I can't imagine why Ali Jenab would say that the defendants in the PetsWarehouse case were "a bunch of whiny kids. The fact is that the defendants who settled did NOT have the resources to fight Mr. Novak, who claims to be the owner of PetsWarehouse and who is representing himself in this suit. What would you do, Mr Ali Jenab, if you had a mushrooming legal bill greater than your annual salary, and no trial date in sight? The defendants were all out of state, and had to hire a New York State lawyer, who turned out to be very expensive.
There is a lot of loose talk about freedom of speech, and the "right" to free speech. How free is speech, if the cost of defending it is more than you can bear? Speech isn't free if you have to pay anything at all to defend what you say at least up to the point where a trial is held and the decision goes against you. If the trial is decided against you, then, presumably, you have violated the laws concerning libel. If this country really valued the 1st. amendment, a defendant in a freedom of speech action would not have to pay a penny until the trial was over and the judgment was against him.
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I can't imagine why Ali Jenab would say that the defendants in the PetsWarehouse case were "a bunch of whiny kids. The fact is that the defendants who settled did NOT have the resources to fight Mr. Novak, who claims to be the owner of PetsWarehouse and who is representing himself in this suit. What would you do, Mr Ali Jenab, if you had a mushrooming legal bill greater than your annual salary, and no trial date in sight? The defendants were all out of state, and had to hire a New York State lawyer, who turned out to be very expensive. There is a lot of loose talk about freedom of speech, and the "right" to free speech. How free is speech, if the cost of defending it is more than you can bear? Speech isn't free if you have to pay anything at all to defend what you say at least up to the point where a trial is held and the decision goes against you. If the trial is decided against you, then, presumably, you have violated the laws concerning libel. If this country really valued the 1st. amendment, a defendant in a freedom of speech action would not have to pay a penny until the trial was over and the judgment was against him.