Suggestion: Don't Sue Google For $50 Billion Over Something It's Not Liable For
from the unless-you-want-the-court-to-slam-you dept
We see all sorts of ridiculous lawsuits floating around, but here's a good one. Eric Goldman has the story of a journalist who was upset about a story written by a local college professor. The journalist felt the story was defamatory, so obviously, he sued Google for $50 billion. Yes, you read that correctly. Pissed off journalist feels that he was defamed by someone totally unconnected to Google... and responds by suing Google for $50 billion. Not surprisingly, the court wasted no time tossing this lawsuit out, and then even slapped the journalist with an order to pay Google's $12,000 in legal fees. The order to pay those legal fees was later removed on a technicality, but as Goldman notes, it appears that judges are getting pretty sick of these sorts of lawsuits, and are finally beginning to punish folks who are filing them.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: defamation, liability, section 230
Companies: google
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Re:
Of course, we're not going to get relief from this from the legal community, because this is an income stream.
What we have now is a parody of the rule of law. Pass go on a technicality, collect twelve grand.
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Oh, one of those
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Hold it...
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Re:
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Journalist
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Oh and why Google? Did the journo do a vanity search and the professor's article was the first result?
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What's in a Name
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Re: What's in a Name
Good work, Fletch, in showing just how ignorant you are.
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What's in a Name
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Lawsuits
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What, no Streisand Effect?
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wire to wire libel
That aside, the alleged slander was only published on an online webzine, then "Google posted [that] article." By federal statute, no "interactive computer service" [here, the big Googie] can be liable for the content of "another information content provider." That law may offer somewhat of a dodge - the well-moneyed "service" could republish content from a judgment-proof "content provider," and the libel would go unpunished. Publish a libelous article on a website in Iran, which then is "posted" on Google, and again, no lawyer will take that case.
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ha, ha,
That is hilarious.
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As a matter of fact, people get so worked up over that that the rules in Minnesota now specify that if you think you're entitled to more than $50,000, you ask for "reasonable damages in excess of $50,000".
Which this guy presumably didn't know because he didn't have a lawyer.
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Keep going
And I think the judges in these kinds of cases should start penalizing the ****-ing lawyers for taking the case. Yes, I know that some lawyers will take any case, especially if the client is pushy enough (or throws around enough money), but they should know better.
What would happen if the judge in this case suspended the lawyer's license for 6 months because the lawyer was dumb enough to try to take this case to court?
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