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Nov
20
This post at the Citizen Media Law Project has the details. The Orlando Sentinal published this article over the weekend and sums up for this case what we were talking about in this case yesterday:
Unhappy with her daughter’s private school, Sonjia McSween created a blog to warn other parents.
The unexpected result: The New School of Orlando Inc. slapped McSween with a defamation lawsuit to stop her from publishing and talking about the school and force McSween to pay damages.
Some say it’s a case of censorship. Others say First Amendment rights have nothing to do with it.
Here’s the most interesting portion to me from the Project’s piece about the Orlando case:
One last point: some of the news reports (here, here, and here) are indicating that the school sued McSween “to stop her from publishing and talking about the school . . . .” Stated this way, the lawsuit seems a more outrageous infringement on free speech than it really is. Like many complaints in defamation actions, the New School complaint requests an injunction prohibiting McSween from “making any further defamatory, libelous, slanderous, and/or disparaging statements regarding New School, on or through any media, and such other and further relief as the Court may deem proper.” Courts rarely grant these kinds of injunctions, even if narrowed to apply only to statements found defamatory after trial. But see Balboa Island Village Inn, Inc. v. Lemen, 156 P.3d 339 (Cal. 2007) (injunction barring speech that trial court found defamatory not invalid prior restraint, but overbroad to extent it prohibited defendant from presenting her grievances to government officials). In any event, this is a far cry from seeking an injunction barring McSween from “publishing and talking about the school.”
Here’s the New School’s website.
I don’t know – at some level, it feels like, people must know that people have these face to face or phone conversations during which they say all these things – they express themselves. Is that defamation? Once it’s on a blog, how does it change?
I guess as a parent who is engaged and asks questions and listens to other people complain about their schools, is it right to change the rules once you publish your complaints? Is this about blogger responsibility? What are the limits we should have, if any, especially if a blog is in fact intentional in saying the worst possible untruths about something or someone?
That’s not to say that someone can’t say untruths, but, well, can they?
By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:15 pm November 20th, 2007 in Blogging, Civil Rights, Education, Social Issues, Tech
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9 Responses to “New School of Orlando sues blogger over expressions of frustration-deja vu all over again?”
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Shalom Jill,
If what the mother wrote is true, then the school has no recourse.
B’shalom,
Jeff
Of course.
That’s always the case. But how do we divine truth? If we’re talking about her perspective of who did what…
For example, some folks have spent a lot of time arguing whether Jeff Coryell quit or was fired from Wide Open. Is one true and the other isn’t?
I say I resigned but some say I quit. Which is it? Is one untruthful?
Shalom Jill,
From my understanding of the facts, Jeff resigned, i.e. he objected to a condition of his further employment and offered his employer a choice: change that condition or I will leave. If he had not resigned then he would have been fired.
In your case, it’s a class issue. Blue-collar workers quit, White-collar workers resign.
There is also the fine distinction that a resignation may be refused but when you quit, you quit.
B’shalom,
Jeff
[...] New School of Orlando sues blogger… digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=5585″; digg_skin = [...]
“Some folks,” Jill? How nice of you not to cast stones at anyone in particular. But then, in the spirit of both friendship and holiday spirit, I’ve decided to just put all this aside for good. Still, it was nice to see Jeff’s reading of the situation is the same as mine, or at least substantially the same. And by the way, Jill, as you may or may not have noticed, Howie Kurtz even weighed in (very lightly) on this issue in his Monday column:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/18/AR2007111801390_pf.html
Thanks Jeff, and for the link, John.
Have a good holiday, too.
Jeff – I guess what messes me up here is that the conditions given to Jeff applied exactly to me, but I wasn’t approached when he was: I made donations to Sherrod Brown and Marc Dann. The only difference is that LaT is in a race for 2008, neither Brown or Dann are. Are you saying that if we’d both been approached and given the ultimatum Jeff was given, then we’d both be seen as resigning?
Do you think it matters, just out of curiosity?
Shalom Jill,
Of course it matters.
You contributed to now-seated political officials, not their opponents.
I can think of a few bloggers who aren’t in the favor of seated Democrats that might very well, upon whispers in the correct ears, elicit the same reaction from the Plain Dealer.
As to your second question, I think you both are seen as resigning. Do you think you did not or was I unclear in my previous comment post?
B’shalom,
Jeff
See – I think it matters, too. So why the different treatment? That’s what I still don’t get.
Well – resigning/quitting – I recognize the distinction you make, I think it can be applicable but I still think a lot of it has to do with the one saying it – that is, whether I want to say I resigned or I want to say I quit. There’s a rule-following/rule-breaking thing I think about, more than a class thing. But, you know, why do these words come into creation in the first place but to describe things that are slightly different?