Watch what you say in the chat rooms or forums. You never know when some one will take it a bit too far.
A Virginia man enraged about a squabble that took place inside an Internet chat room with a Texas man exacted revenge by driving to the man’s home and setting it on fire, The Waco Tribune-Herald reported Tuesday.
Could this recent event be used as a precedent for the ShoeMoney Slander in Blog comments post at ShoeMoney.com?
A Florida woman has been awarded $11.3 million in a defamation lawsuit against a Louisiana woman who posted messages on the Internet accusing her of being a “crook,” a “con artist” and a “fraud.”
Legal analysts say the Sept. 19 award by a jury in Broward County, Fla. — first reported Friday by the Daily Business Review — represents the largest such judgment over postings on an Internet blog or message board. Lyrissa Lidsky, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in free-speech issues, calls the award “astonishing.”
Lidsky says the case could represent a coming trend in court fights over online messages because the woman who won the damage award, Sue Scheff of Weston, Fla., pursued the case even though she knew the defendant, Carey Bock of Mandeville, La., has no hope of paying such an award. Bock, who had to leave her home for several months because of Hurricane Katrina, couldn’t afford an attorney and didn’t show up for the trial.