Blogger Fined $60K For Telling the Truth

jfruhlinger writes "'Johnny Northside,' a Minneapolis blogger with less than 500 readers a day, revealed that a University of Minnesota researcher studying mortgage fraud had been involved in a fraudulent mortgage himself; the blog post was at least partially responsible for the researcher losing his job. The researcher then sued the blogger and won — despite the blogger having his facts straight. Johnny Northside plans to appeal the verdict."

Comments

This is why we need sites like Wikileaks

[Bill_the_Engineer]

The title says it all.

Remember this while the government works hard to eliminate all anonymous speech on the Internet.

Re:This is why we need sites like Wikileaks

[Aerorae]

This is why we need a fast enough version of TOR such that the whole world can use it in place of the regular web.

Truth is a Defense for Defamation, Not This

[SheDevilEsq]

The truth as a defense is for claims of defamation. From the reporting of the case, this sounds like the plaintiff won on an "intentional infliction of emotional distress" and "intentional interference with contract" and/or "intentional interference with prospective economic advantage" claim, all of which are tort claims (personal injury). Look at it this way...if you were really obese, and someone kept taunting you, day in and day out, saying "You are fat and going to die", you could sue them for emotional harm *even though* those two statements are patently true. And, yes, I'm a lawyer, *and* I played one on TV. :-)

Re:I'm going to quote an old robot saying

[AK Marc]

How does this have anything to do with the government clamping down on free speech?

Because the truth used to be a defense against libel. However, with the swing to the far right (not a party swing, but the whole country, including both parties are swinging that way for some topics), freedom of speech is being trampled. There are already states where true statements about some protected industry is illegal if the statement is negative. Now you can't say anything to get someone fired, even if true.

this is not the government trying to shut this guy up,

It is the government shutting him up. The government is enforcing the finding made in the government court. They are the enforcement arm for this.

Re:I'm going to quote an old robot saying

[Alex Belits]

And who didn't throw lawsuits like this out of court? Letting 12 retards decide what to do with a person after listening to hours or days of screaming from lawyers should be the last resort, not the first choice.

From another point of view

[mmj638]

The summary really approaches this from a certain point of view.

Let's look at it from a different point of view ...

1. University hires a researcher who has done something in the past which would make him look bad, but is not technically illegal. The researcher has technically never committed any crime, just gotten involved with some bad people at one stage.
2. Blogger starts a campaign of negative publicity against the researcher focused on this aspect of his history. Everything said is true, but is inflammatory and of a nature intended to defame the researcher.
3. The university, for all we know, may even know about the researcher's controversial past already and be cool with it. Either way, the university finds it increasingly difficult to support the researcher in the face of this negative publicity, and eventually lets go of him in order to save face.
4. The researcher sues not for libel, because all the statements made about him were true, but for the running of a negative campaign about him which eventually lead to him losing his job and reputation.

A lot of people have something in their past that makes them look bad, but which is not actually illegal. If someone starts a negative campaign about you based on something like this, and it ends up with you losing your reputation or job, who is in the wrong? In this case, 12 jurors thought it was the blogger.