US Legal Blog Above the Law Sued for $22m
First things first, we’re glad its not us. Secondly, if someone did sue us for $22m we’d probably feel some sort of backhanded flattery. And slightly sick. The case involves the blog’s coverage of a prominent University of Miami School of Law professor and civil rights advocate Donald Marvin Jones, who was arrested on suspicion of, but never charged with, soliciting an undercover officer for sex. The suit by the African-American academic, nicknamed by ATL as "The Nutty Professor", claims …
First things first, we’re glad its not us. Secondly, if someone did sue us for $22m we’d probably feel some sort of backhanded flattery. And slightly sick.
The case involves the blog’s coverage of a prominent University of Miami School of Law professor and civil rights advocate Donald Marvin Jones, who was arrested on suspicion of, but never charged with, soliciting an undercover officer for sex. The suit by the African-American academic, nicknamed by ATL as "The Nutty Professor", claims the blog portrayed him in a false light, invaded his privacy and infringed school’s copyright on his faculty photo. The suit also alleges that Above the Law, "instigated its readers not only to read the post but also to join in what was clearly a viciously racist series of rants.”
Whatever the actual merits of the case; we are not familiar enough with the subtleties of the US legal system and the alleged wrongs to judge, a consensus (amongst the US legal blogging community at any rate) seems to be building that the case doesn’t really stand much chance. (See Law Review , Copyrights & Campaigns )
Check out ATL’s own post on the matter (slightly more restrained than their usual offerings):
Lawsuit of the Day: Jones v. Minkin
(Or: Above the Law gets sued!!!)
UPDATE
Lawsuit of the Week Update: Above the Law Not Being Sued Anymore
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November 4, 2009
surprised it took that long for them to get sued
November 4, 2009
What has astounded the legal Blogosphere is that a law professor would file a federal court complaint riddled with spelling and grammatical errors (he misspells the President’s name in the fist paragraph and goes downhill from there), let alone that the professor attempts to set forth a legal theory that the Supreme Court of his own home State of Florida refused to recognize just last year.
For instance, the legal scholar asks for a jury trial on all “friable” issues. And then there is the irony of an African American law professor not knowing how to spell the name of the President of the United States—who is a former Harvard Law professor; not to mention the mystery of Barack Obama being discussed at all in a defamation complaint against a law blog and its editor and publisher.
For a hilarious (but typically obscene) send up of the Complaint, see this link for the unruly ivy league discussion board AutoAdmit post on the suit; you will laugh out loud.
http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=1127831&mc=88&forum_id=2&PHPSESSID=5954f3281e658cc0a23e2d7361e95724#13162062
November 4, 2009
I don’t know anything about court filings in the US but I had a look at it and it is truly embarrasing for someone supposed to be a law professor.