I will (sniffle, tears) be suing all of you miserable Primates for
Psychological Animal Cruelty! The Law Firm of Shark, Weasel and
Reptile will be contacting all via certified mail.
--
Bunn E. Rabbit

Chat Room Chatter Draws Lawsuit

I will (sniffle, tears) be suing all of you miserable Primates for
Psychological Animal Cruelty! The Law Firm of Shark, Weasel and
Reptile will be contacting all via certified mail.
--
Bunn E. Rabbit


Chat Room Chatter Draws Lawsuit

Do the courts have jurisdiction over what people say in Internet chat
rooms?

That question is being played out in what some lawyers claim is a
first-of-its-kind lawsuit in Ohio, where a man claims he was
humiliated online in an Internet chat room, and has filed a lawsuit
over the incident.

The plaintiff, George Gillespie of Medina County, Ohio, is suing
America Online for allegedly failing to do anything about the abuse he
endured in the chat room, and the two chat room participants who
allegedly caused him emotional distress by teasing him. Gillespie v.
America Online, No. 05CIV1255 (Medina Co., Ohio, Ct. C.P.).

According to court documents, the chat room participants "acted in an
outrageous manner, which they knew or should have known would cause
serious emotional distress to the plaintiff ... The Defendants'
conduct was so extreme and contemptible as to go beyond all possible
bounds of decency."

AOL's lawyer, Michael S. Gordon of Columbus, Ohio, firm Vorys, Sater,
Seymour and Pease's Cleveland office, declined comment.

UNCHARTED TERRITORY

Attorney Mark Tarallo, a lawyer with the Boston office of Holland &
Knight who counsels companies on Internet matters, said "I haven't
heard of anything like that." Tarallo believes that the lawyers in the
Ohio case are venturing into uncharted territory and will face a tough
battle, particularly in the fight with AOL. He noted that while there
have been lawsuits where companies have sued individuals for posting
derogatory comments about companies online, a third-party being sued
over Internet chatter is unheard of.

"I think the plaintiff's lawyer is going to have an uphill battle. I
don't know how you could say that AOL had some kind of obligation or
duty to confirm [a statement] before allowing [a participant] to post
it. It seems awful far-reaching to me," Tarallo said.

Gillespie's lawyer, A. Michelle Jackson of Oberholtzer, Filous &
Lesiak in Medina, Ohio, did not return calls seeking comment. His
other lawyer, Theodore Lesiak of the same firm, was unavailable for
comment.

The individual defendants in the case, Mike Marlowe of Fayette, Ala.,
and Bob Charpentier of Salem, Ore., deny any wrongdoing. "I'm so
flabbergasted with this because this has been blown out of proportion
... There were never any threats. We just made fun of the guy," said
Marlowe, a 33-year-old welder who admits to teasing Gillespie over the
Internet.

According to Marlowe, Gillespie alleged in his suit that Marlowe's
harassment went beyond the Internet, and that Marlowe traveled all the
way to Ohio from Alabama to file a change-of-address form for
Gillespie just to disrupt his mail service.

Marlowe denied the allegation.

Charpentier, meanwhile, acting as his own attorney, filed a response
and is considering a countersuit against Gillespie. A hearing is set
for Jan. 10.

But whether people really believe message boards is a question posed
by attorney Michael Lynn, a commercial trial lawyer at Lynn Tillotson
& Pinker in Dallas who knows first-hand how tough it is to prove
actual harm from comments posted on the Internet.

Two years ago, in a $700 million Internet defamation suit, Lynn
successfully defended a Visa executive who was accused of posting
derogatory comments about another company on Internet message boards,
which allegedly lowered the company's stock price. ZixIt v. Visa, No.
99-10187-K (Dallas Co. Texas, Dist. Ct.).

In a four-week trial, Lynn convinced the jury that the statements were
not enough to hurt the actual stock value given the vastness of the
Internet.

"Our answer was that in the context of the entire stock market,
connecting a statement in a chat room to a specific stock is largely
impossible," Lynn said.

He expects similar arguments will be made in Gillespie's case.

"It would be difficult to prove that messages on a message board would
really hurt someone's reputation in a community," Lynn said. "And how
does anybody prove that they've actually been damaged as a result of a
statement made in a chat room?"
-------------------------------------

Fed up with illegal immigration?
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Other important links:

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_____

"Cosmic upheaval is not so moving as a little child pondering the death
of a sparrow in the corner of a barn." -Anouk Aimee, French Actor
_____

"Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny", Aeschylus (525BC-456BC),
Agamemnon
_____

"I wear no Burka." - Mother Nature

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