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Attention to those people who hide behind screen names on such message boards as Topix and AOL----there are consequences to pay.
A Florida woman, founder of Parents' Universal Resource Experts Inc., has been awarded $11.3 million in damages in Broward County Circuit Court, one of the largest awards ever for Internet defamation, after a jury found that a Louisiana woman had posted negative messages against the businesswoman and her company, calling her a "con artist" and "fraud".
Sue Scheff of Weston, Fla., owner of the children's services referral organization who had spoken out publicly against a Utah-based company that provided referral services to boarding schools for troubled teens, said that the verdict sent the message "you just can't go out there on these blogs and slander and defame people without having any facts to substantiate what you are stating……just because you don't like someone or what they do, it does not give you carte blanche to post false statements about a person on the Internet".
Scheff, represented by attorney David Pollack of Miami, had filed the lawsuit in 2003 against Carey Bock of Mandeville, La. Bock failed to show up for the proceeding.
Pollack said that "you can't just destroy somebody's life, destroy somebody's reputation and make blatant false statements" without consequences.
Scheff had helped get Bock's two sons out of a Costa Rica school but then Bock allegedly began posting defamatory statements against her on a bulletin board that was viewed by parents of other troubled teens and potential customers of her business.
Scheff's attorney had offered to settle the suit for $35,000 pre-trial. http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1160039129767
10-11-06
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Country Gazette
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