The Wisconsin Court of Appeals upheld $25,000 in damages for
a Facebook defamation case-involving Plaintiff, Stephen Laughland,
and Defendant, John Beckett.
In 2010 a friend brought a fake Facebook account to
Laughland’s attention. The page included Laughland’s full name and an actual
picture. The content of the page was extremely negative with posts allegedly by
Laughland claiming to be corrupt, a “preying swindler,” a bank manipulator, and
someone who owes a serious debt to society. After hiring an attorney, it was determined
that the account creator was Laughland’s ex-girlfriends’ boyfriend, Beckett. A
suit for defamation was later filled in 2012.
Beckett argued that Laughland was time-barred in filing the
suit and that all his statements were true based off of public foreclosure and
bankruptcy records that he had obtained regarding Laughland. Beckett testified
that he was trying to protect consumers from financial harm that could be
caused by Laughland. The appeals court did not buy this excuse and awarded
Laughland $10,000 in punitive damages and $15,000 in general damages. The Court
of Appeals ruled the financial comments about Laughland were based on mere
speculation about the meaning of bankruptcy and were not true. Truth is an
affirmative defense to defamation meaning you cannot be sued for telling the
truth.
The lesson in the end is social media’s popularity creates
more opportunities to defame and creates a passage to defamation lawsuits.
“Whether it’s a disparaging blog post, Facebook status update, or YouTube
video, online defamation is treated the same way as more traditional forms…you
can be sued for any defamatory statements you post online.”
No comments:
Post a Comment