Slashdot Mirror
Woman Wins Libel Suit By Suing Wrong Website
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones and her lawyer were so upset by a comment on the site TheDirty.com that they missed the 'y' at the end of the name. Instead, they sued the owner of TheDirt.com, whose owner didn't respond to the lawsuit. The end result was a judge awarding $11 million, in part because of the failure to respond. Now, both the owners of TheDirty.com and TheDirt.com are complaining that they're being wrongfully written about in the press — one for not having had any content about Sarah Jones but being told it needs to pay $11 million, and the other for having the content and having the press say it lost a lawsuit, even though no lawsuit was ever actually filed against it."
It says the reward was, in part, because the owner failed to respond(no showing a court date is bad) so its not really a case for libel.
Sarah Jones beats her children and smokes crack in front of them while doing it. sue that
These default judgments for absurd amounts of money just show how broken our legal system is. If somebody doesn't show up to a court house for a lawsuit in the millions of dollars, it's probably because they weren't properly notified.
In fact, looking at thedirt.com, there's a posting about it on top of the page. The person seems as baffled and confused as the rest of us. The site looks like a random Wordpress blog tracking celebrity gossip, almost certainly a one-person operation with no budget or staff. The address on file for the domain is that of DomainsByProxy, and notice was probably never delivered to the actual site owner.
Did the judge ever consider that possibility before issuing an $11M default judgment against an individual? By simple inspection, one can see that Thedirt.com is very obviously not the product of a global mega-media-corporation with billions of dollars to sue for.
Why would you ruin someone's life without forcing proper process-serving and making sure the person or a lawyer for them show up? The civil system in the US needs to be torn apart and started again from scratch, or merged into the criminal system like in (some?) European countries.
IANAL, but what will probably happen is this: the $11 million will be set aside regarding this particular defendant, but since they never responded to the suit they'll pay the court costs and some few hundred dollars fine. Then the lawyer for the plaintiff will pay a small fine for filing an improper suit and will file a motion to replace the defendant with the proper defendant. Then the proper defendant will actually show up to court, and a civil trial will actually get under way. That is, if the court doesn't dismiss the case with prejudice for the lawyer being this sloppy in the first place.
In Illinois and Missouri, it is necessary to argue by motion or oral argument at the court that improper defendants be dismissed and proper parties be named. A civil court isn't a criminal court. If you've been summoned to court as a defendant and don't show up, many judges will automatically give the plaintiff default judgement against the defendant. I imagine most other US states have similar rules of the court. In Illinois, a default judgement can be set aside if a successful motion is filed within 30 days of the judgement.
AAMOF, if you fail to appear for a criminal proceeding as a defendant, you may get a bench warrant for your immediate arrest and even be charged (and maybe later found guilty) of an additional crime (FTA for criminal hearings and trials being an actual crime). I've seen judges just let people slide or just pay a small fine if they appear after a first FTA if the initial crime was a minor matter.
e-zine article on FTA
Illinois Pro Bono page on civil actions
I keep referring to Illinois because that's where I live and so it's the jurisdiction that most interests me and is most relevant to me. Your jurisdiction may be different. The jurisdiction for the lawsuit in question is definitely different.
Consult a lawyer if you really need legal advice, but the company that got incorrectly served should be able to get out of the big judgment easily enough.
Depends on the jurisdiction. In Washington, if by mail it has to be both by certified letter and first class mail. (at least for what I had to assist filing)