Guardian
Woman wins payout for slurs on blog
Ed Pilkington in New York
Thursday October 12, 2006
Guardian
A jury in Florida has awarded a woman $11.3m (£6m) in costs and damages after a former acquaintance accused her of being a crook, a con artist and a fraudster on an internet talkboard.
The award, believed to be the largest verdict of it sort relating to individual postings on bulletin boards or blogs, was handed down by a jury in Broward County, Florida, against a woman from Louisiana. The sum included $5m (£2.7m) in punitive damages.
Sue Scheff, who runs a small educational business in Weston, Florida, filed the lawsuit in 2003 claiming she had been subjected to 10 months of ugly criticism on the internet from Carey Bock. Ms Bock, from Mandeville, Louisiana, had posted the comments on Fornits.com, a board used by parents of troubled teenagers. Ms Bock did not attend the final hearing.
How would a court react to someone posting libel comments like "alcoholic,death threats,habitual liar?"
O Canada
Ontario Court issues injunction against Internet defamation
Bradley J. Freedman | Current to: June 4, 2004
Posted: Tuesday, July 06, 2004
In the June 4, 2004 decision in Barrick Gold Corporation v. Lopehandia, [2004] O.J. No. 2329, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered increased damages and issued a permanent injunction against a British Columbia resident responsible for "a systematic, extensive and vicious campaign" of Internet libel against Barrick. The decision demonstrates that, in appropriate cases, Canadian courts will issue injunctions prohibiting Internet defamation even though the responsible persons are outside the court's territorial jurisdiction.
Bloggers beware
Writing the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth can keep you out of trouble — both in your personal and public life — only to a point. While truth is the defense for libel and slander, it is NOT a defense for invasion of privacy and the Internet is the new frontier where not everything is clearly defined.
And even if you consider your blog a diary, that doesn't keep you safe from character defamation charges - and the cost could be as much as 23 years of your life.
Death threats
New York man pleads guilty to Internet death threat
By Carson Walker, Associated Press
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A former Veterans Administration law enforcement officer from New York state will serve six months of home confinement for threatening to kill a Rapid City woman through e-mail.
Edward S. Grenawalt, 47, of Yonkers, N.Y., pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Rapid City to one count of making a threatening communication and was sentenced to two years probation.
Besides the home detention, U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier also restricted his use of the Internet.
