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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."
Maybe TheDirt.com should sue Sarah Jones for libel for making false and damaging defamatory statements about them to the courts and to the press.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
It's not her fault. She got the lawyer to do her homework for her.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm gonna sue slashdork!
Sarah Jones beats her children and smokes crack in front of them while doing it. sue that
Proof again that America no longer has a Justice system.
What it does have instead, is merely a "Legal" system.
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.
Similar thing happened to me this week.
One of my websites got an 8 page letter from a large law firm in DC (http://www.Venable.com) on behalf of Verizon. Had all kinds of BS in it. All kinds of threats, examples, quotations from the CEO and gave 7 days to respond. The only problem was that there was supposed to be an S on the end of the domain name. They interchanged example.com and examples.com all through 8 pages apparently not knowing that there was a difference. I pointed it out and they said:
"Our researchers had reason to believe that your company was the one that had published the referred to in my letter. I take it from your response that this is not the case; my apologies for the unintentional confusion. "
My response was, "If you are going to sign your name to something, you better review who is doing the research for you" and included the relevant WHOIS info. If they had done a simple WHOIS lookup they would have found the correct company and then could have looked up the correct business address. I cc'd a bunch of the partners because dumb-asses like that need to be reined in.
It must happen all the time, and it is unbelievable that no one noticed the problem. The attorneys should be embarrassed and the Judge/Clerks/Court should be even more embarrassed to have awarded a default judgement against the wrong company.
And IAAL. Stupid.
If you get a court summons, you should not ignore it. Even if they sent it to the wrong guy (you), you could at least call the plaintiff and say "yeah, I got this summons, but I think you got the wrong website).
If you just ignore the thing and hope it goes away, guess what... By not showing up in court the judge doesn't have to examine the evidence. They just assume since you didn't respond and didn't show up, you don't mind entering into a default judgement.
It isn't a fucked up justice system... It is an idiot who ignored a court summons. Can he wiggle out of it? Yes. But now it will cost him a whole lot more time, money, and hassle than if he had just picked up the phone and said "WTF is this summons about?"
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.
Maybe it was an error in judgment, but is it an $11 million error? That's sick.
What's even sicker is the legal wonks sitting around scratching their goatees and blathering "Well, teh laws am teh laws." This is a horrific result.
Then the lawyer could have done his diligence and filed against the proper party.
How about the lawyer do his due diligence BEFORE all this happens? You people... seriously... there needs to be more crotches punched in this world. You're all sleepwalking zombies.
You're right. He should have filed against the proper party in the first place. He was acting on the faulty recollection, likely enough, of his client. He still should have double-checked who the proper party was.
The company that got served would have had the plaintiff's lawyer's contact information and contact information for the court. They could have sent affidavits to both for a few dollars for the notary (if they don't employ anyone who is a notary) and a few dollars for certified postage that they had never written anything about the plaintiff and that they were not the proper party to sue. If the judge still ordered them to appear, they could have spent a few hours on local representation for someone to show up and argue for dismissal against the wrong defendant and naming of the proper defendant, then easily been reimbursed for that attorney's fees.
You do realize that this happens often enough -- that the wrong person or company gets served -- that there are established court procedures for dealing with it?
Imagine Skynet's embarassment when the Terminator took out Sarah Jones.
You do realize that this happens often enough -- that the wrong person or company gets served -- that there are established court procedures for dealing with it?
All of them requiring time, money and effort on the part of those who did no wrong. Ignoring something like this IS the right thing to do. The problem is the fucked up laws do not see it that way.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
We know the legal system is fucked up. Just admit it.
People who do no wrong should not be forced to jump through hoops for stupid fuckers. Ever.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?