Wednesday, March 16, 2011

First Amendment, First Ashedmint

The traveling  "O.J. jury" lands in Minneapolis

  1. A blogger named John Hoff, a.k.a. "Johnny Northside," wrote a scathing blog post about Jerry Moore
  2. He correctly cited Moore's involvement in a high-profile mortgage fraud
  3. The University of Minnesota, who had recently hired Moore, fired him the next day.
  4. Moore sues Hoff.
  5. His lawyer shyster claims "emotional distress"  due to "tortious interference" with employment.
  6. Did I say Moore was involved in mortgage fraud?
  7. The 7 member jury awarded the "community leader" $60,000.
  8. Did I say Moore actually, really was involved in mortgage fraud?
Community activist Jerry Moore

Jane Hartley's, a U of M professor of media law and ethics, called the lawsuit an example of "trash torts," in which someone unable to sue for libel, which by definition involves falsity, reaches for another legal claim. She predicted the verdict will be overturned.

The verdict also surprised U of M law professor William McGeveran, but he wasn't so certain that it will be easily overturned. Appeals courts tend to give a lot of credence to jury verdicts, he said.

Blogger Has To Pay In Libel Case... Despite Telling The Truth
Jury: Blogger Johnny Northside must pay $60,000 to fired community leader

I think it fair to say that the judge was a total asshat too.

8 comments:

Unknown said...

Community Leader? MPR call him a Community Organizer, like Quonell X and that other guy - Barry Somethingorother.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2011/03/11/blogger-lawsuit/

Can't wait for THAT lawsuit.

Gayle Miller said...

The adults are definitely NOT in charge!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I'd say that's fair to say.
Any information on the judge's political leaning? As if I can't guess with 80% certainty.

Anonymous said...

Considering they elected Jesse the body Ventura and Al Franken, no, the adults are NOT in charge. I wonder if those long cold winters are freezing what little brains they obviously have. I can find no other reason for this kind of stupidity.

Bolivar

Anonymous said...

I am more than a little tired of people ragging about Jesse Ventura. The other choices were Skip Humphrey (D) and Norm Coleman (R) but really a former (D) who was actually a (RINO). I think the rationale was "How the hell could he be worse". Unfortunately, once Jesse got into office he did the same thing 90% of them do. He was more concerned with what the media said about him than with what he said on the campaign trail. I voted for him then and if you put the same choices in front of me today, I would vote for him again. I will always pick the unknown quantity when the others choices are assholes. But I could be wrong.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Fairly stated anon

Anonymous said...

Would he have sued if it had been ABCBS who had published the post?

...or just sued for more?

e~C

Anonymous said...

Been a lurkin' here for quite long time. I enjoy all you folks - a lot.

Sorry Anon - Jesse was, and is, a buffoon of the highest order.

Unfortunately, the voters here in MN have pulled some doozies. Besides Franken and Jesse we were (I think) the only state that Mondale won when he ran for prez.

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