{"id":2099,"date":"2002-03-11T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2002-03-11T20:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2002-03-11T15:54:17","modified_gmt":"2002-03-11T20:54:17","slug":"sweet_sue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/03\/11\/sweet_sue.html","title":{"rendered":"Sweet sue"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why bother pursuing high levels of customer satisfaction through good service and quality product when you can just sue the snot out of anyone who bitches about you on an Internet forum<\/a>? <\/p>\n

That appears to be the tactic pursued by PetsWarehouse against some folks on an aquarium discussion board who complained about the service they’d received. They — along with CompuServe and the Long Island Better Business Bureau — are being sued by PetsWarehouse for $15MM for defamation.<\/p>\n

Don’t think it can work? Some of the defendents have already settled<\/a>, agreeing to take down posts that they made, run banner ads on their site for PetsWarehouse, or otherwise pay damages.<\/p>\n

In the litigation biz, this seems to be what is known as a “SLAPP” (strategic litigation against public participation). A number of states have passed laws to prevent this. New York does not seem to be one of them.<\/p>\n

Got a few bucks? There’s a legal defense fund started up for this one.<\/p>\n

(Via Boing Boing<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why bother pursuing high levels of customer satisfaction through good service and quality product when you can just sue the snot out of anyone who bitches about you on an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131949,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/11\/06\/when-lawyers-fear-the-possible-future-president.html","url_meta":{"origin":2099,"position":0},"title":"When lawyers fear the (possible future) president","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 6-Nov-16 6:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, yeah, everyone hates lawyers. 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Trump\u2019s record of filing lawsuits to punish and silence his critics,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":137293,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/09\/a-few-signs-of-hope-for-the-colorado-river.html","url_meta":{"origin":2099,"position":1},"title":"A few signs of hope for the Colorado River","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 9-Oct-18 9:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The states downstream that draw water from the Colorado River -- California being the 800 lb. gorilla, but Arizona and Nevada doing their share -- pull more water from the river than is actually put into it by upstream states (Colorado in particular). The result has been decades of agreements,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28081,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/02\/kafka-would-be-proud.html","url_meta":{"origin":2099,"position":2},"title":"Kafka would be proud","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 2-Jun-12 1:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because, remember -- to protect you, the government has to be protected from you.Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter told Judge Michael Daly Hawkins and M. 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Hmmmm ..._'On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved giving Gov. Pat McCrory's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133627,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/07\/when-is-a-twitter-account-a-public-government-forum.html","url_meta":{"origin":2099,"position":4},"title":"When is a Twitter Account a public government forum?","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 7-Jun-17 7:05am","format":false,"excerpt":"The suggestion that Trump banning people from his @RealDonaldTrump account on Twitter is a violation of their 1st Amendment right to Free Speech (and perhaps their 14th Amendment right to Equal Treatments under the Law) is, on the face of it, absurd-sounding.On the other hand, if it is actually used\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129805,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/11\/arbitrary-arbitration.html","url_meta":{"origin":2099,"position":5},"title":"Arbitrary Arbitration","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 11-Feb-16 8:43am","format":false,"excerpt":"Senate Democrats have introduced a new bill (which, of course, will go nowhere, but still) to reduce the usage of forced arbitration clauses in contracts.https:\/\/vtdigger.org\/2016\/02\/05\/leahy-unveils-legislation-restore-rights-americans-forced-arbitration\/'\u201cWhen Americans sign cell phone agreements, rent an apartment, or accept a contract for a job, most of us focus on the service we are about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/magnifying-glass-looking-at-contract5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/magnifying-glass-looking-at-contract5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/magnifying-glass-looking-at-contract5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}