Re: Libel & the 1st Amendment
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. For example, "Company A" wants to build a mine or factory or something similar at a location. Citizens object, causing political problems. Company sues the individuals for damages, which costs the individuals a great deal of money to defend against even if they never lose the suit. The real problem is actually a series of mistakes: 1. Individual should not be able to cause political problems for company. 2. "Government" should not be able to impact company activities short of actual harm. 3. Company should not be able to impact individual by suing except for actual harm done by that individual. Naturally, the source of these problems is that by each of their existence, lawyers make more money. As usual, I have a solution to that problem. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com
-----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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