Details on Brock Meeks Case
Paul Robinson
Organization: Tansin A. Darcos & Company, Silver Spring, MD USA
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Meeks Defense Fund <fu...@idi.net>, writes:
> The recent Internet posting launching a fund raising drive in
> order to help Brock Meeks defray the legal expenses of a lawsuit
> brought against his news wire, CyberWire Dispatch, has drawn
> several inquiries for a summary of the issues involved in this
> case.
> For those who don't know Brock, he has a long history as a
> journalist writing in the on-line field, having written for Byte,
> Wired and other journals over the years. He lives and works
> today in the Washington, D.C. area writing during the day for a
> communications trade journal. Cyberwire Dispatch is his own
> creation. The suit against him was filed in Ohio. Without
> the generous offer of legal support from his current lawyers, who
> have offices in Ohio, Brock's situation would be even more dire.
I'm lost here. Why is he being sued in Ohio if he lives in Washington?
I do not understand why the point isn't being made to have this dismissed
on purely technical grounds of lack of jurisdiction. This is not a case
involving real property or a contract, so there should only be grounds to
sue where the defendant is located.
If the defendant was not present and has no agent or representative in Ohio
at some point, I would think there is a lack of jurisdiction to try the case.
Whether or not there is a libel issue at all is one I'm going to ignore
for now, but in the absense of some evidence that he has a presence
there, it should have been simple to get this dismissed, and then if
there is a trial to occur, that it happen where the defendant lives, not
where the plaintiff decides to sue.
I would think it would be difficult to argue a cause of action claiming
that a defamation occurs anyplace where seen. If someone claims they
were defamed on a local TV show, I would think that they would still have
to sue in the city where the broadcast occurred even if the station is
carried by cable to the other side of the country.
---
Paul Robinson - Pa...@TDR.COM
Voted "Largest Polluter of the (IETF) list" by Randy Bush <ra...@psg.com>
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