(Premier Login sroussey) Forum Owner Posted May 18, 2007 9:02 AM
File Lawsuit First, Ask Questions Later
$800,000,000 defamation lawsuit. Hitler. A strawberry farmer named Ronnie Fulwood. Giulio Bissiri, a descendant of Ethopian emperor Haile Selassie. Gold bonds. World War II. Self promoting attorney Edward Fagan. And a little forum hosting site named Network54.
This week, our president, Chris Moser, is in Washington D.C. with the US Chamber of Commerce at congressional hearings about lawsuit abuse. We have experienced such "shoot first" abuse. When it is a lawyer, its "File Lawsuit First, ask questions later." Never mind the damage...
In a nutshell, someone posted a message on a bank related forum that is hosted with us that listed the strawberry farmer as someone not to deal with, in particular, relating to the buying and selling of gold bonds. So he sued us for "damaging" his name. No call, no letter, no email. Just a lawsuit before Christmas. And when combined, it ended up at about $800,000,000.
All sorts of things get posted when you have over 5,000,000 people using such a service as ours. We very much try to accommodate people that have been hurt by what others say, within reason. The nicer the request, the more accommodating we are. The nasty legalese letters generally have the opposite effect, and the messages get left up. No need for us to be subpoenaed if the message is still there for all sides of a potential lawsuit to see.
What about our liability that these, and other lawyers claim? What is the liability of AT&T when someone says something bad about someone else on the telephone? Do they get sued? Does a judge sign an injunction that would require AT&T to monitor all phone calls to make sure that so-and-so does say that bad thing about such-and-such? Well, back in the early days, it was a real question. So common carrier laws were created. In the same vein, the CDA section 230 provides us the same protection as the common carrier laws protect AT&T.
So the whole point of the lawsuit wouldn't pass muster in the first place. And these attorneys (Frederick Lowe, Edward Fagan) would have and should have known that. Of course, in their haste to sue before Christmas, they made lots of mistakes.
Their "experts" in the internet field stated that employees of Network54 must be the ones posting since it was on our domain name. If they looked at the home page, they would understand that we are a forum hosting company. Maybe I overrate their intelligence. They were so smart as to figure out our IP address for network54.com as well! Its 205.134.231.54. So they wrote down 205.135.231.54. I guess the whole copy and paste thing was just too complex. Who is at that address? A small branch of John Hancock, which was left wondering how they ever got pulled into a lawsuit where they were also being sued for $800M. To plaintiffs, it was obviously a conspiracy in the financial industry to sully their prospects at winning billions of dollars. With John Hancock owning this Network54 thing, it was obviously part of this grand conspiracy with CommerzBank and the government of Germany. Suing the wrong company is not new to Mr. Fagan.
Which brings out story back to Hitler. Hmm, why do these things seem to always come back to Hitler? Why am I now connected in some bizarre way to Hitler?
Seems that some gold bonds from after the first World War were issued by Germany for reconstruction. Eventually Hitler declared them worthless. Then another World War. Then a final treaty to deal with all these things like the bonds. So some Florida farmer got a hold of some of these and decided to sue someone. Everyone it seems.
After being informed of their mistakes (we didn't write the message, we didn't read and publish it, we didn't even know about it, we aren't a subsidiary of some branch office of another company in Florida, in fact we are a California company, so you should sue us here, etc.), they still kept up the battle. One of the things that they eagerly wanted was the IP address of the poster. The irony is that the forum owner had the "Show IP Address" option active, and as such, they already had the IP - months before when they originally filed the lawsuit. In fact, since they printed and copied the message into the original complaint, they proved that they had it all along. Their internet "experts" were that good.
So what happened? All motions were denied by the judge. Mr. Fagan was removed from this case. Mr. Lowe tried to get out of it as well. Mr. Fagan has since seen disbarment hearings, the result of which I don't know, and possible bankruptcy. He should watch "My Name is Earl." Might learn something about karma. The poster was never identified. The forum owner still doesn't know that he was also being sued for $800,000,000 (we got him dropped). Fulwood did not drop the case against us until we filed our motion to dismiss, then it came fast and furious to drop all claims before the judge had time to rule on it. I really wanted to push sanctions on the attorneys for filing frivolous lawsuits, and countersue Fulwood.
At that point though, we had already diverted so much of our attention for a long period of time, and continuing to do so, with little chance of seeing cash payback in the end was not the right choice of action. For a three person company, that was already seven months of our time. Being distracted. No more.
Still wish we could get back all those attorney fees we paid in two states (our attorneys were fantastic, by the way). And the time. We really want that time back. And we are still spending some time on this. Chris is in Washington D.C. right now helping to change things, and I'm writing this blog entry.
You can help too. Talk to your elected officials about the waste and damage brought on by frivolous lawsuits. And pass the word about our story. Hit the Digg button. Email your friends.