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After Online Defamation Suit, Dismissal of Malicious Prosecution Claim Upheld
Christoph writes "I'm the Slashdot user who was sued for defamation (and six other claims) by a corporation over negative statements on my website. I prevailed (pro-se) in 2008. The court found the other side forged evidence and lied. In 2009, I sued the other party's lawyers for malicious prosecution/abuse of process (the corporation itself is dissolved/broke). One defendant had stated in writing their client was lying, but the trial court dismissed my claim for lack of evidence. I appealed, and this Tuesday the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, completely ignoring the defendant's written admission (and other evidence). They further found it was not an abuse of process to sue to 'stop the publication of negative information and opinion.'"
The problem is, you tried to sue a laywer. The funny thing about judges: they used to be lawyers. You remember that old joke claiming that sharks don't eat lawyers out of "professional courtesy"? Same goes for judges. You can sue a doctor, a corporation, or your ex-wife, fine, but if you sue a laywer the entire legal profession closes ranks and roots for the home team.
Looks like the OP settled with the non-lawyers early on the MP claims. What result there?
As for the lawyers, the sole piece of evidence the OP seems to have presented that the lawyers knew their clients were lying is a late-October 2007 note. This note was written well after the trial commenced. It doesn't indicate that the lawyers knew or had reason to know from jump-street that the clients were lying. It indicates only (if anything) that perhaps they were not aggressive enough in doing fact investigation or in terminating the litigation already underway.
Am I missing something? If not, the courts' decisions appear to be decent.
What the hell were you charged with that your legal bills totaled up to six figures? I got charged with a felony in two different jurisdictions and had to deal with two different cases and my legal bills only came to around $8,000. Granted, we beat it BEFORE trial (thank god for the Grand Jury....) but it would not have accumulated to >$100,000 even if it had gone that far.
BTW, my lawyer saved my ass. I would not have walked away from my situation without a criminal record if I had tried to do it on my own. Don't trash the whole profession just because you hired a lousy legal team.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
$8,000? Damn, that's great. Hey I agree, there are good lawyers, I just was unlucky enough to not know any. I didn't hire a team at all. I had FIVE individual lawyers, one when I was arrested, who I fired when he failed to challenge the search (which was laughable), then another when the feds came for me, and the state dropped the charges. Him I fired after he blew a bail hearing HARD. Fucking moron, he pulled out some forensic psychiatrist who started challenging the case merits in a bail hearing. Asshole got me held without bail in Feds. The AUSA had a field day...he was actually laughing.
I studied fed law for the four years I did in the feds and if I had known then what I know now, I never would have spent a night in jail. And I don't think my attorneys were stupid, just amoral. Hey, if you can get a guy off for a bad search after a day, you won't earn much. Better to have to "fight" and charge $75k.
Here's the worst part: I spent almost $300,000, and still plead out. From the Alan Ellis site:
"Nearly 94% of all federal criminal defendants will plead guilty. Of the remaining 6% who go to trial, as many as 75% will be convicted; thus 97% of all federal criminal defendants will be sentenced. 80% of defendants will receive jail or prison time." If the feds want you, you're theirs.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
I'm an attorney, and I agree. If attorneys could rely on "professional courtesy" they wouldn't each pay thousands of dollars per year in malpractice premiums. There's no lack of legal malpractice suits, but I would say that attorney discipline, including disbarment, doesn't happen often enough. Just look at how long it took Jack Thompson to get disbarred.
Actually thinking about it there might be a way to fix this broken system. simply have BOTH SIDES forced to use public defender style lawyers, and if the corp wants better then they have to pay into a fund that half the money goes to opposing council thus insuring that neither side can just use "hired thugs" to overpower the other. After all the courts have ruled money is speech, so it should be only fair that in a court of law BOTH sides get free speech, yes? Because as it is now the law is a bad joke. The rich can do anything to anyone and short of taking the law into their own hands the poor have NO redress, simply because the rich can afford to drag a case on for decades.
I have seen this in action when a local ISP was screwed out of their backbone access by a big corp who basically said "Don't like it? Just try to sue us" and they were told by their lawyer "Oh no doubt you'll win, but it'll take a decade and cost a million and a half just in lawyers fees". Needless to say they just gave up their ISP and walked away. And THAT is the power the law has given the multicorps with this broken system today. You don't like competition? Well then just bury any startups in so much legal bullshit they can't even breath and will be forced to spend all their money on the courts.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.