In the immortal words of Mitchell Leben (mitch@leben.com):
>
> A list member has threatened to sue me because I first filtered posts from
> his account, then removed him from the list. He became the center of a
> flame war, and caused many people to leave the list.
>
> Now he plans to sue me. Some clips from one of his emails to me:
>
> "I have saved all the evidence of slander posted from your list-server."
> "Due to your in-attention in enforcing your own rules, I'm afraid I've
> lost revenue, which I can prove in court."
> "Your unfair rule enforcement also abridges my right to free speech, so a
> civil rights violation is also at issue."
> "Looking forward to seeing you in court..."
Oy. One of _them_.
First and foremost, I strongly recommend that you _not_ lose any
sleep over this. The ratio of people on the net who threaten to sue
to those that actually do is staggeringly high. This person sounds
to me like a standard-issue blusterer. He just wants to yank your
chain. If he were actually going to sue for damages, he would be
having his lawyer send you a summons, not personally badgering you
with email.
(And as Joe-Bob Briggs pointed out a while back, sueing somebody
is not the cathartic, People's Court-esque experience that most of
these morons seem to think it is. Lawsuits take YEARS, and they
mostly consist of lawyers sending letters back and forth. Very few
of them actually see the inside of a courtroom. Your rude little
friend would probably be greatly disappointed.)
I have a short form reponse that I use with these types, and I
strongly recommend it:
Since you have threatened me with litigation, I am
afraid that I can no longer communicate with you, lest
I jeopardize my interests in the discovery phase of
any possible court action. Please direct any further
correspondence by means of registered postal mail to
my attorney, who you can reach at <insert address of
the closest thing to a lawyer you have here>.
And then, start bouncing all of their mail. (If you own your own
box, I can provide you with a sendmail ruleset to do this; if not,
you can use procmail.)
> So my question is, what will happen if this goes to court? In my opinion
> the legal threat is frivolous, but I am not a lawyer. It is my
> understanding that a list I create/host/own is mine to do with as I
> please.
Entirely frivolous. He'd have to prove monetary damage in order
to collect anything, and that would be damn close to impossible.
The only seriously threatening part of it is how much of your time
it could take up, but since it would also take up an equal amount
of _his_ time, I wouldn't sweat it.
-n
--
The life of a sysadmin is always intense!
Nathan J. Mehl --- The LeftBank Operation
nmehl@leftbank.com -- http://www.leftbank.com
A Global Internet Company. http://www.gi.net
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