Charles Carreon Has To Pay $46K In Legal Fees

from the boom dept

Charles Carreon may not be having a very good day. As you may recall, Carreon "represented" an internet site, Funnyjunk, that threatened Matthew Inman over an Oatmeal cartoon that made fun of that client. When Inman hit back with a (very successful) IndieGoGo campaign to raise money for charity, Carreon, ridiculously, sued Inman, IndieGoGo and the charities. After realizing the case had almost no chance of succeeding, Carreon dropped the lawsuit. However he (along with his wife) have since had an ongoing campaign attacking anyone (including us) who has mocked or criticized the Carreons over the whole Inman/Oatmeal fiasco. In one case, Carreon threatened a satirical, mocking blogger, even promising to wait until the public interest was gone to sue at a later date.

In response, the blogger filed for declaratory judgment that his actions were legit. Carreon responded by literally hiding from being served while also trying to intimidate the blogger, even contacting and threatening to sue his employer. After finally getting served, Carreon basically caved on every point, effectively settling the case. Except, Charles Carreon, brilliant legal mind, apparently didn't realize that he was still subject to having to pay legal fees. Over the past few months Carreon has done everything possible to avoid having to pay those legal fees, lashing out at the lawyers involved, demanding they submit to discovery and depositions, and even claiming that Paul Levy and Cathy Gellis, the lawyers representing the blogger, were involved in some sort of conspiracy against him, while simultaneously arguing (no joke) that he has a First Amendment right to make vexatious legal threats.

Despite all that impressive tap-dancing, it appears the court was not moved. Carreon has been told to pay $46,100.25. The court is not at all impressed by Carreon's legal "theories." Here's a sample snippet, trashing Carreon's reasoning:

Defendant first opposes plaintiff’s motion, arguing the traditional American Rule applies, in which litigants “pay their own attorneys’ fees, regardless of the outcome of the proceedings.” ... He contends this case not be found to be an exception to that traditional rule, as the action was filed under the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2201, which does not have a fee-shifting provision. While declaratory relief was the remedy sought, the claim for relief arose under the Lanham Act. Indeed, this Court would not have jurisdiction over this matter without the presence of a federal question, in the form of the Lanham Act. Defendant offers no support for the proposition that the statute supporting the underlying claim should be ignored in favor of the statute providing for the legal remedy. He has pointed to no authority to suggest that when only declaratory relief is sought, as opposed to damages or injunctive relief, the Declaratory Judgment Act supersedes the act providing for the underlying claim for relief. Without such authority, it defies logic to ignore the fee-shifting provision provided by the Lanham Act in favor of the Declaratory Judgment Act.

As for his first amendment claim, and the suggestion that this lawsuit was a SLAPP suit designed to silence him... the court is again, not impressed, noting that this is a standard declaratory judgment case filed over Carreon's own threatening email, and pointing out that under Carreon's reading, any declaratory judgment against a threat could be seen as an anti-SLAPP case, which makes no sense. Finally, Carreon tried to argue that no fees should be awarded because the case is not "exceptional", while also arguing that the blogger had intent to profit because "it contained two links to websites that are operated for-profit." The court, again, doesn't see how this makes the case Carreon thinks it makes, noting that two links to commercial websites does not make the original site a for-profit entity. As for the claim that this case is not "exceptional," well, there's where the judicial smackdown comes in. No, the court says, the case wasn't exceptional, until Carreon went nutty:

While defendant’s threatened claims were not “exceptional” at the outset of this case, defendant’s actions throughout the litigation certainly transformed this case into an “exceptional” matter, deserving of an award of attorney fees. The Ninth Circuit has stated that “bad faith or other malicious conduct satisfies the exceptional circumstances requirement.” Boney, 127 F.3d at 827. Evidence supports a finding of malicious conduct during the course of this case. Defendant first went to great lengths, imposing unnecessary costs on plaintiff, to avoid service. Then, in response to this motion for attorney fees under the Lanham Act, defendant engaged in unnecessary, vexatious, and costly tactics in preparation of his opposition to the motion. The Ninth Circuit discourages major litigation with respect to attorney fees. See, e.g., Camacho, 523 F.3d at 981; Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424, 437 (1983) (“A request for attorney’s fees should not result in a second major litigation.”). Defendant’s serving of interrogatories and taking of plaintiff’s deposition amounted to a mini-trial on plaintiff’s motion for fees. Indeed, plaintiff incurred an additional $37,650.25 in fees and costs after his motion was filed. Despite this additional discovery, defendant has presented no evidence to support his initial contention that plaintiff’s attorney is on a mission to “turn Internet gripe sites into profit centers for him and Public Citizen Law Group.” Doc. #45, at 4. Defendant has failed to show that his additional discovery efforts led to anything other than additional frustration for plaintiff and his attorneys. Accordingly, plaintiff’s efforts to respond to defendant’s litigation tactics merit the imposition of a fees award.

The court then laughs off Carreon's suggestion that legal fees should be merely $200, by noting that Carreon provides no explanation for why, and that this ignores all the time and effort Levy and Gellis had to put in. As for the breakdown of the fees, it's $8,450 for the initial case... and the other $37,650.25 all stems from Carreon's crazy fight against attorney fees. All of this from a case that came about because of his own ridiculous legal threats.

So... the question remains: will Charles Carreon stop digging?

Update: Paul Levy has posted his own analysis, noting that while it's good, it is not a complete victory for consumers:

The opinion is not a perfect one, from a consumer perspective. The Ninth Circuit does not limit fee awards to those who successfully defend against frivolous trademark claims; under Ninth Circuit law, it is enough that the suit be “groundless or unreasonable.” On the other hand, the fact that Judge Seeborg drew a different distinction in the context of trademark claims that were only threatened, and never actually made the basis for a complaint, allows future successful defendants to argue that the “groundless or unreasonable” standard still applies in that sort of case.

He also points out that the old adage of lawyers representing themselves holds true:

First, it reminds us of the adage that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. Carreon did himself a disservice by representing himself after we sought a declaratory judgment. A good lawyer would have counseled him not to duck service, and he could have given Carreon good advice about his offer of judgment — we would have been happy to discuss a compromise on fees at that point of the litigation, and indeed it does not appear to me that Carreon understood, when he sent the offer of judgment, that it was going to subject him to an award of fees by making Recouvreur a prevailing party. And a lawyer would likely have advised him not to embark on the course of frivolous and abusive discovery. I urged Carreon on more than one occasion to get himself a lawyer, if not to negotiate with me then at least to give him an objective opinion about what he was facing. This was particularly important because Carreon is a sole practitioner who does not have colleagues off whom he can bounce ideas, and because he rejected private advice from at least one lawyer who has told me of his efforts to help Carreon to steer himself into safer waters. And a document that Carreon showed Recouvreur during his deposition makes clear that he actually was talking to another lawyer when he made his first threat to Register.com.

Carreon made clear at various points in the fee proceedings, that he had made his threats out of anger at the public obloquy he was facing, making independent judgment from a lawyer he could respect particularly important. He seemed to be asking me to put myself in his shoes and take pity. On a human level, I can understand how this could happen, and there is no way that Carreon would be facing this judgment if he had obtained independent counsel. But it is not an excuse for what he put Recouvreur through.

Separately, he points out that in the whole fight over whether or not Carreon could engage in discovery, demanding information from Levy, the judge warned Carreon not to go overboard, and then used Carreon's excessive discovery against him in the ruling. As Levy notes, "be careful what you ask for, because you might get it."

Filed Under: carreon effect, cathy gellis, charles carreon, legal fees, paul levy, vexatious litigation

Charles Carreon Keeps Digging; Now Targeting Lawyer Who Is Seeking Legal Fees [Updated]

from the digging-digging-digging dept

If you haven't had your Charles Carreon fill in a while, here you go. Last we'd heard, despite promising to go after a parody blogger who was mocking Carreon (and threatening the blogger's employer), when that blogger filed for declaratory judgment, Carreon first avoided being served, and upon finally being served almost immediately capitulated and promised not to sue. However, what Carreon did not apparently realize was that he left himself open to having to pay the legal fees from the other side, which has led to an ongoing fight in which the lawyers, Paul Levy and Cathy Gellis, are seeking upwards of $40,000 -- a number that seems to keep going up the more and more Carreon tries to fight their every move.

The latest is that Carreon has asked the court for a 120-day extension in responding to Levy's motion for fees. Asking for an extension is not uncommon, and it's often granted -- but the reasoning here is a bit out of the ordinary (which, perhaps, should not be unexpected given who is involved). Rather than citing significant other cases or workload that might get in the way, or highlighting why the basic requirements in responding to the motion require more time, Carreon seems to be trying to smear Paul Levy and his employer, Public Citizen (full disclosure: Levy is a friend, and has, at times, represented this site against threats). Much of Carreon's argument is this bizarre conspiracy theory suggesting that Levy trolls the internet seeking cases where he can file for declaratory judgment, and then tries to cash in on legal fees. He cites two (two!) cases where Levy has, in the past, sought legal fees and lost. And then suggests he needs more time to research all of this more, including seeking discovery from Levy and finding groups to file amicus briefs ("friend of the court" briefs) on his behalf.

To put it mildly, this is crazy. Carreon seems to be trying to turn a case in which he was clearly the initial bully, and got called on it, into one where he tries to sift through documents concerning the lawyer who called his bluff. Basically, it's back to Carreon's game plan throughout this mess: when in trouble, keep digging -- and, as part of that digging, accuse everyone against you of somehow doing something nefarious. In the past, this has included accusations against bloggers and press who were covering his saga (including threats to sue some of them), and now it's extended to threats to drag Levy into a time consuming and meaningless discovery process. Levy filed a short response, noting that he has no problem giving Carreon a 30 day extension, but going on a fishing expedition via discovery makes no sense as they're just trying to settle whether or not Carreon needs to pay legal fees. Furthermore, the search for amici to support him is no excuse for asking for an extension.

Carreon then responded not by countering any of the legal points that Levy raised concerning the extension or discovery, but simply by playing a weird game of "gotcha" in which he wants to call the court's attention to the fact that, in his reply, Levy decided not to even bother responding to Carreon's silly assertions about Levy deliberately trolling the internet for cases where he could seek legal fees (based on the two cases Carreon found where Levy sought legal fees).

Plaintiff’s counsel’s silence regarding the judicial rebuffs his arguments suffered in the Eleventh and Fourth Circuits speaks volumes.

Mr. Levy is simply engaging in a form of forum shopping, eagerly seeking and recruiting clients who create gripe sites to file preemptive declaratory relief actions in various venues, hoping to coerce settlements from vulnerable defendants, or perhaps to lead some court into error by failing to disclose his prior defeats on the very same issue in other jurisdictions

Of course, this ignores a much more plausible scenario (one that happens to be true). As is Public Citizen's charter, Levy and others in the Public Citizen litigation group have a core focus, which is that the group "specializes in cases involving regulation, consumer rights, access to the courts, open government, and the First Amendment, including Internet free speech." Basically, they look for cases that help promote the public good on those particular issues. As such, they are certainly one of the leading groups that people reach out to when they are threatened unfairly. And, based on that, it's not surprising that, at times, this leads to cases in which it is appropriate to seek legal fees. Sometimes they will get those legal fees, and sometimes they will not.

What that has to do with whether or not Carreon should pay up legal fees for his actions is anybody's guess.

Oh, and I think that we (and a few other sites still talking about Carreon) get a bit of a backhanded mention in this one:

Defendant is not a public figure, no issue of public importance has been addressed, and the matter has not been found newsworthy except in online publications desperate for pseudo-legal content.

Are we an "online publication desperate for pseudo-legal content"? We have more than enough content, honestly, and I could do without any more Carreon filings, but he just keeps digging, so the topic just keeps flowing.

Oh, and despite Carreon's claims that Levy is all too eager to jump into these kinds of cases, filing declaratory judgments and then seeking legal fees, I will note that my own personal experience with Levy was that he has, multiple times, steered me away from going that route. If his ultimate goal was to file as many such cases as possible, I doubt that would be the case.

Update: And... between me writing this story and publishing it, the judge has quickly rejected most of Carreon's arguments, giving him 60 days as an extension but saying no to the discovery request, saying simply:

Defendant’s request for extensive discovery would amount to a mini-trial on plaintiff’s motion for attorneys’ fees. Such extensive discovery is unnecessary and a waste of resources.

"Unnecessary and a waste of resources" seems like a phrase that can be applied to an awful lot of Charles Carreon's recent activities.

Filed Under: carreon effect, charles carreon, legal fees, paul levy

Charles Carreon Promises Not To Go After Blogger; But Digs Own Hole Deeper Trying To Avoid Paying Legal Fees

from the not-over-yet dept

The Charles Carreon saga continues, though it seems to be drawing to a close, with just some monetary issues to clear up. When we last left Carreon, he'd just been served by lawyer Cathy Gellis, who tracked him down in court, after he went through all manners of evasion to avoid being served... while still trying to get the blogger who was mocking him fired. If you don't recall, this case began soon after the whole legal dispute with Matthew Inman of the online comic The Oatmeal -- when Carreon also threatened a parodist blogger who was mocking Carreon. Carreon's threats were pretty direct, and promised to wait until all the attention had died down and to then sue. In response, the blogger filed for declaratory judgment that said he had not broken the law. While Carreon had dropped his lawsuit against Inman, he couldn't get out of this one, even as he tried his damnest to avoid being served.

After finally getting served, Carreon offered to "settle" the case, admitting that the blogger hadn't done anything wrong -- basically giving the blogger everything he wanted:

The court shall enter a declaration declaring that:

1. Plaintiff’s domain name “charles-carreon.com,” plaintiff’s use of the domain name, and plaintiff’s current manner of using his web site, do not violate defendant’s rights;

2. Plaintiff’s use of the domain name “charles-carreon.com,” in its current manner of use, is fair use and protected under the First Amendment, and does not infringe on defendant’s mark;

3. Defendant is not entitled to an injunction against plaintiff using the domain name “charles-carreon.com” or operating the Web site located at the URL “www.charles-carreon.com;” and

4. Plaintiff shall take a total money judgment inclusive of costs in the amount of $725, being the sum of the filing fee and service costs claimed.

The blogger in question then accepted the offer -- but there remained one final point of dispute. That $725 fee. The lawyers representing the blogger, Gellis and Paul Levy, have pointed out that Carreon's own actions in avoiding service actually resulted in significantly more costs that they bore, and they'd now like Carreon to pay up to the tune of $4,664.45. Basically, Carreon's own mess resulted in higher costs, and he's now trying to dodge this, just like he dodged service of the lawsuit.

He argues, basically, that since he made this settlement offer and the blogger has accepted the basic terms, everything is done, no more questions can be asked. In other words, in his mind "case closed, nothing to see, move on." Except that misrepresents the reality of the situation. As Levy and Gellis explain in their response, noting that the fees covered in the agreed settlement only covers Rule 4(d)(2)(A) fees (fees associated with service) and not Rule 4(d)(2)(B) fees (attorneys' fees). They point out that even the case that Carreon cites to make his case involved a settlement that explicitly called out attorneys' fees, wherease Carreon's own settlement offer only discussed costs, not attorneys fees, and the two are clearly treated separately and differently under Rule 4.

In Carreon's motion to avoid having to pay, he also pulls the "but I'm really, really sorry" card, combined with the "and people were so mean to me!" card. Levy and Gellis rip this to shreds:

Defendant’s opposition is accompanied by an affidavit in which he apologizes to the Court for imposing the need for proceedings connected with service by refusing to waive service. At the same time apologetic and defiant (such as where he declines to concede that plaintiff actually and properly sought waiver of service), Mr. Carreon suggests that he has suffered enough, that he has been vilified on the Internet and subjected to “a brutal onslaught,” and that the pursuit of this litigation reflect “exaggerated dedication.” This affidavit does not provide any valid basis for denying plaintiff’s claim for attorney fees.

It may well be that, in retrospect, defendant Carreon regrets his conduct; certainly the private email he cites in his affidavit was beyond the pale. Still, it is understandable that his own conduct provoked some public criticism. First, he sent a demand letter to Matthew Inman on behalf of a client claiming defamation, even though the client had no valid grounds to complain. Then, when Inman made fun of Mr. Carreon by starting a fund-raising campaign to raise the demanded amount as a donation to charity—and after that fundraising effort went viral—Mr. Carreon brought a frivolous lawsuit against Inman, against the ISP that hosted the fund-raising campaign, and against the American Cancer Society and National Wildlife Federation, the charities to whom Inman had promised to send the public’s donations. This is the conduct that prompted the outpouring of negative commentary to which defendant’s affidavit vaguely refer. And when plaintiff Recouvreur started an anonymous, satirical web site to comment about the controversy, Mr. Carreon threatened to sue both plaintiff and the company through which plaintiff had registered his domain name.

Although Public Citizen agreed to take this case because the litigation that Mr. Carreon was threatening related to several legal issues in which Public Citizen is interested, it hoped to avoid the need for litigation. Having supported Mr. Carreon’s position in a recent case with an amicus brief, it hoped to avoid the need to litigate by reasoning with Mr. Carreon privately. Before any papers were filed, Mr. Levy telephoned Mr. Carreon to discuss the legal issues, calling his attention to the legal reasons why Mr. Carreon’s claims could not possibly succeed, and then followed up the phone call with an enumeration of cases. It was in response to this effort to avoid litigation that Mr. Carreon responded with the strong threat to litigate, to string out litigation, to seek high levels of monetary relief, to delay filing suit for years, in the hope that Public Citizen would no longer be interested in representing Mr. Recouvreur by then, and to file in a jurisdiction that had not yet adopted the legal principles followed in the Ninth Circuit. In light of the fact that Mr. Carreon had already filed his frivolous suit against Inman, which was still pending (it was dismissed shortly after this action was filed, but not before forcing those defendants to incur substantial attorney fees), plaintiff and his counsel took Mr. Carreon’s threats seriously, and accordingly filed this action for a declaratory judgment of non-infringement. Mr. Carreon’s evasion of service, and his refusal to pay the expenses of service until this motion was filed, were simply a continuation of the pattern of abusing judicial process that created the need for this litigation in the first place.

As an officer of the Court, Mr. Carreon should have known better when he began his course of abusive conduct. Although Mr. Carreon now expresses regret that he chose not to execute a waiver of service, nor to “expose [him]self to service,” nor to pay the service expenses when requested, and that this pattern of conduct subjected the Court to motion proceedings in connection with plaintiff’s service efforts, such apologies do not excuse the extra work that his conduct needlessly imposed on plaintiff and his counsel. Plaintiff’s counsel tried to avoid the need to effect service, not only mailing waiver of service forms but also expressly informing Mr. Carreon, by email, that a waiver of service form was coming in the mail.... Counsel also tried to avoid the need to file this motion, by calling Mr. Carreon to meet and confer and discussing with Mr. Carreon the law that requires payment of service expenses. Mr. Carreon refused, first making spurious arguments,... and then resorting to bluster, this time threatening to sue plaintiff’s counsel for not acquiescing in his demands.

There's also an amusing bit in which Carreon argues that the method that Levy used to declare a reasonable hourly rate for his fees was rejected by a court. Levy, in response, points out that this is true... but that the ruling in question rejected the rates for being too low, and then points out that the rates requested are, bizarrely, "well-supported by Mr. Carreon’s own authority." Charles Carreon making the mistake of opening his own mouth too much strikes yet again, even at this stage of the game. Also, amusing, Levy points out that some of the reason why he's claiming 6.7 hours of his time is because (again) Carreon himself "made clear his intention to litigate each and every possible issue; hence the motion anticipated many possible arguments, including issues to which Mr. Carreon had alluded in explaining why he was not willing to stipulate to any award of expense for service."

In other words: the Carreon Effect is still going on. Even in almost completely capitulating to the key aspects of the case, Carreon can't help but dig his own hole deeper.

Filed Under: attorneys fees, carreon effect, charles carreon, service

Charles Carreon Still Dishing Out Threats & Intimidation... While Hiding From Court Summons

from the keep-digging-carreon dept

Remember that rule number one of the Carreon Effect is that, when someone calls you out on your ridiculous position... just keep digging. And the man behind the effect apparently would like to make sure that his name really does set the gold standard in "just keep digging." Yes, that's right -- the man, the myth, the sheer wackiness of Charles Carreon is back. Except, that is, if you're trying to serve him for bogus threats against you. You may remember Charles Carreon for his famous lawsuit against the Oatmeal and a variety of unrelated other organizations, followed up by threats against parody accounts (doubly amusing, given Carreon's own fondness for parodying others).

While Carreon eventually dropped his lawsuit against Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal, it wasn't before one of the parody bloggers he had threatened filed for declaratory judgment, claiming that his blogging was legal. Carreon quite clearly was threatening the blogger, and had even suggested that he would wait until the attention died down to sue -- which clearly gives the blogger grounds for seeking a declaratory judgment. That, of course, is a separate lawsuit, initiated by the blogger, so Carreon can't just drop it. But what he can do, apparently, is everything possible to avoid being served. The judge's own summary of the situation (via Popehat):

Plaintiff seeks a declaratory judgment that his satirical website does not infringe the trademark defendant has in his own name. Prior to filing a complaint, plaintiff's counsel was in contact with defendant via email. After filing the complaint, defendant and his wife publicly discussed the pending litigation. Plaintiff's counsel mailed defendant a request for waiver of summons to his address in Tucson, Arizona, which defendant did not execute. Instead, the entire envelope was mailed back to plaintiff, unopened, inside a second envelope. This same sequence of events was repeated after plaintiff filed an amended complaint. At plaintiff's request, the Court issued a summons, and plaintiff hired an Arizona process service company to serve the summons at the residential address. On the first visit, the server announced himself and was told “No thank you,” and left with the papers. On the second and third visits, nobody answered. The process service company then tried to serve the summons and complaint by certified mail, but the package was never claimed.

Of course, during this time that Carreon was hiding out from officially being served, it didn't stop him from continuing to find ways to intimidate the blogger in question. Again, from the judge:

During this time, defendant contacted the general counsel of Walgreens, plaintiff's employer, stating plaintiff had used Walgreens' computer equipment or internet access to create the allegedly actionable website, and implying he might make Walgreens a party to the litigation under a theory of respondeat superior. The demand letter sent to Walgreens contained the same Tucson, Arizona address and email address that plaintiff had been using to attempt service on defendant.

Following that, the blogger's lawyers once again emailed Carreon a copy of the summons, complaint and amended complaint -- including sending it to the address Carreon used to threaten Walgreens... and Carreon ignored that too.

Unfortunately, Carreon seems to be working the system effectively. Because even with all of these obvious attempts to avoid having to actually deal with the lawsuit against him, the judge is asking the blogger and his lawyers to "try harder:"

The process server could easily wait outside the fence for defendant to enter or leave the residence and could then leave the papers in the defendant's presence. Alternatively, the process server may choose to wait near a location defendant is thought to frequent, such as an office or grocery store. If the defendant still refuses to accept the papers, it will be considered sufficient if the “server is in close proximity to the defendant, clearly communicates intent to serve court documents, and makes reasonable efforts to leave the papers with the defendant.”

And with that, the judge refuses to allow the emails to constitute proper service. Public Citizen, who is handling the case pro bono, is asking for donations to help pay for hiring someone to "sit outside Carreon's house until Carreon appears," noting that he's "carrying through on his promise to run up the cost of litigation."

It's unclear what Carreon thinks he's accomplishing here, as he's going to have to face these charges eventually. But, as once again seems clear, his response is to... just keep digging.

Filed Under: carreon effect, charles carreon, declaratory judgment, hiding, parody, process server

Charles Carreon Stops Digging, At Least For The Moment: Dismisses His Lawsuit [Updated]

from the put-down-the-popcorn dept

Well, we may have found at least a temporary answer to the question of "just how far will Charles Carreon dig?" According to Mark Lemley, one of the lawyers representing IndieGoGo against Carreon, Charles Carreon has just dismissed his lawsuit. One hopes this means that he's finally realized that this entire process was a mistake. A broad apology for massive overreaction after massive overreaction from Carreon (and his wife who apparently referred to us at Techdirt as a "nazi scumbag") might be nice, but if it's just a general admission that he had gone too far, that seems good enough. Of course, given how far he went, and his repeated insistence on not giving up, I do wonder if this is really the end of all of this. Somehow I doubt it. This is a voluntary dismissal, which means he could refile. But, for a brief moment, it appears that he's stopped digging.

Update: Carreon is apparently declaring victory, claiming that the lawsuit gave him what he wanted. Uh, yeah. He sued to make sure that Matthew Inman and IndieGoGo did exactly what they said they were going to do... and then when they did exactly what they promised to do, he claims that's a victory? At best, he did two things: had Inman limit the donations to just two charities rather than four, and made Inman take some of his own money out of the bank to photograph it (as promised) for Funnyjunk, rather than use the actual money raised during the IndieGoGo campaign. If his goal there was to force that to prevent embarrassment I don't see how that's a victory. Does anyone honestly believe that Carreon came out of this with a better reputation than if he'd just let the original plans happen? Carreon could still face requests for legal fees from those he sued, though it wouldn't surprise me if they all just dropped it. Carreon seems to think the newfound attention he's received is a good thing, which just shows how completely out of touch he is. As Ars Technica notes:

But if the defendants pursued attorney's fees, the attention might be worth it for Charles Carreon. After asking for comment on his voluntary dismissal of charges, Carreon lilted over the phone, "I'm famous, I'm notorious." Which, from the looks of it, is exactly what he wants.

There are times that it's worthwhile to be notorious. And there are times that it's not. This is the second one.

Filed Under: carreon effect, charles carreon, digging, dismissal, matthew inman, the oatmeal
Companies: american cancer society, indiegogo, national wildlife foundation