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View Full Version : What You Post Online Can Come Back In A Lawsuit



Conley
02-02-2012, 11:32 PM
Professional golfer Phil Mickelson has asked the courts to help him find out the true names of one or more people who posted on the Internet what he calls “vicious” statements about him and his wife.

Mickelson filed a complaint in San Diego Superior Court in November after finding what he considered defamatory statements on a Yahoo! website posted under the pseudonyms Fogroller and Longitude. The golfer and his wife, Amy, live in Rancho Santa Fe.

The posts suggested that Mickelson has an illegitimate child and that his wife has had affairs, both of which the golfer says are “absolutely untrue” and offensive, according to court documents.

The statements have profoundly shocked the Plaintiff and constitute deliberate and persistent attacks on his impeccable reputation,” the documents say.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/feb/02/golfer-sues-over-vicious-online-posts/

I see this stuff in the headlines more and more. Freedom of speech is losing out to the lawyers these days.

Conley
02-02-2012, 11:34 PM
Another example:

Callaway Golf has filed a lawsuit to uncover the name of an anonymous poster on a Yahoo chat board who the company believes is an employee or vendor.

The lawsuit, filed in San Diego County Superior Court last week, does not reveal the fictitious name of the poster. Pseudonyms are common on Yahoo Finance chat boards, where Internet users post comments on companies.

The lawsuit claims that, as a vendor or employee, the poster would have agreed not to disclose confidential information. It contends that around March of this year, the poster revealed information about the company's operations.

Most posts on the Yahoo chat board for Callaway in the past two months don't appear to reveal inside information. Several discuss the recent performance and attire of Phil Mickelson, a Callaway-sponsored player.

One post is titled “Could golf get any more boring?”

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2009/mar/20/1b20callaway212236-callaway-suit-seeks-identity-we/

And this is just in the world of golf! :shocked:

MMC
02-03-2012, 07:32 AM
Ridiculous.....this is what happens when you let sheep take control of anything. Who gives a shit what some one calls you or says about you. They can call me whatever they like. Just don't call me late for supper. Otherwise then its their azz.

What do they do if it is a Twitter account. Someone can Tweet whatever they like. As in Phil Mickelson is a putz and his OL looks like a British Terrier. What they want to go out and try to sue somebody for something someone said. Thats if they are Celebreties, Icons, Entertainers, and of Course the Political Aristocrats.

Sure he wants to know who it is. To do what? Think the sheep will get off it's azz and cross the country to encounter someone saying something about them? Take the individual to court and open one's self up to retribution if not out-right revenge. Especially over bogus shit like this.

I don't know maybe it's just me. But I think The Internet, and Twitter is the best way for the average person to say something to those they like or dislike. Especially if they are those types of people I mentioned. Course one can throw in top Billionaires and Millionaires as well.

Okay say this goes to court and he finds out and action is taken against that individual. Now that individual who's happy to get his roll out with just the words coming out of his mouth might decide to take it to another level. Make life difficult for the one that burned him.

On the other hand I am also one who believes none really do have that freedom of speech. As the Environment around you assists in dictating the choice one makes with what they say out their mouths. IMO people know what they can get away with and where. Put in a situation under some sort of pressure and then the truth comes out. Sheep, Sheep in Wolves clothing, and of course the Real Wolf!

Although I am not the Norm.....I didnt grow up with a nuclear family, nor a family with a religious background, nor did I grow up in some sheltered back yard in suburbia-land, or out in in the sticks where people are more laid back and have less shit to deal with. So all can do is go by the way I carry myself.

Mister D
02-03-2012, 08:37 AM
Isn't that libel?

Conley
02-03-2012, 09:42 AM
Ridiculous.....this is what happens when you let sheep take control of anything. Who gives a shit what some one calls you or says about you. They can call me whatever they like. Just don't call me late for supper. Otherwise then its their azz.

What do they do if it is a Twitter account. Someone can Tweet whatever they like. As in Phil Mickelson is a putz and his OL looks like a British Terrier. What they want to go out and try to sue somebody for something someone said. Thats if they are Celebreties, Icons, Entertainers, and of Course the Political Aristocrats.

Sure he wants to know who it is. To do what? Think the sheep will get off it's azz and cross the country to encounter someone saying something about them? Take the individual to court and open one's self up to retribution if not out-right revenge. Especially over bogus shit like this.

I don't know maybe it's just me. But I think The Internet, and Twitter is the best way for the average person to say something to those they like or dislike. Especially if they are those types of people I mentioned. Course one can throw in top Billionaires and Millionaires as well.


Do you use Twitter? They are starting to censor and have deals with individual countries about what people can and can't say (for ex Saudi Arabia, Thailand, etc.)

Obviously there are limits to free speech but to me posting on the message board is basically the same as having a conversation in public. If we don't like Phil Mickleson what's the big deal?

Conley
02-03-2012, 09:44 AM
Isn't that libel?

Yes, and it does have a long history in this country. Perhaps I am legally in the wrong but I still think it's silly.

The origins of US defamation law pre-date the American Revolution; one famous 1734 case involving John Peter Zenger sowed the seed for the later establishment of truth as an absolute defense against libel charges. The outcome of the case is one of jury nullification, and not a case where the defense acquitted itself as a matter of law. (Previous English defamation law had not provided the defense of truth.) Though the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect freedom of the press, for most of the history of the United States, the Supreme Court neglected to use it to rule on libel cases. This left libel laws, based upon the traditional common law of defamation inherited from the English legal system, mixed across the states. The 1964 case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, however, dramatically altered the nature of libel law in the United States by elevating the fault element for public officials to actual malice—that is, public figures could win a libel suit only if they could demonstrate the publisher's "knowledge that the information was false" or that the information was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not". Later Supreme Court cases dismissed the claim for libel and forbade libel claims for statements that are so ridiculous to be clearly not true, or that involve opinionated subjects such as one's physical state of being. Recent cases have addressed defamation law and the internet.

Defamation law in the United States is much less plaintiff-friendly than its counterparts in European and the Commonwealth countries. In the United States, a comprehensive discussion of what is and is not libel or slander is difficult, because the definition differs between different states, and under federal law. Some states codify what constitutes slander and libel together into the same set of laws. Criminal libel is rare or nonexistent, depending on the state. Defenses to libel that can result in dismissal before trial include the statement being one of opinion rather than fact or being "fair comment and criticism". Truth is always a defense.

Most states recognize that some categories of statements are considered to be defamatory per se, such that people making a defamation claim for these statements do not need to prove that the statement was defamatory.[90]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation#United_States

Mister D
02-03-2012, 09:51 AM
This is an extreme example but imagine if someone accused on Facebook or something of being involved in criminal activity.

Conley
02-03-2012, 09:54 AM
This is an extreme example but imagine if someone accused on Facebook or something of being involved in criminal activity.

I bet accusations and smears like that happen all the time really. People say nasty things online. The biggest difference IMO is we don't have our legal team on speed dial like Phil Mickleson.

Mister D
02-03-2012, 10:08 AM
I bet accusations and smears like that happen all the time really. People say nasty things online. The biggest difference IMO is we don't have our legal team on speed dial like Phil Mickleson.


And most of it is trivial but if someone was really making serious accusations about something I would want someone to have legal recourse.

MMC
02-03-2012, 10:35 AM
Yeah thats different with being accused of a crime.....or a major crime. Althought like with the Celebs, all their lives they wanted to make it to the big time and be that public spectacle. So their argument about privacy is absurd.

When they were nobody's they wanted all to notice them and what they were doing. Now that they are somebody they don't want anyone knowing what they are doing.

Not to mention plenty of people go out and get drunk or high. Might not even remembers half the shit they said the night before. Nor who they tweeted or sent an email out to.

Conley
02-03-2012, 10:42 AM
And most of it is trivial but if someone was really making serious accusations about something I would want someone to have legal recourse.

That's a good distinction. Accusing someone of a serious crime seems to have more of a legal relevance than Mickleson going after a poster because he was accused of being in an affair (while immoral obviously not a crime).

MMC
02-03-2012, 11:19 AM
He must be mad that they know his OL was saying she needed more than a two-stoke lead. :grin: