Slashdot Mirror
British Woman's Twitter Comments Spark Expensive Libel Claims
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "A woman who complained about an unpaid £146 invoice is facing a libel battle that could cost her more than £100,000. Lesley Kemp, 55, took to Twitter claiming that a company based in the Middle East had failed to pay her promptly for transcription work. Now the firm is suing Mrs Kemp, of Milton Keynes, for defamation, claiming up to £50,000 in damages and a further £70,000 in costs. The company, Resolution Productions, based in Qatar, has yet to comment."
If what she said is true then she has nothing to worry about. However she'll have to be able to prove it's true.
She should have known better than to speak while British.
If she made up the allegations, then she is guilty of slander and I have no sympathy. If she is telling the truth, it should be a quick court case.
Why is this news?
While I personally don't like the existence of libel laws, this is not the case of misusing it to censor criticism or somebody getting into trouble for an innocent joke. If the company can prove that they payed her promptly then this is libel, otherwise it's not and she can sue them back for wrongful accusation. Nobody has a right not to get sued.
Why is the truth not considered a valid defense in British courts? Doing otherwise would seem to invite these sorts of suits.
Brett
....who thinks slander is a strange thing to ban legally? As a skeptic it seems both epistemically and pragmatically difficult to work with such laws, and I feel we should try and create unlegislated social pressure to help the truth float to the surface instead.
Fascinating name. It is as unexpected a pairing as Barack Bush or Pat Dawkins.
As a baseball fan, I follow news on Twitter because that's where sports news breaks anymore (like it or not). But it's a lot like participating in the old newsgroups from the late 80s / early 90s - there's way too much cat fighting and name calling. Twitter is "instant", and many people haven't learned to self filter.
The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess.
#DeleteChrome
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/15/in-which-a-london-solicitor-threatens-me/ Entertaining legal letters included. (Such things DO exist!)
I guess it really Depends on your definition of "Prompt" either legally or culturally. In some cultures payment of invoices after 30-120 days is considered normal business practice.
--
Time is on my side
If you'd lose weight, you wouldn't deal with half as much libel. So get off your dead ass.
Alexander Peter Kowalksi's low intelligence, extreme narcissism, and histrionic personality make him unsuited for anything but menial labor.
Alexander Peter Kowalski will now prove the above statement to be correct.
No, this is class justice.
Lawyers, judges, and laws are the implements of conservatism. Lefty shit would be to run a mob into her home to nonviolently stab her to death.
in Malibu that goes by the name of Mrs Streisand.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
It is however, seldom in the interest of those who seek a profit advantage from ignorance and misinformation.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
MPs have parliamentary privilege when they speak in the house of commons. They can say whatever they like and not be sued. Also whatever they say can be reported without any liability so take care when you annoy an MP.
Truth is no defense against libel in the U.K.
An interesting attack on U.K. libel law might be for foreigners to sue various MPs for things they've said.
Wrong, on all points. Comprehensively.
I know that Slashdot is now primarily a place for the immature and ill-informed to run off at the mouth on topics of which they know little, but that was a particularly clueless contribution.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I still don't understand this. The dictionary flat out defines libel as a published statement that is FALSE and damages someone's reputation. Do they not actually call it libel in the UK? I mean, if something that hurts your reputation (but is TRUE) is somehow wrong/punishable, then I guess that's fine (no it isn't - it's stupid), but calling it "libel" when it has nothing to do with the word "libel" makes . . . no . . . . fucking sense whatsoever.
Truth is no defense against libel in the U.K.
Not true. Truth is a defense, as long as it's provable.
The issue with UK defamation law is that burden of proof falls on the accused.
A foreign company filing such a suit is a novel approach though.
I wonder whether defamation or hate crime would win if the two went head to head....
Mrs Kemp said she could not afford legal representation, and feared the law suit might ruin her financially.
More than half the population in the United States cannot afford an attorney to go as far as representing them in a civil suit. I suspect it's even worse in Britain. The court systems are thus fundamentally unfair just because of that aspect alone. I don't know what the best fix is, but a number of ideas have been suggested. One of them is to treat all suits between corporations and people under procedural rules that simplify the process and allows the judge to block sneaky things that corporations usually do. Another is to prohibit use of an attorney by the corporation if the person is not represented.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Shut the fuck up and stop posting shit on twitter.
Problem solved.
Did anyone notice that this asshole's fucking spam got cut off shorter than has been the case? I think slashdot has improved their software in the last couple of days.
Absolutely true. It's also true that these are the implements of liberalism. In short, they are the implements of those in power.
More to the point: the world doesn't just seem to be run by lawyers, it largely is.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
The term "conservatism" (as with most Left/Right arguments) is redefined constantly, by the person speaking, and when convenient. American (libertarian-leaning) conservatives would disagree with you - claiming that "conservatism" was a small-government grouping.
Only on
Libertarian capitalism is where the government exists to solve contractual complaints and crimes. Libel is a crime, and so it's libertarian to have the courts used to oppress people. Though the libertarians claim it's not the intention when someone does it, but ask them what the role of the government is when something like that is in the news, and someone might accidentally tell the truth. Modern libertarianism (at least in the US) is plutocracy.
Lefty shit protects the people and the free speech so that this crap doesn't happen.
Learn to love Alaska
Slashdot, we BADLY NEED a button at THE TOP of the message that says HIDE THIS FUCKING SPAM. Maybe another one that says ADMINISTRATORS, NUKE THIS BASTARD IMMEDIATELY. A lot of us browse at -1 so we can conscienciously moderate. I have rescued a few worthwhile comments from unfair -1's they reached just because enough assholes disagreed with them.
Or maybe, all we need is a -2 score level for outright spam with the presumption that if enough moderators pile on to lower something to -2, it's not even worth seeing that shit.
No, plutocracy is plutocracy and libertarianism is libertarianism. The idea that you should be free to live your life and accept the consequences for you actions is a very libertarian idea, which contrasts with plutocracy where you are not free to live your life but you are required to accept the consequences for your actions. I'm really tired of people redefining opposing political ideologies whenever it's convenient.
Please make an effort to become educated about what you're arguing for or against before you make statements like this.
You are confusing ""libertarian ideas" and libertarians/libertarianism. There is nothing under plutocracy which requires oppression. It's just that, like all other governments, it leads to oppression.
I'm not redefining political ideologies. They are already redefined. I'm just using the most common modern definition of them. If you don't like that, go change the language, don't complain to the person using it correctly that you disagree with the definition. Go move to France and get on the committee that defines the language. Anal-retentiative pricks like you belong in a prosceptive zone. Descriptive languages are defined based on use, and you've already lost that battle. Arguing with correct people because your opinion is that English should be descriptive with you as the dictator of description is just silly.
Learn to love Alaska
Interesting that you said "a lawyer and a barrister have both taken up her case Pro-Bono [publico]" [emphasis mine]. I was under the impression that "barrister" was the British term for attorney and lawyer. A quick check on wikipedia shows otherwise. Thanks for educating me, or at least pointing me towards getting educated! Barristers and solicitors in england are the splitting of the legal profession into two categories.
-- Those who can represent themselves in place of the client and conduct litigation on behalf of the client are called solicitors, and solicitors are attorneys at law.
-- A barrister is not an attorney and is usually forbidden, either by law or professional rules or both, from "conducting" litigation. This means that, while the barrister speaks on the client's behalf in court, he or she can do so only when instructed by a solicitor or certain other qualified professional clients, such as patent agents.
-- A lawyer is one "learned in the law", and can be an attorney, counsel, or a solicitor.
-- An is the official name for lawyers in certain jurisdictions, e.g. Japan + Sri Lanka + South Africa + U.S.A.
For some people, "Conservative" is shorthand for "everything I don't like." This is a subset of people who try to stereotype. The opposite is people who think "Liberal" is shorthand for "everything I don't like." You can recognize these people because they assume a terrorist will be conservative, or that Obama is the antichrist because he is liberal (and those two go together).
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Don't blame libertarians for your fascist country's idiotic rules.
Unless you create a -1, Spam downmod and badly punish those who use it on stuff that isn't spam (maybe if a dozen metamods agree the comment isn't spam, the editors take a look and if justified, the modder's karma is reset to the minimum possible value), this doesn't solve the problem.
A foreign company filing such a suit is a novel approach though.
Not at all, it's called, "forum shopping," and it made England a popular destination for libel lawsuits for a number of reasons.
Evidence submitted by the Media Law Resource Centre (MLRC)
New rules to discourage 'libel tourism' in Britain
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
When I am asked to deal with a)lawyers or b)foreign clients, I always ask for money up front. Both types of clients have a nasty habit of stiffing you on the bill. It gets old, really quick.
In the US, the libertarians are the fascists. Of course, they argue with that, but like all people active in politics, what they say and what they do are opposites.
Learn to love Alaska
You, sir/madam, are an idiot.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
This is allowing lawyers, judges and laws to be in control.
So rule of law is lefty shit? And that's bad?
Tony Blair, via his LibCon puppets, is bringing massively expanded powers for companies to sue individuals for libel in the UK. British citizens, thanks to changes introduced by Blair, can get no free legal assistance when fighting libel claims, regardless of their financial situation.
Blair's goal is that ordinary citizens are held accountable, with every increasing penalties, for every word they utter. This includes conversations in private or online regardless of context or circumstance. Holding an opinion that contradicts current government doctrine is a criminal offence (such opinions are deemed 'offensive' and against 'public order'). And YES, people are arrested, fined and/or imprisoned for such crimes in the UK. Not a massive number (although the numbers are increasing at an astonishing rate), but enough to ensure everyone in the UK is VERY cautious about what they say, or to whom.
The extension of the police-state to 'corporate' protection is controversial, but Blair now has enough power in the House of Commons that he can get any new law passed. Every one of these police state initiatives was originally proposed when Blair formally held position of Prime Minister, but Blair's power-base was still growing at the time, and the public were growing as sick of his face and voice as they did with the monster Thatcher. Blair simply stepped behind the curtain, and completed his take-over of the other two main political parties in the UK. Now Labour, Conservative and Liberal vote in unison, whether bashing the poor, bashing students, introducing new police-state powers or promoting new wars.
Blair's new libel laws are an extension of the 'press censorship' initiatives that do NOT censor the mainstream press, but DO censor online activities of ordinary people. Blair wants a public expression like "Monsanto is evil" to be impossible in the UK. In a UK libel case, you have to pay for the lawyers of the other side, regardless of how expensive their services may be. So Blair is giving Monsanto the power to run the same con as the record companies do with file sharers. Namely either 1) pay Monsanto thousands of pounds and make a public apology, or 2) pay hundreds of thousands of pounds AHEAD of the libel case.
Blair's goal is the equivalent of 1984's 'Newspeak'- except it is the old Soviet model of total self-censorship. British children are now educated to believe there are TWO kinds of opinions- the right ones, and opinions that are offensive and therefore 'criminal'. Kids are taught their duty is to identify the 'consensus', and to work hard to be part of it, while shunning 'thought criminals'.
Ah yes, a typical libertarian. Never address facts, those don't favor libertarianism. Instead, it's insults and dodges, maybe a "no true scotsman" if anyone quotes a libertarian.
Libertarian: Someone who disagrees with everyone else, including other libertarians.
All the "which quadrant are you in" tests put me in the libertarian quadrant, but apparently they are all wrong, because I've never met a libertarian I've agreed with.
Learn to love Alaska
...she lives in the UK.
The little guy in the UK always gets shit on by the big companies and stuff.
Shut up, Paul.
You arbitrarily change the definition of a word to what you deem it should be, and then when confronted, you argue that your definition is the broadly accepted usage of the word (which is news to at least a few of us) and that since language is a living thing that anyone who disagrees with your new invented definition is a dinosaur who just needs to like, get with the times, daddy-o.
I mean I don't what I.. wow.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Anonymous Coward, we HAVE a button at THE TOP of the message that says HIDE THIS FUCKING SPAM.
Click the title of the comment to collapse it.
I would award her several million because they are a bunch of a**holes... A jury can do pretty much what it wants, so if it comes back with a demand that the plaintiff pay the defendant, it will be enforced. I was on a case like that - they claimed the fact she had cancer slandered them - bast*rds. We asked the judge, "Can we award her money?" The plaintiff was shitting themselves - we awarded her over $20 million, doesn't help when you have terminal cancer, but we took care of that too by saying it was to be paid to her, or her heirs if they stretched it out.
It costs a fortune to defend a Libel suit. You won't get most of your money back. As soon as someone sues you for Libel true or not, you are bankrupted. You just dont know it yet!
There used to be a kind of libel for which truth actually was not a defense, namely seditious libel. That made sense, since a statement that brought discredit on the crown was even more dangerous to the crown if true.
Then define it. Go ahead. You haven't defined it, nor complained about any of the definitions I've given. You are just complaining that I'm not apparently supporting your unstated opinion.
Learn to love Alaska
defamation - the concept that when it happens to you, there is a law to let you seek damages or at least a stop to it - like privacy and "intellectual property", these concepts are history. And I don't think that they will be missed. Law is mostly there to let the State maintain a monopoly of violence, hopefully enabling the rest of us to avoid violence. The nature of internet harms being what it is, violence might remain, but not against the perpetrator. So the law need not care either.
It just helps to remember the science of it - rights exist for the convenience of society and those in charge of it and for no other reason...
This is what happens when you leave laws and the justice system to the control of the wealthy. In what alternate reality is that "lefty"?
As Americans, we should never take our freedoms for granted
Especially if you deal with the Muslims, you have to be double careful
That company in Qatar are Muslim owned and operated, that poor British woman did not understand the barbarism of the Muslims and that's how she ends up facing all the legal fiasco now
As a businessman I sometimes had to deal with people from the Middle East, from Pakistan, from Turkey --- I tried my best not to, but then, business is business --- and when I deal with the Muslims, I be extra careful, because those people will eat you alive if they perceive that you are weak
That's true. This form of extorsion is probably another Al-Quaida revenu stream. Everyone should make a point not to deal with Muslim connected businesses. Even if you don't get ripped off you will be funding terror
No, this isn't Steve Jobs :-)
The false bit is "falsely damaging". Not the false statement, but the intent is to damage and the intent is not just.
If you're in the US Army and I want you fired from it, I can TRUTHFULLY claim you are gay and you WILL be fired, damaging your career (NOTE: the "you" is a generic you who happens to be gay, in the Army and wanting to pursue a career there). Remember, most people in the army have no job prospects except in the army, and they can get paid tuition to learn a skill that they could never get outside the armed forces, so you are DEFINITELY harmed here.
But, though the statement was true, the intent was to harm you and even under DADT, you should not be fired from the Army if you're secretly gay: I broke the secret, not you.
So should I be held responsible for damaging your entire life?
HELL YES.
Even though it was true?
HELL YES.
If she claims someone else did X, is X having to prove themselves innocent, or does she have to prove X did it?
Surely X is innocent unless proven guilty?
Yet here you are saying that she should be presumed telling the truth, when that EXPLICITLY means that X must be presumed guilty.
If you send off copies showing that the payment was late (and she has an email from the company saying it was and X was the reason, so shoe-in there), then the judge can judge your case for you, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TURN UP.
Collect your evidence, fill in a court form to enter evidence to the judge, write a covering letter stating that you have nothing to face on the charges and request summary dismissal if you like, send it off to the court recorded delivery. Done.
IF the plaintiffs come up with some reason for that evidence not to be relevant AND THE JUDGE AGREES, then you need to do more.
Here is their contact page link
Let them know what you think!
-Myke
Alexander Peter Kowalksi's low intelligence, extreme narcissism, and histrionic personality make him unsuited for anything but menial labor.
Alexander Peter Kowalski proved the above statement to be correct.
Alexander Peter Kowalksi will now prove it to be correct again.
You're not going to "drop" Slashdot at all. Nobody who publicly proclaims their intent to stop visiting a website ever actually does it.
And if you use your own website to put out news, then you ARE a blogger. Not using Wordpress won't change that.
You moron.
See here, explains it all -> http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3561925&cid=43223585
* :)
I.E./Summary: Trolls had a challenge put to them to validly disprove my points in the post I just replied to - result? Trolls FAIL... lol!
APK
P.S.=> That's what makes me LAUGH harder than ANYTHING ELSE on this forums (full of "FUD" spreading trolls) - When you hit trolls with facts & truths they CANNOT disprove validly on computing tech based grounds, this is the result - Applying unjustifiable downmods to effetely & vainly *try* to "hide" my posts & facts/truths they extoll!
Hahaha... lol, man: Happens nearly every single time I post such lists (proving how ineffectual these trolls are), only showing how solid my posts of that nature are...
Ah yes "geek angst" @ it's 'finest' (not), vs. facts & truths = downmod by /. weak trolls!
... apk
it would have been cheaper just the pay the woman.. 150 pounds just barely covers the cost of sending a letter by some lawyers in the UK, totally stupid and unnecessary which just shows what kind of douche bags this company has on staff.
How is this capitalism?
This is allowing lawyers, judges and laws to be in control. It's lefty shit.
Under capitalism, those with the most money get the best justice.
Under socialism, everyone gets the same justice.
What is so hard to understand about that?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The libertarian idea that a country without government would somehow become a nation of individual market traders all at about the same level due to the mysterious workings of The Invisible Hand is pure nonsense. Capitalism is what happens when you let the rule of money/trade become paramount, and with no checks or balances from the people/government/whatever you want to call the majority, the rich will keep getting richer.
Corporations are not some evil bogeyman created by socialists to tread down the poor hard-working small market trader. They are an inevitable result of the more efficient concentration of wealth into larger and more powerful vehicles for increasing that wealth.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Truth is no defense against libel in the U.K.
An interesting attack on U.K. libel law might be for foreigners to sue various MPs for things they've said.
Proof that having a low slashdot IUD is no proof against total fucking stupidity. You're wrong, and you're a grotesqely ugly freak.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I still don't understand this. The dictionary flat out defines libel as a published statement that is FALSE and damages someone's reputation. Do they not actually call it libel in the UK? I mean, if something that hurts your reputation (but is TRUE) is somehow wrong/punishable, then I guess that's fine (no it isn't - it's stupid), but calling it "libel" when it has nothing to do with the word "libel" makes . . . no . . . . fucking sense whatsoever.
You have fallen into the trap of believing American armchair lawyers' incorrect notions about the English/UK legal system. Truth is a defence against an action for libel.
If the court finds for the plaintiff, then the defendant is liable for damages and has committed libel. If the plaintiff fails, then no libel has been committed. Telling the truth and upsetting people is not libel: it is telling the truth and upsetting people.
Obviously, the plaintiff is claiming that a libel has occurred, but that doesn't mean it has.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Many thanks for this, never occurred to me to try...