. But new with USA Today coverage now the rest of the US can hear about it. So in the end the only person who won is the lawyer. The Defendant can't afford to pay the Plaintiff, but the Plaintiff needs to pay the lawyer.

Re:Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[Cyrom]

Sounds like i will have to be a little more carefull with my feedback on Amazon and Ebay.

Re:Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[computational super]

Anybody still beleive that Americans don't need anonymous internet options like Freenet? (Assuming, that is, that they EVER get the thing to work).

Re:Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[AndersOSU]

While I think that the award is outrageous, and unneccessary, and also that the defendnt was a victim of circumstances (she didn't even know about the trial due to Katrina,) bear in mind that it has never been legal to publish whatever you feel like about someone else.

Libel is libel, and while you can defend yourself by demonstrating that your statements are true, you better have some decent evidence if you are goiing to call someone who runs a buisness a crook, theif, and con-artist.

The news here isn't that free-speach is being eroded, it is that juries apperently think that libel is worth 11 million.

Re:Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[anachattak]

Contrary to popular opinion, lawyers don't run around filing lawsuits in their own names. They have clients. Clients are the ones who decide whether or not to sue. Might as well blame the post office for delivering junk mail. Maybe the problem isn't with lawyers, but with the people who hire them.

Re:Lawers always Win. Even when both sides loose.

[RexRhino]

No, the news is that even casual speech on web forums is now considered to be the same as a newspaper article, or television advertisment.

While libel laws have always been around, the bar on what sort of speech is considered libel has been dramaticly lowered. Before, libel would have to be some outright slanderous speech made is a very public manner, and there was an extremly high bar for the person making the claim of libel... now, all you have to do is say something that pisses off a person with a lawyer, and you are commiting libel.

You are using the word "libel" to describe two completly different forms of behavior. It is like if I say "Terrorism has always recieved the death penalty, and that is why we need the death penalty for people who commit terroristic acts of jaywalking and spitting on the sidewalk". While it is true that libel has always been against the law, this is so stretching the definition of libel that I fail to see how anyone couldn't sue anyone else for saying something they don't like.

Confusing To Me

[eldavojohn]

What's always been confusing to me is what needs to be true in publishing. Books have always seemed to be protected from people 'publishing whatever they want.' But the more I think about it, the more I realize that politicians usually have to put up with books containing allegations that aren't entirely provable. So, for the most part, I think that books are safe from large postings of defamation.

The same can be said about magazines & newspapers (usually) though--with the National Enquirer and tabloids--it certainly does have examples of blatant slander.

But anyone can say anything on the internet and get away with it--or so I thought. Considering what I read online, I'm certainly surprised there aren't more cases like this.

It seems the more volatile the medium is, the more 'free' you are to do whatever you want.

I haven't read the actual comments online that this woman posted but I would suggest that the defendant appeal to a higher court on the grounds of free speech and try to get her story out through the media. I mean, it looks like she's boned either way so she might as well appeal and represent herself if she has to. I'm pretty certain that this could be dismissed in a higher court. After all, it sounds like she was dissatisfied with the person's service so she is more than qualified to comment on the woman's business--unless she was telling explicit lies.

Re:Confusing To Me

[Shadow Wrought]

IANAL, but I have worked in the legal field for several years now. In the article it mentions that the Defendant used words like, "fraud," "con artist," and such to describe her. So the Defendant wasn't saying that she was unhappy with the Plaintiff's work, but that the Plaintiff was an actual criminal defrauding the people who went to her. That is a significant difference. Free speech does not, nor has it ever, allowed people to lie about someone else. That is not its intent and arguing that it ought to be allowed does far more damage than good.

As for politicians and celebrities, there is a higher standard that must be met in order for words against them to be considered damaging. For celebrities the case is, I believe, Lemon v Kurtzman, and it basically says that if you put yourself into the national spotlight, than you should expect to have things said about you. (In a nutshell;-)

As for politicians, I believe just about anything you say against them is fair game since it can be construed as a political metaphor. "CongressCritter Soandso is a crook!" is allowed because it is, in essence, still considered political speech. The protection of which is the main intent of the Free Speech clause of the 1st Amendment.

Re:Confusing To Me

[DragonWriter]

As for politicians, I believe just about anything you say against them is fair game since it can be construed as a political metaphor.

Not quite. Any public figure, included a politician, has a high bar to prove defamation under the New York Times v. Sullivan standards, which require a showing of actual malice as well as falsity. But that's not absolute license to print anything you want regardless of truth.

Re:Confusing To Me

[gfxguy]

Thanks for the comment - I completly agree with you but I'd be labeled an idiot since I can't claim to have a background in law. However, this woman's right to free speech was not infringed on; she exercised it! Oh boy did she exercise it!

I wish people would stop confusing freedom of speech with freedom from repercussion.

Re:Confusing To Me

[Catbeller]

Why else do you think Rush Limbaugh and similar call themselves comedians? Protection against defamation.

And in England you don't need to prove malice, hence that cryptic comment by Tom Cruise in that South Park episode about Scientology, "I'll sue you! I'll sue you in ENGLAND!"

"a chilling slap at free speech"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called libel. It's against the law and has never been protected speech.

Re:"a chilling slap at free speech"

[bladesjester]

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.

Sudden Manners

[loteck]

I'm betting there's going to be a lot of very polite and respectful replies in this story's thread.

Re:Sudden Manners

[bloatboy]

Parent is obviously a Naz^H^H^H fine person deserving of being modded up.

slander and libel are not legal and not protected

[stry_cat]

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 jury decided that this was slander/libel. These are not protected by the first amendnemnt. You can't go around destroying someone's reputation when what you're saying is a lie. The jury must have found that the plaintiff provided the services according to the contract with the defendant. It's not a slap a free speech, unless you think people should be able to make unfounded accusations and damage an innocent person's reputation.

onoes!! its teh lawz0rs!!!

[ackthpt]

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.

From the article

[lax-goalie]

The plaintiff's motive is:

"People are using the Internet to destroy people they don't like, and you can't do that."

But I guess people using the courts to destroy people they don't like is is just fine with her...

Free Speech != Zero Liability

[AKAImBatman]

This being Slashdot and all, I'll probably get modded down for this. C'est la vie. Someone obviously needs to explain this.

In a chilling slap at free speech, the jury decided that not only was this illegal, but that it was worth over $11 million.

Freedom of Speech is the right to speak freely. It is NOT the right to speak without repercussion. Every time you make a public statement, you are responsible for the content of that statement as well as the veracity of that content. The typical example of this is shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. If there's no fire, then you can expect that your actions will have serious conseqences.

TFA is light on the actual details of this case. So it's difficult to judge who was really "right" and who was really "wrong". (Especially since the defendent wasn't able to defend herself.) However, you need to pay attention to the fact that the defendent DID find an open forum for her speech. She posted her opinions (apparently to the point of persecuting the plantiff) and was thus able to exercise her right to free speech. The fact that a court decided that this speech was libelous does nothing to impinge on those statements being fully accessable in a public forum.

When we talk about the lack of Free Speech, we mean that the statements can't be made in the first place. As in, the controlling entity (usually the government) can prevent dissenting opinions from being published in newspapers, books, or webpages. China even goes as far as to deny the right to blog, and filters out all incoming media for any speech they might find distateful.

Contrast that with a court case seeking to recover damages for statements made in public forums and accessible to millions. Presumably, those statements are still available. There is no "chill" here people. Move on.

Re:Free Speech != Zero Liability

[AKAImBatman]

Well the majority of speech protected by the 1st amendment is exactly that, freedom from repercussion pursued by the government.

Depends. If statements are found to be true and factual, then the plantiff usually has no case, regardless of the damages. (e.g. If I said Company FizzBang was dumping toxic waste, their libel suit would fail if it was proven that they were indeed dumping toxic waste.) Also, attempts to make amends for false statements can often prevent a case from going forward.

If the defendant in this case had said the same things about the President she would have been protected*.

Comments made about public figures have certain special protections that comments made about private individuals don't have. The courts have held that individuals in the public eye open themselves up to a lot more criticism, and thus that criticism should be protected. This particular case involved a private individual, and thus was not protected in the same fashion as statements about the President would be.

If you're still unclear on this, then I recommend reading Wikipedia's explanation of Libel and the laws surrounding it. The article does a fairly good job of explaining the factors under which libel is decided:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libel

Re:Lawers always Win without a tight grip

[fireboy1919]

While loosed lawyers are much more powerful than chained ones, the chained ones are safer.

Even if the other side looses their lawyer, like the parent says - the lawyers are the only ones who win if they're loosed.

If you keep control of them, they won't be able to bite you, and you stand a chance of coming out ahead. It may even be possible to win even if the other side has loosed their lawyers.

Another good tip is to remember to spade or neuter your lawyer to help reduce the number of strays.

Reward excessive, but I can understand the case

[ahodgson]

Claiming that you did business with someone and that they ripped you off is not "expressing your opinion", it is deliberately trying to hurt someone's livelihood. Civil court is the proper place to defend oneself against that sort of attack. In the US, if you're telling the truth, you can certainly say it, but you may have to defend yourself in court.

Although the reward is certainly far in excess of any real damage that could have been done, the principle is sound. If you mouth off about someone, you had better make sure you can prove you're telling the truth and be prepared to do so in a court of law.

It could be worse. In many other countries (including my own) you can be successfully sued for defaming someone even if you can prove that what you said is the truth. Now that stifles free speech.

Re:slander and libel are not legal and not protect

[Random Utinni]

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).

Interesting window into "Troubled Teen" Industry

[ZWithaPGGB]

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.

We don't even know the facts of the case

[hellfire]

From TFA:

"Bock says that when she moved back to her repaired house over the summer, she knew the trial was approaching but did not know the date. She says she doesn't have the money to pay the judgment or hire a lawyer to appeal it. She adds that if the goal of Scheff's lawsuit was to stifle what Bock says online, it worked."

Bock is the Defendant and Scheff is the plaintiff. Bock basically was in Louisiana when Katrina hit and had to evacuate. When she got some of her lift back on track, it looks like she just say "awww fuck it, my life is turned upside-down, I can't deal with this" and simply let it go. Bock didn't even show up for the trial and had to let go of her lawyer!

If you make no effort to show up for a trial in order to present a defense, then you will lose by default. Scheff won essentially on a technicality, not the facts of the case. I took a prior landlord to court once and he lost because he didn't show up for trial. The Judge ruled in favor of him simply because he didn't show up, and didn't even bother to look at the facts of the case. You have to show up to defend yourself or you are in contempt of court. The reason why the judgement was so large was probably because that was the maximum Scheff asked for or could get, and with no one to defend the outcome, no one was there to defend the penalty either!

Here's more details from the article:

Scheff, who operates a referral service called Parents Universal Resource Experts, says she referred Bock to a consultant who helped Bock retrieve her sons. Afterward, Bock became critical of Scheff and posted negative messages about her on the Internet site Fornits.com, where parents with children in boarding schools for troubled teens confer with one another.

Basically we make a jump from Scheff providing services to help Bock to Bock becoming critical of Scheff, with no facts in between as to why. I can't blame the author of the article because she's not reporting on a violation of free speech, jus the facts of the case. I also can't judge if she was able to obtain why Bock was critical and what comments she made and where. Obviously the submitter of this article wanted to stir up he "Slander is not free speech" crowd, and succeeded in doing so, but you can't go that far unless you know more about what Bock said and what Scheff did to make Bock say those things.

Scheff won on a technicality due to natural disaster. Winning on a technicality is not news, except for USA today, which never has any decent articles. This is one of the biggest stretches I've ever seen on slashdot. Maybe I should sue the editors and submitter for letting bullshit like this get on slashdot.

Mod Parent Informative (despite stupid Subject)

[paladinwannabe2]

Apparently Mrs. Sheff gets paid to refer people to specific schools... and it has been alleged in the past that she does so under false pretenses. If this is true, Mrs. Sheff is indeed the liar, con artist and crook the defendent claims she is. If it's true, it isn't libel.

Re:Katrina

[Americano]

Also from the article:

In 2003, Scheff sued Bock for defamation. Bock hired a lawyer, but he left the case when she no longer could afford to pay him.

When Katrina hit in August 2005, Bock's house was flooded and she moved temporarily to Texas before returning to Louisiana last June. Court papers that Scheff and her attorney David H. Pollack mailed to Bock were returned to Pollack's office in Miami.

She knew she was being sued LONG before Katrina ever hit -- at *LEAST* 1 year & 8 months, assuming the case was filed at the end of December 2003. While I certainly am sorry for her plight, did it ever occur to her at some point after relocating to call the court, or the plaintiff's lawyers, or a lawyer who might be willing to do some pro bono work to help her out? I'm sure that she could have filed for a continuance pretty easily if she had bothered to explain her situation to the court, and try to provide a forwarding address, or at least communicate her whereabouts...

Re:Time and opportunity existed to defend herself

[DragonWriter]

Juries don't decide the judgement in a case like this, the jury just decides innocent or guilty.

No, actually, juries in civil cases don't decide "innocent or guilty", since that's not even an issue. They often do find both the fact and the amount of liability.

In my defense...

[dptalia]

I don't think finding the chick guilty of defamation is a slap on free speech. I find awarding $11.3 million for said defamation a slap on free speech. Right or wrong - and I don't know what was said - $11.3 million is over the top.

How many people are going to push the envelope if they know they may end up having a million dollar judgement dropped on them? Shoot, I'm wondering if I rate someone badly on ebay if I'll get sued!

How astonishingly ignorant.

[rockhome]

It is astonishing that anybody could think that the centuries of libel laws are irrelavant. It is simply not permissible to libel or slander someone out of spite. People think that just because of the volume of communications on the Internet that everything ought to be free because, hey, it's not as if all of a person's customers are going to read a few blog comments about a specific person. Unless they use Google.

It is one thing to state an opinion that you THINK someone is incompetent or that the services she rendered were poor, or even that you wouldn't recommend that anybody engage with this person. However, calling someone a con-artist, criminal, or thief crosses a line.

I mean, if I felt that Tim Spengler ripped me off when he supposedly "refinished" my floors, I couldn't go out and say to everone "Tim Spengler is a bloody thief! He stole my money and swindled my through his con!" A more appropriate reaction would be to follow whatever legal recourse there was and word any comments appropriately, like "I feel as though Tim Spengler ripped me off. He promised, in writing, that the job would be done in 3 days, did not show up on time, did not complete work on the last day, and has left me with floors that are only half finished. Before you hire this man, I would strongly recommend that you check his references, because he certainly was no good for me."

Do you see the difference.

My apologies to any real Tim Spenglers, I just grabbed htat name out of a hat. Except for you, Tim Spengler!

Careful - not silent.

[NotQuiteReal]

IANALBILTRL (I am not a lawyer but I listen to radio lawyers)

It seems to me the problem is calling someone a "crook," a "con artist" and a "fraud." is the problem.

If it had simply been a reasoned explaination of why the services didn't work out in that particular case, or why she was unhappy, them's facts, and not libel.

I have left "negative" feedback on Amazon and eBay, that is legally definsible; E.g. "Seller delivered DVD set meant for the Chinese market. Trouble with playback on some players and has inferior packaging". I didn't leave feedback saying "Seller is a crook and a fraud!".

I think my feedback is more useful than the later example.

Re:Somebody obviously cared in this case.

[angel'o'sphere]

The coffee case against MC Donald, and all around that, caused a lot of laughter in europe.

Sorry, but a coffee has to have about 95 degrees, CELSIUS, yes, thats close to boiling water. The idea that you can get a coffee COLD is ridiculous. The idea that a corporation selling coffee has to explicite state: our coffee is hot, is an idioticy.

Oh, just used a calculagtor to figure, indeed MC Donalds served the coffee exactly as I would expect it! An the guy some posts above (forgetmenot (467513) ) who claims 3rd degree burns happen at 130 degrees, how the fuck should that happen? Thats just 53 degrees celsius!

Yeah, but talking over coffee when free speech is in danger s slightly off topic anyway ;D

angel'o'sphere

Re:Fuckin' A, brother.

[MLease]

In most law situations, if the defendant shows up to court and the plaintiff is MIA, the defendant could have a mistrial and go free. If the defendant does show up for the case, the case is usually stayed and a warrent issue for appearence. The law says the defendant and/or council MUST be present for judgement.

There was recently a series of articles in the Boston Globe about debt-collection agencies. It seems that one of the favorite tactics of the sleazier agencies around here is to have the papers sent to an outdated address, since there is no requirement in MA to use certified mail(?!). The papers get returned, everybody shrugs, the proceedings happen as scheduled, and the agency wins a default judgment. Armed with this, they then go to the correct address, and demand payment or seize their car. As a result of these articles, various officials are promising to look into the problem, but the current status apparently remains the same. They did do a follow-up article the other day, and a couple of the worst offenders have abruptly closed down their operations in MA, so hopefully things will get better.

So, in MA, at least, there apparently is no requirement that both parties (or their lawyers) be present before a judgment is handed down. It's wrong, but it appears to be the case. So maybe that's true of this particular case, as well.

-Mike