Sueing over website posting

pclancy

Hi all,

I have a website to advertise my band, promote gigs etc and we also have a guestbook and discussion board like many other websites. A visitor to my site a few weeks ago posted a message taking the mickey out of a former flatmate of mine. She has now decided she wants to sue me as I am the owner of the website.

What are the legal implications for me considering:

1. I did not post the message nor is there any record of who did so.
2. The message was immediatly removed when she rang me to complain.
3. There is a disclaimer underneath the entrance link to the guestbook with the text "Views expressed within the forum or guestbook are not neccesarily those of the owners and editors of this website and as such the owners and editors of this website accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for comments, views or opinions posted on either medium."
4. I have posted a warning to users not to be abusive to each other.

She wants a written apology or she says i'll get a solicitors letter. Does she have a case considering what ive done to protect the site and me? Would writing a letter of apology be a good or bad idea? any help anyone could offer would be very helpfull

Cheers.

DeVore

Originally posted by pclancy
Hi all,

I have a website to advertise my band, promote gigs etc and we also have a guestbook and discussion board like many other websites. A visitor to my site a few weeks ago posted a message taking the mickey out of a former flatmate of mine. She has now decided she wants to sue me as I am the owner of the website.

Right, now as you might expect this is an area I know a LOT about. I'll answer your questions and then give you a round up at the end.

Ok, so the website wasnt set up to slag flatmates off, thats a good thing as you can claim you're work was abused for something you didnt intend it to be.

The bad thing is that under irish law you are responsible for whatever you publish. Thats a tricky word, publish.
I'll try to answer your points individually.

What are the legal implications for me considering:

1. I did not post the message nor is there any record of who did so.

Thats both good and bad, good that you didnt post it, bad that you have been negligent of any traceability in the system.

2. The message was immediatly removed when she rang me to complain.

Thats very good. Shows you took action etc.
You werent negligent and you weren't obstructive.

3. There is a disclaimer underneath the entrance link to the guestbook with the text "Views expressed within the forum or guestbook are not neccesarily those of the owners and editors of this website and as such the owners and editors of this website accept no responsibility or liability whatsoever for comments, views or opinions posted on either medium."

Means absolutely nothing. The court may choose to look favourably on it as a guiding detail but in law it has the legal weight of helium.

4. I have posted a warning to users not to be abusive to each other.

Again, shows concern, non-negligence and action to stop the problem but unfortunately its nothing meaningful. Worth bringing up but you cant hide behind it.

She wants a written apology or she says i'll get a solicitors letter.

Solictitors letters cost 5 quid. No more no less. The first time I got one I was scared ****less... now I could paper my walls with them.

Maybe she's serious and maybe she's blowing off PMT steam.

Does she have a case considering what ive done to protect the site and me? Would writing a letter of apology be a good or bad idea? any help anyone could offer would be very helpfull

Writing a letter of apology is a dangerous thing. it would basically incriminate you unless carefully worded and that wouldnt probably placate her.


I am not a lawyer but here's my advice:

For defamation to be actionable it has to fulfil three things.
1. It has to be untrue. Was it?
2. It has to be public.... is your website open to the public? do you have to register at all before you can read things?
3. it has to lower the person in the eyes of her right thinking peers. Did it? Did it accurately identify her uniquely?

Finally, damages are limited to the extent of the publication. If only 5 people saw it then she can hardly claim much in the way of damages.

To be honest, I'd take her out to a pub and explain things over a pint if you can. Otherwise, fúck her, stand by your principles and see if she's got the nads to spend a few thousand quid to win a few hundred.

DeV.

pclancy

DeV. [/B][/QUOTE]

For defamation to be actionable it has to fulfil three things.
1. It has to be untrue. Was it?
2. It has to be public.... is your website open to the public? do you have to register at all before you can read things?
3. it has to lower the person in the eyes of her right thinking peers. Did it? Did it accurately identify her uniquely?


1. The message basically mentioned her being fat (which she is) and just slagged her accent. it was signed in her name as well (first name only). So, there is plenty of truth in the message
2. It was posted in the guestbook which is freely accessable by all to sign and view
3. It didnt accuratlely identify her in that it was signed in her name but there was no other mention to who she was, where she lives, what she does etc.

I was thinking about writing a letter saying I'm sorry the incident occoured, i dont accept liability and i have done such and such to prevent it happening again. The thing is, i dont know for sure if shes actually gone to a solicitor or if she really wants to pursue this to the end. i think she just wants to know that shes won by getting me to apologise.

DeVore

Fúck her.

She hasnt a leg to stand on.

1. she's fat and has an odd accent. That means its not actionable.
2. Calling someone "a fat tart with a west brit accent" is whats referred to as "Gross verbal abuse" and isnt actionable as any "right minded peer" wouldnt take it serious.

For example I can say "Bertie Ahern is a stupid fat fúck" and theres not a thing he could do. however if I said "Bertie is unfit to be Taoiseach of Ireland because he is corrupt" I'd be wide open.

3. She wasnt identified accurately, hence she suffered no damages and its her paranoia that is relating her to it.

Tell her that while you are sorry any of this happened, she hasnt a leg to stand on and given that I havent been sued for 4 years running boards.ie which has 500,000 of the most actionable posts on the planet, I think I know what I'm talking about

Its your choice my friend but I wouldnt give her the satisfaction. Any decent judge will simply dismiss it out of court as a waste of the courts time.
Its also illegal for her to use the courts as "a punitive measure".
ie to maliciously use the judicial process itself as a punishment.
If the judge thinks she's doing that (ie taking a case she knows she cant win simply to cause you pain), she can be held in contempt of court which often carries a short jail term.

Dont think they wont do it either, it stops the courts getting clogged with nuisance cases.


DeV.

b20uvkft6m5xwg

Originally posted by pclancy
basically mentioned her being fat (which she is) and just slagged her accent. it was signed in her name as well (first name only). So, there is plenty of truth in the message

That sounds like "fair comment".
The most used defence in these circumstances.

In fairness, if she wants to fork out €15,000 per day for her trip to the high court and not even have anything resembling an air tight case... let her!

Sit tight my friend

Meh

Originally posted by DeVore
2. Calling someone "a fat tart with a west brit accent" is whats referred to as "Gross verbal abuse" and isnt actionable as any "right minded peer" wouldnt take it serious.

Actually, "tart" probably would be defamation. According to the dictionary. it means a sexually promiscuous woman. But the "fat" and "funny accent" stuff is fair comment.

pclancy

nice one lads, i had a feeling that was the case. Is there any kind of warning letter i could send her in return? for example in the letter she sent to me she said she was "considering sueing me but might let me off with a written apology seeing as i have been recently demoted and am in a lot of debt". She also calls me inmature and a few other words even though she doesnt know for sure that i posted the message (which i didnt!). Would love to scare her back!

DeVore

lawsuits are funny things. be very VERY careful.

The act of accusing someone in court of something they are subsequently found not guilty of is in itself an actionable act.
More then one person has found themselves on the flip side of a defamation lawsuit which is practically air-tight (given that its all on record with the court clerk!).

Just laugh it off as some stupid bint getting hormonal.
Jeez, if we reacted every time someone told us they were going to sue us we'd have had heartattacks by now hahah.
(Mind you we took a lot of precautions up front to prevent that!).

DeV.

SheroN

dev...i'm going to sue you and boards.ie....because i can.

pclancy

i think ill let it all rest for the moment. ill send her a letter stating where i stand and see what happens. if it goes to court i wouldnt say the case would last 5 mins before being ****ed out.

thanks a mill for all the advice\help!

DeVore

Sueing Boards.ie is an interesting idea... Consider this.

1. Its a limited company so unless we are negligent (and with 90 moderators and a past history of breaking the sound barrier cutting clearly-dodgy stuff) noone could say we are negligent.
Hence the assets of the company is the limit of our liability.

2. Now the company employs noone and makes no money (as we all know the directors pay for the hosting themselves).
Making its sole possession the website Boards.ie.

3. Sueing us is clearly nuts as you would get nothing but ownership of Boards.ie out of it. Consider what would happen when the rabble around here are informed that their caring admins and mods have been ****ed over by some freedom-of-speech-molesting dickhead.

4. You might think that this website would have a catastrophic technical failure at that point , a sort of giagantic Regi Says Oops but not so....

5. What would be that fastest way for us to regain our website? why to post some carefully tailored defamation about Tom Murphy no less. Zip, I'll be having our website back thank you! Oh and look, Mr Lawsuit has some cash too, well I'll be having that as desert then.

Meanwhile, I expect whatever sad and lonely life Mr Lawsuit has is being hellishly disrupted as unhappy boardsters order his home address pizza over and over again and text his mobile to oblivion. I'd be supplying every one with details of course, by way of my uncanny knack of rooting out all manner of things people want to stay hidden.

So you see, I'm really a cunning little runt when I want to be
Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and stroke my white cat...

DeV.

sceptre

... why do I get the impression that DeV's last post has been sent to many would-be suers:D

McGinty

Pclancy

It seems clear to me that the person threatning to sue you has a serious problem with you, don't get into a brawl with her, neither should you aplogise, as a web administrator for another website, we have been issued with a solicitors letter and many threats and that is what they usually are, sadly the powers that be of the website when faced with the solicitors letter gave the person a year's free advertising and so forth. They are now looking for more, they don't think its enough. Be warned, if it were me I would tell them to feck off, as the complaint was legitimate against the person. Most people wouldn't have the guts to carry it out, they are just looking for either extra cash, vengence of some kind or something to talk about to their mates and they get off on scaring people. Ignore her, that would be the best thing. Good Luck

DeVore

Thanks for the information you gave, it will be beneficial in future if where I work gets more solicitors letters.

Victor

Was she even specifically identified?