10 Million Dollar Lawsuit Filed Against Forum

While browsing the Internet, I ran across a very interesting topic that may be of interest to forum admins. A large forum by the name of scubaboard.com, was sued by a Gundi Holm for 10 million dollars. Here's a quick summary of the scenario.

Original summary thread: Here

Personally, I doubt the offender will have any luck in winning in court. I agree such cases are rare, but if they do happen out of the blue then it's not something that I would enjoy having to go through.:2cents: (This actually came as a surprise to me, some people just have no life. Or maybe no friends?) So, what are your feelings and thoughts about this incident? Possible insurance to prevent incidents like this from happening?

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Thread moved to Security and Legal Disputes.

Personally, I think the plaintiffs have no chance. Their claim that the offending posts were submitted at the direction of Intermedia Publications can easily be refuted. Once that happens, the company should be free from any chance of losing. How the rest is handled all depends on the site's Terms of Service. I make sure in my TOS to explicitly state that the forum administration is in no way responsible for anything posted on the forums (including by moderators), and that individual users are responsible for what they post.

 

how much would it cost to make that argument in federal court?

 

That's exactly what I was wondering. If I read correctly, the offender is located out of the United States so the ScubaBoard admin has to pay the advocate for the trip to get there, and the additional fees/charges. I caught a few posts on there forum saying that the donation fund may not be enough to cover the fees. Something like 40,000 dollars would be my guess.

Nick- Thanks for moving the thread. Apologies for putting it in the wrong category.

 

Heres more food for thought. If you state in your rules that the users are responsible for what they post, would you give out their personal information for someone like Gundi Holms (offender)? That's what the controversial issue might be here. It's not so much about what the admin said, rather it's about the members being responsible for what they post. I think it would be very hard to bring "striker1234" to court. This can easily be argued that you, the admin, hold responsibility for what a user posts only because you contain their private information. It would be interesting to see how this all plays out in court.

What are your thoughts?

 

My opinion is that again, it depends on the site's policies... particularly the Privacy Policy and what kind of information protection/privacy the site promises to users of the forum. Regardless, I'm pretty sure a court can subpoena the forum administration for the information of user accounts. As such, I am sure to include in my Privacy Policies that user information account will be given to authorities should the need arise:

There are so few legal cases involving forums that actually go to court, that there's not really a precedent set, so it's hard to predict what will happen.

Why can't the administration simply delete the posts that the plaintiffs have issues with? I know it's essentially throwing all dignity down the drain, but if it saves you tens of thousands of dollars, time, and stress, I'd think it's worth it.

And for the record, I am not a lawyer nor do I have any legal expertise in any form. I'm merely stating my opinions and thoughts on the matter (i.e., what seems logical to me).

 

It would probably be unethical of me but I would have done this a long time ago. Although I don't think the plaintiff has a chance in hell, why waste money and risk helping the plaintiff out?

Also, this isn't the first time a forum has been sued. Black Mustang Club was sued by Ford Motor Co. The was making a calender using pictures of forum member's cars. Well Ford blew a fuse and decided to sue saying people didn't have any say of pictures of their own vehicles. A Ford tech was smart enough to change the blown fuse at Ford Motor Co and Ford later dropped the law suit.

 

Wow... I never thought it would go this far! It's pretty serious but come on... 10 million dollars? That's a bit over the top, isn't it?

 

The only winner here is the plaintiff's lawyer if he gets paid by the hour (and a big loser if he doesn't) as well as the defendant's lawyer. Feel bad for the owner of scubaboard. He probably knows nothing about this but gets dragged into the foray. This type of problem is rare.