Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, jim bell wrote:
At 12:52 PM 2/1/97 -0500, Mark M. wrote:
On Sat, 1 Feb 1997, Peter J. Capelli wrote:
You mean to say, rich people can overcrowd the courts as much as they like, while others are restricted by contigency-only lawyers ( Call 1-800-AMBULANCE! ) ... and what of the case of a rich person trying to control a poor one with many frivolous lawsuits ... while they can afford to file lawsuit after lawsuit, the poor person cannot defend himself.
What, exactly, would be the point of suing a poor person?
To quiet him from political dissent, presumably. I think the term coined a few years ago was "SLAPP", something akin to "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Policy," or similar.
I should point out that in my previous post, I was refering to the specific instance of libel -- not any general lawsuit. I can think of very few instances where a rich person would sue someone without the resources to even defend himself for libel just to harass the defendant. I'm sure there are a few cases, but it wouldn't be worth the plaintiff's time or money. I would be interested if anyone knows of any specific examples of this. Mark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3 Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBMvQQAyzIPc7jvyFpAQFAfQgAp5qsAm9LZdXeR3+8s4LkUv5qH6Ju8Rda te3EJ90gjHxDcv/QRopQ3fRM5KzsHgr5JqPRWDFF0Zo3CxbRsB8x/CK3aIo2axpt xEAeA/TT3oBWOCXFs2fVR6dCy4XAMh4e/q58kNnDqqUnJNBgto5kr8Hp4op9Ypgi WO0G0Su6L8JuBwnui6Ni5XxHSBchBwu6Z0Jv0TFrG43lnS++K+UriX9cIYxR8JVH roUg/9SDCZysmuEvNh8VMLAd492wD2jhge4LiiYaSNWrpe5JD2jA/nJ9Olevpu3v 4+75YOpRIgHAugMyl/bbNZgTjStoLUicHATyt7PLEUtj/sbmPbakkQ== =qrVu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Mark M.