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Pastimes : Business Wire Falls for April Fools Prank, Sues FBNers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter V who wrote (3613)	12/7/1999 11:23:00 PM
From: Jeffrey S. Mitchell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3795

Pete, Well said. People need to view everything in context. For example, in the US, unlike in Europe, we do not have a legal system based on "loser pays". Accordingly, you could be accused of a totally ludicrous crime and get totally wasted financially well before you ever get a day in court. Therefore, as a defendant, all you really want to do is get the charges dropped and the lawsuit dismissed as soon as possible. Some may argue that "victory" is winning in court. Everyone who thinks this way should ask themselves this question: is having a jury tell you you are not guilty of something you knew was ludicrous from the start a "victory"? Is spending a few hundred grand and having to waste time fighting a meritless lawsuit before you even get your day in court a "victory"? That's why federal anti-SLAPP is so important. It nips these frivolous suits in the bud. Now look at things from the point of view of the insurance company. They are, plain and simple, a business. Sure they will defend their client to the end if they have to, but their goal is spend as little money as possible to get the case over and done with. So, here we have a situation where we the defendants were totally and unequivocally released from all charges against us. This is not a judge or jury saying this, this is the plaintiff, Business Wire, themselves! How much better could one expect?! Now we have Safeco Insurance agreeing to pay 100% of the settlement. As a defendant, isn't another goal to not have to pay a single penny in settlement money? Now let's look at things from Business Wire's point of view. They blew over $100K on legal fees, made fools of themselves, and never got the people they sued to admit to, or be convicted of, a single charge they levied against them. For their trouble they got a multi-billion dollar insurance company to pay them $27,500 and people laughing their asses off at their stupidity. Is that a victory? When Safeco Insurance first signed on it was hilarious to watch Business Wire come running with their tin cups begging for money. When they filed a desperate motion to collect $40,000 they spent on defending our anti-SLAPP motion we knew they could dish it out but couldn't take it. If you think I'm exaggerating, why do you think they accepted only a fraction of their legal fees and absolve those big bad Silicon Investor members of all the charges?! I see now that Business Wire has put out a press release liking us, people who were totally absolved of any wrongdoing, in with the guy who was convicted of a fake PairGain press release on Bloomberg. This follows on the heels of BW CEO Lokey saying "We probably do as well or better a job of weeding out this stuff than The Wall Street Journal does..." All I can say is the truth has a nasty way of revealing itself and to quote Jack Nicholson, I don't think Lokey can handle the truth. - Jeff

To: Peter V who wrote (3613)	12/8/1999 8:30:00 AM
From: Mark Marcellus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3795

I'm sorry, but I don't think this was a victory for the Webnode 3. BW got too damn much satisaction out of it. True, but this may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory indeed. I cannot comprehend why, in this day and age, BW has left such a wide opening for future class action suits. It seems to me that the bar has been significantly raised for the due diligence required on the part of BW when they distribute a press release. In that sense, I think you can say that the WN3 have won a victory. After all, it was their highlighting of that lack of due diligence which started all the fuss.