Posts Tagged ‘Libel’
Can a Court Order Someone Not to Defame You?
I get many calls from victims of Internet defamation who want me to go to court and get an order to stop the defamation. In other words, they want a court order that stops someone from speaking or publishing statements that the victims deems to be defamatory. Is that possible?
Like most legal questions, the answer is, “it depends.”
California law is very clear that after a trial has determined that the statements being made are defamatory, the court can order the defendant to stop making those statements. The reason is that defamatory speech is not protected, so once it has been found to be defamatory, the court can order the defendant not to repeat the defamatory statements. Once the court has issued such an order, it can be enforced just like any other court order, with the court assessing sanctions and even jail time if the defendant refuses to comply.
By the way, most attorneys do not appear to be aware that a “gag order” is constitutionally permissible. In law school it was drummed into their heads that a court cannot order someone to speak, but they fail to realize that once a court has found that a statement is defamatory, it is no longer protected speech. I see complaint after complaint where the attorney has not requested injunctive relief, and that does not serve the client well. Without the injunction, even if the defamed party prevails on the defamation action, there will be nothing to prevent the defendant from saying the same things again, necessitating an entirely new case. As a practical matter, a defendant just having been found liable for defamation will probably not want to be sued again for the same comments, but I prefer not to leave things to chance.
So you absolutely can silence someone AFTER the court has found the speech is defamatory, but the much tougher challenge is getting a court to order a defendant to stop defaming the victim BEFORE there has been a trial. Typically, it takes at least a year to take a matter to trial, and that may be far too long for the defamation victim. A temporary injunction can be obtained in a matter of days, so that affords a much faster remedy if it is available.
But there is a problem. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Case Results, Defamation, Libel | Tags: free speech, Internet Defamation, Libel, Prior Restraint, Temproary Restraining Order | 2 Comments »
Defamation is Bad, but it Doesn’t Justify Chilling Free Speech
Our neighbors to the North are very American-like, until you get to issues of free speech. Most view Canada as the “least protective of free speech in the English-speaking world.” Reasonable minds can differ on some of Canada’s laws, such as prohibiting the media from identifying criminals until they have been convicted, but most of the law is still based on policies designed to prevent any criticism of the government. Canadians can be held liable by English-Canadian courts for comments on public affairs, about public figures, which are factually true, and which are broadly believed.
A recent parody video posted on You Tube illustrates just how lacking the concept of free speech is in Canada. The video is a fake cable company ad posted by Extremely Decent Films. It does not mention any cable company by name, and indeed it is specifically directed at American cable companies. Nonetheless, someone lodged a complaint in Canada, and that was sufficient to scare You Tube into removing the video, given the vagaries of Canada’s libel laws (although the video has since been reposted in response to articles such as this one).
Posted in Defamation, Internet Defamation, Libel | Tags: Internet Defamation, Libel, Parady | No Comments »
Hacienda Heights Doctor, Pankaj Karan, Hit with $1.5 Million Judgment for Internet Defamation
In this case, we represented a business and the individual who owns that business. The defendant, a medical doctor named Pankaj Karan, was starting his own business, MDTelexchange, and traveled to an overseas company also owned by our client (we’ll call that the “foreign company”) and entered into a contract for the creation of some custom call center software.
And that is where the divergence in the two versions of the story begins. Our clients asserted (and proved at trial) that the working software was delivered on time by the foreign company. The defendant, Dr. Karan, claimed otherwise, and blamed the failure of his start-up company on the software.
Dr. Karan’s claims never made sense, because while the software would have been useful in his business, it was in no way essential. Blaming the software for the failure of the business was akin to saying a business failed due to a lack of business cards. But for whatever reason, Dr. Karan chose to blame our clients, and in an email announced that he was going to “work night and day to inflict the maximum amount of financial pain that is allowed under the law.” To that end, he ignored the fact that his contract was with the foreign company, and instead attacked our client personally, along with his other company, taking to the Internet to trash their reputations.
This is a scenario that I see over and over in defamation cases. Someone becomes unhappy with a business or individual, and decides to criticize them on-line. It might even begin with a laudable motive – just putting out the word to the public to avoid a business that did not satisfy the critic. I would defend to the death the right of anyone to go on line and publish a legitimate criticism of a business.
But something happens that takes the person beyond a legitimate review. As the person types the words, he or she decides it’s just not stinging enough and won’t cause enough harm. In this case, Dr. Karan must have felt that a legitimate review of the foreign company, stating that in his opinion the software did not work as promised or was not delivered on time, just wasn’t hurtful enough. He posted two articles on his own blog, and sent an email to our clients’ customers. In the email and postings, Dr. Karan’s comments had almost nothing to do with the alleged problems with the software. Indeed, he abandoned his claim that the software was late, and instead claimed that it had never been delivered at all. He added that our client had cheated an employer ten years earlier, and that his company had failed to pay vendors hundreds of thousands of dollars. Although our clients had never received a single complaint from a customer, Dr. Karan claimed that “they are swindlers of the highest kind and have milked many of their clients of money and time.”
At trial, Dr. Karan could not identify a single customer that our clients had “swindled”, he could not identify a single vendor they had failed to pay, could not specify how he had cheated his former employer, and acknowledged that the software was in fact delivered. Today, an Orange County jury, known for being very conservative with damage awards, awarded $1.5 million jointly and individually to both of our clients for the damage to their reputations and business, caused by Dr. Karan.
In a standard civil action, the plaintiff has the burden to prove the case. This is true in a defamation action as well, but since truth is a defense to defamation, the burden of proving a statement is true falls on the defendant. I can’t fathom how defendant thought he would get away with what he published in this email and on his blog, but I think he may have thought he would be safe because we could not prove a negative. In other words, how do you show that you have never defrauded any of your customers? Bring in every customer you have ever worked with to testify that you did not defraud them? That would be impossible, and that is why the law puts the burden on defendant to prove the TRUTH of the statements. Dr. Karan could not prove his statements were true.
[UPDATE — January 2, 2014] Dr. Karan did not go silently into the good night. His attorneys appealed the $1.5 million verdict, claiming there was insufficient evidence to support an award of that size. To that claim, and in denying the appeal, the court opened its opinion with the sentence, “All things considered, appellant Dr. Pankaj Karan got off cheaply in the trial court.” Better yet, in commenting on our brief, the court stated:
[Dr. Karan] has misstated the record in numerous particulars, as shown in a respondents’ brief so devastating it has left Karan, like Job, with no reply but silence and a hand over his mouth.
Posted in Case Results, Cases, Defamation, Internet Defamation, Litigation, Trial, Verdicts, Victories | Tags: Internet Defamation, Libel, Pankaj Karan | No Comments »
How to Fight Back Against Online Defamation
Always striving not to reinvent the wheel, I keep my eyes open for articles that do a good job of explaining basic legal concepts. In that regard, I receve many calls from prospective clients who don’t yet know the fundamentals of pursuing an online defamation claim. Many times, the callers want to sue Google since it is Google’s search engine that is revealing the sites that are posting the defamatory comments. That is not possible (although we have had pretty good luck getting Google to cooperate in taking down blogs on their own service and in one instance Google agreed to stop indexing a particular magazine, but that is rare).
The following article [reprinted with permission] provides a brief outline of how to attack online defamation. If you happen to be in New Jersey, contact the author for any action you need to pursue or defend. If you’re hear in California, or the action needs to be brought in California, then call Morris & Stone at (714) 954-0700.
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Individuals now have the freedom to inexpensively and easily share everything from their art to their opinions online. However, the ease and anonymity associated with posting information on the Internet, comes at the cost of providing a perfect avenue for those seeking to abuse the system. So what happens when, for instance, an opinionated Internet rant goes too far? What if a video stream broadcast damages the reputation of someone featured in it? More importantly, do the victims of these scenarios have any rights under the law, or are they at the mercy of the author or poster?
Fortunately for victims, the law of defamation has been evolving in order to accommodate the legal ills associated with online publication. However, many people still fail to avail themselves of these legal protections because they are unclear about to which rights and remedies they are entitled. Therefore, individuals wishing to protect their rights and reputations must understand how the law of defamation applies to online activity. Defamation is defined as the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. The two subcategories of defamation are libel and slander. Libel requires that defamation be committed in a printed forum, while slander requires that the defaming words be spoken aloud.
Online publications are subject to the law of libel; online video posts are subject to the law of slander. If a party believes that defamation may have occurred because of the idea(s) presented in an online writing, he or she can successfully sue the author for libel by showing: that the defamatory statement was published, that it refers to the victim, that it is false, and that the victim’s reputation has been harmed by the writing. A party who feels victimized by video content can sue for slander under the same legal standard as is applied to libel. Victims of defamation can recover both actual damages and punitive damages.
Still, it is important to keep in mind the following caveats with regard to defamation law as it applies to the Internet. If the author of a defamatory statement is anonymous, a victim can request (through court proceedings) that the wrongdoer’s identity be revealed. Also, in the event that the victim of defamation is a public figure, actual malice must be proven (in addition to the aforementioned elements). Finally, although the authors of misinformation can be held liable for defamation, blog owners generally bear no responsibility for the comments posted to their site by third parties. Thus, it is evident that the law of defamation, although limited in its applicability to the Internet can still offer numerous protections and remedies against those wishing to cause undue damage to the reputations of others.
Melody Kulesza is an associate with Pepper Law Group, LLC, a law firm based in Somerville, New Jersey which provides strategic advice and sophisticated legal services to businesses, entrepreneurs, and entertainers in the areas of technology law, intellectual property, Internet law, entertainment law, business formation and general business counsel, and privacy and security law. More information on the firm can be found at http://www.informationlaw.com or by telephone at 908.698.0330.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4043133
Posted in Defamation, Internet Defamation, SLAPP | Tags: Aaron Morris, Attorney, Defamation, Libel, Morris and Stone, Slander, Youtube | No Comments »
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