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.
people without money don't receive justice against the people buying laws.
http://www.popehat.com/2013/04/15/in-which-a-london-solicitor-threatens-me/ Entertaining legal letters included. (Such things DO exist!)
I agree completely Mr. Child Molester...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You have no sympathy for a large company trying to bully a woman out of 50,000 units of money -- over a claim about them not paying 150 units of money. In other words - if you said that I withheld a dollar from you, it would then be fair to claim that I caused $333 of damage to you? Really?
It isn't a "large company". It's this guy, personally.
I don't know how large his company is; but behind every corporate veil, there is some asshole making the decisions.
But this case has not gone to court yet, and her solicitor is persuing it no-win no-fee, which implies he believes she's on the winning side.
It's a myth that truth isn's a defense against libel in the UK. If you prove that what you said is true, then you win the case.
The myth seems to come about because the burden of proof is on the person who made the comment to prove the truth of the statement, not the accuser of libel to disprove it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
Here, banking records will easily prove her to be telling the truth or not. I suspect this is simply a company trying to bully her with a meritless law-suit.
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.
Scientists have NOT been successfully sued for stating that homeopathy is "bogus. Sued, yes. Successfully, no. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh
Scientists have NOT been successfully sued for stating that homeopathy is "bogus. Sued, yes. Successfully, no. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh
Yes he was successfully sued. He only "won" because he appealed and the plaintiffs withdrew their case because of the bad publicity in the tabloids (where the homeopathy practitioners apparently get most of their clients).
British justice: 0
British tabloids: 1
Here's an idea: stop trying to make everything about the US. The world doesn't revolve around you: you don't have to interject about how proud you are of your "country".
He has a point, though. The UK libel / defamation laws are appalling. So much so that the US had to break some treaties in order to prevent US citizens from being abused by the UK courts for speech which is very much acceptable in the US.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
I am not a lawyer. That said, do you have anything to back this up with?
Certainly there's one advantage to the English law in that if you're faced with a frivolous suit you can contest it and if you win the other side will typically bear your costs. In the US if you're sued you need to defend the case at your own expense.
You seem to suggest that truth is not a defense under English law. Everything I have read suggests otherwise. Can you point to an instance of someone actually being punished for making a statement the court found to be true? Certainly the US laws provide greater defenses for a statement that would be classified as an opinion, but truth does appear to be an affirmative defense in England.
A claim of defamation is defeated if the defendant proves that the statement was true.
The main defence to a libel action is ‘justification' i.e. being able to prove that the defamatory allegation is true.
It is a complete defence to an action for defamation to prove that the defamatory statement is substantially true. It is not necessary for a defendant to show that there was a public interest in publication and it does not matter whether he or she acted maliciously.
Chiropractic care isn't bogus when used for what it was designed to do—correcting posture and forcing tight muscles to release so that they don't cause strain in further muscles, resulting in a chain reaction of back pain that leaves people in serious pain.
When used to treat back/neck pain, headaches resulting from tight neck muscles, pinched nerves, and other similar problems, with the exception of physical therapy (much more expensive), it is pretty much the only form of medical care that actually has a good history of success. The cracking of the back also releases endorphins, which make your back feel less sore, which further aids in healing by reducing the tendency to compensate for the sore muscles (which can injure other muscles).
In other words, the mechanism by which chiropractic care functions, at least for those purposes, is well understood and fully supported by medical science, unlike homeopathy, whose mechanism for working is believed to be limited to the placebo effect.... :-)
Of course, when used to treat non-spine-related problems like heart disease and gingivitis, yes, chiropractic care is bogus, in much the same way that antibiotic care is bogus as a treatment for dandruff.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
I agree with that wholeheartedly. The counterpoint however, is that in America you can get tied up in the courts to the point of bankruptcy very easily against your will with no wrongdoing on your part. Don't assume that everything about your system is better. (Neither UK nor US here)