FreeSpeech and Censorship: Standing at End of Internet Sidewalk, AltTech, KiwiFarms, ED

[grarpamp]

Using US Courts to Burn Money, for Free, Forever
Saturday, Nov 06, 2021
by Joshua Moon

https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230

I have been sued by the same woman six times pro se in forma pauperis.

Pro se in forma pauperis means “for yourself while poor”. It is a
combination of two distinct legal terms: pro se, when representing
yourself without a lawyer, and in forma pauperis, when you file and
are unable to pay court fees. The United States strives for equitable
justice; we permit people too poor to hire attorneys to represent
their own legal interests, and we allow the poorest people to avoid
paying court fees when they docket a case.

Melinda Scott, the litigant, is a Virginian who converted to Judaism
and has had several children with several different men. She calls
herself a matriarch and the head of her household, but is financially
supported by taxpayers. She has very little income outside of her
welfare and her only ‘business’ is new age garbage catering to a sect
of Judaism which she has invented herself as a self-purported “Torah
scholar”.

She is worth nothing. Her personal income is nonexistent. The social
security money she collects for her children cannot be garnished. Her
primary residence and vehicle cannot be collected to pay the financial
damages she causes.

Melinda represents herself, pays nothing to file, and spends her
worthless time writing worthless legal arguments which must be taken
as seriously by her targets as any other lawsuit. She has attempted to
sue me or my LLC at least once a year every year for five years. For
the first five times, she failed to state a claim and the judge threw
out her cases sua sponte — without me needing to respond at all.

The courts operate on an honor system. If the plaintiff files a
complaint which cites a law, alleges facts by which they are owed
relief under that law, and dockets it in the right court, that court
will presume the claims are true. For example: “I was injured in this
way, and I am owed damages under this statute, and this is the right
jurisdiction for this claim”. Melinda has failed to meet this low, low
bar of entry five times in a row.

Lawsuit number 6 comes and the courts allow it through for the first
time. Through trial and error, she succeeded in passing the sniff
test. Then, she lied by claiming I was properly served at a virtual
mailbox. I was never served. I didn’t reply to the lawsuit, because I
had never been served, and she automatically receives a default
judgement a few months later. She had finally won — at least
temporarily.

I later receive a letter at my virtual office notifying me that I’ve
lost a lawsuit. So, I lawyer up. I’m fortunate to have an attorney,
Matthew Hardin, who sympathizes with this sort of injustice. Pity only
goes so far when it comes to legal expenses. Even being billed for
fewer than half the hours spent working the case, it is still
thousands of dollars. A typical retainer is $5,000 and that covers
just overturning the default judgement. There’s still work to win the
case.

I run a website called the Kiwi Farms. It is a forum about eccentric
people on the Internet. Users of the forum were discussing a man who
had been stalking Melinda. He joined to defend himself, and in these
discussions mentioned her by name. She finds out about this somehow
and immediately threatened me with legal action unless I deleted every
post made by this man. I told her I would not censor my website and
that she should be using these posts to augment her legal arguments
against him. In the process, I become the first person to ever tell
Melinda “no”, and she has been busy filing lawsuits against me ever
since.

There are some other problems with hosting a contentious website.
Primarily, it is impossible to monetize. I’ve written extensively
about this issue. See: Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Death of the
Internet and Section 230 isn’t the problem, Payment Networks are. The
total lack of monetization options make legal expenses especially
painful.

Meanwhile, Russell Greer is suing me in Utah, again pro se in forma
pauperis. This time, it’s for contributory copyright damages and false
light (a kind of defamation). Russell Greer is an ex-Mormon who
considers himself a civil rights activist because he has a paralyzed
face from a congenital disability (Mobius syndrome). He wants to
legalize prostitution so that people with disabilities can pay for
sex.

That’s not what makes Russell Greer a laughingstock. Instead, it is
his obsession with famous women. He has sued both Taylor Swift and
Ariana Grande for not taking him out on dates. He would send them
gifts, such as original lyrics for songs, and then expected them to
reciprocate by giving him something he wants in return (a date / sex).
He also has been convicted of cyberstalking a woman local to him.

After losing his first case against Swift, he self-published a book
called Why I Sued Taylor Swift: and How I Became Falsely Known as
Frivolous, Litigious and Crazy which included a full-color comic where
she literally stabs him in the heart. He’s a very funny guy,
unintentionally.

Greer’s other creative work is Yo, Yovanna!, a love song directed at
Yovanna Ventura, a Dominican actress and model. It’s a generic
sounding pop track he wrote the lyrics for, but paid someone else to
perform (his condition prevents him from verbally articulating himself
clearly). This song ends up posted on the Kiwi Farms and is harshly
criticized for being creepy. Greer responded to this criticism by
sending me a DMCA complaint demanding that the song be removed. I
refused and told him that it’s being used fairly for the purposes of
criticism and ridicule. He escalates the matter to the courts by suing
me personally and “Kiwi Farms, a website.”

Greer tends to use the court system as punishment. Displease him, and
he will try to litigate you into doing what he wants. Humorously, when
he sued Taylor Swift, he took her to small claims court. These courts
typically try to keep costs down by forcing people to represent
themselves instead of hiring attorneys. His strategy was to force
TayTay to show up in person and deal with him. Instead, Greg Skordas
was allowed to represent her, however, and Greer never managed to set
up his romantic date in a Utah small claims court.

Greg Skordas is a Utah attorney and was the Democratic nominee for
Utah Attorney General in 2020. He has represented Taylor Swift, Ariana
Grande, and yours truly. Greer thusly considers Skordas his nemesis
and has harassed his family over Facebook.

Greer’s complaint against me was two-fold: he alleged that I
contributed to theft of his song by allowing it to be posted (using
Napster as a comparison), and that I put him in “false light” when a
sentence alleging Greer had “victims” was featured on the front page
of my website. His actual legal argument is: he was only convicted of
cyberstalking once, so he has only a single victim, thus claiming he
has multiple victims is defamatory. This is not a joke.

The court upheld that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
protects me from damages caused by user generated content on my
platform. Section 230 is important and provides protections for
alt-tech just as it does for big tech. Any proposals to amend Section
230 should be considered very carefully.

Skordas’s firm has competently represented my interests in Utah.
Greer’s case was dismissed, and so were his post-mortem motions to
have the case reopened. He is now appealing the decision in a higher
court. Skordas has also been generous in not charging me for all
billable hours, but even half of an attorney’s bill is a lot of money.

Melinda’s lawsuit has also been thrown out and she is also appealing.
She actively posts on my forum, despite suing me over alleged
emotional distress it has caused her. In these posts, she has stated
intentions to appeal all the way up to the United States Supreme
Court. When they refuse to hear it, she will file a new lawsuit. If
she can’t file in Virginia, she’ll do it in a random state, where I
would have to find a new attorney who may not be as sympathetic
towards my situation as Hardin and willing to save me on billable
hours.

I am in a difficult position. I could try to get a judgement for
attorney’s fees. Ironically, this costs money to file. Once I have my
judgement, I have to go back to court to try enforcing it.

With Greer, I believe he works a job and I can garnish his wages. He
might also have money I could try and take. His family is wealthy and
they might choose to bail him out of debt. I could also ask for the
rights to Yo, Yovanna! and write that off as part of his debt. Then, I
could make money with it. My users would probably buy a vinyl press of
Yo, Yovanna! and it would be good fun.

With Melinda, it’s not so simple. She has no job, she has no
supporting family, she has nothing but her children (and indentured
child labor is off the table these days). She has two books I could
win the rights to, but nothing as funny as Yo, Yovanna!. I would have
to actually physically repossess her belongings after winning the
power to do so in the debtor’s court. If I send a debt collector into
her home, I would ask he wear a camera.

Maybe a video ‘wall of shame’ on the site would deter future pro se in
forma paupis litigants. Maybe it wouldn’t. It’s a gamble, and it’s a
gamble with money I don’t really want to gamble with.

What other option do I have?

There is no point in moving my company out of the US. As long as I am
American and I have property in the US, a default judgement can be
used to take that property or garnish my income.

Labeling repeat offenders as “vexatious litigants” is hard and it’s
infrequently used. A vexatious litigant has limitations on how they
may litigate (for instance, they can only file litigation with an
attorney representing them or must have all complaints reviewed by a
judge before they can be filed with the court and served). This would
not stop them from simply litigating in a different jurisdiction. A
vexatious litigant in Utah can still file lawsuits in Nevada. It would
also cost money to litigate each person and ask they be classified as
a vexatious litigant, and it would not be a guarantee to win.

There is no criminal element. A judge could find a litigant in
contempt of court, but the judge would first have to instruct them to
do something they refuse to do. Simply abusing the court system like
this does not result in criminal charges.

I could represent myself pro se to try and reduce expense. I cannot,
however, represent my LLC pro se. Any lawsuit involving an entity that
is not my person cannot be represented by me. These lawsuits usually
identify an entity which is not myself. It is still a gamble. What if
I do a bad job, then lose? I would have to hire an attorney and still
be stuck with those bad legal arguments made out of naivety. Fighting
my own words could end up costing more than an attorney would have to
begin with.

I have loss conditions. I can only spend so much money. They file for
free, and there’s no way to recoup losses. Unless I simply make enough
money to deal with this forever, it will be a winning strategy,
eventually.

Our country rewards only its biggest burdens.

    Scott v. Moon (2017)
    Wise/Norton General District Court (GV1700529-00)
    Scott v. Wise County Commonwealths, et al. (2017)
    U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (C2:17CV00023)
    Scott v. Moon (2017)
    Wise County Circuit Court (CL17000827-00)
    Scott v. Carlson, et al. (2018)
    U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (2:18CV47)
    Scott v. Moon, et al (2019)
    U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia (2:19CV5)
    Greer v. Moon (2019)
    U.S. District Court District Court for Utah, Central Divsion
(2:20-CV-00647-TC)
    Scott v. Wise County Department of Social Services, et al. (2020)
    U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, Big
Stone Gap Division (2:20CV00014)