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Ask HN: Sued (UK) over alleged defamatory user generated content, what to do?

• buro9 14y ago
  Oh, and I have 14 days in which to respond. Nothing can happen in the next 4 days due to the long weekend (2 bank holidays for the Jubilee), but likewise I can't get legal advice during this time either. So until Wednesday, all I have is HN and the opinions of others to guide me.
  • bdfh42 14y ago
    Time deadlines from a solicitor - or anyone else other than a judge are meaningless. They are intended to get a rushed reaction - take plenty of time. It costs them money to start a case don't forget - so they wont rush in the normal course of events. When I think about it - 18:00 on a Friday evening - sounds a bit late in the day for a UK solicitor.
• bdfh42 14y ago
  First off - don't panic - take the weekend off and enjoy it - even if you are a republican ;) Solicitors send threatening letters - that's how they earn a good deal of their money. Relax - phone around next week (when and only if an actual letter arrives) and see if any of your local legal firms have experience of web stuff (might take a while as this sort of thing is pretty rare in the UK) and then go and see them. Provided you have taken steps to take down possibly offending material when it is pointed out to you then I do not think there is likely to be a problem. But do take advice. An email is just that - trying to scare you - you do not yet know if it is a real issue or just a try on from some jerk who wants to bully you - that's how some folks live their lives.
• duskwuff 14y ago
  I AM NOT A LAWYER, but you probably have a pretty sound defense on the grounds of being an innocent disseminator of the post. You are highly unlikely to be under any legal obligation to post a public apology for a statement that you did not make, nor for legal costs which the plaintiff incurred, nor for "damages" absent a legal judgement. Keep in mind that the intent of a legal letter is often first and foremost to discombubulate you. Do take it seriously, but not too seriously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_dissemination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocent_dissemination
• chris_dcosta 14y ago
  I've worked with the one of the biggest and best known firms in the UK. They are very expensive and very good, but I would just advise that you take a step back for a second before you rush to the lawyers. They will break you financially, so here's some free love (UK only I'm afraid). TL,DR; this threat is worthless. Don't fret about it. In the UK such letters are no more than empty words, in all cases without exception, the onus is on the writers to bring something to court before they can be awarded any money and that requires you to have breached some specific point in law. So let's ask the question, "what exactly can they do?" what law did you break? What evidence do they have that you broke the law? I'll put it bluntly, this is blackmail they can't do anything without it costing them first a huge amount of money and time, and their chances of success are very small. Look, their laywers probably said, you haven't got anything. If you like I'll write a stiff letter. They haven't actually broken the law, but the letter may just work. Let's deal with the first point. As far as defamation is concerned, the fact is you did not write the posts. You cannot be held liable for what was written. The fact that you host the forum is not a related issue, and it cannot be implied that because you own the site you are responsible for every word - they would have to establish a legal case that somehow you (and every other website in the world) is legally bound to police the content. That's basically it. Your defence: You should always take a position that is removed from the issue so as to not directly link yourself to the issue. As far as I can see, the posts are probably in breach of your terms, and as the owner of the site you have a perfect right to decide what stays on and what comes off your site. The best course of action here is to say that you have looked at the posts as soon as you were made aware of them following this letter and agree that they breach your terms, and have removed them. That's the very most that can be expected and their lawyers will have advised their clients so. They would also advise their clients that pursuing this further is a waste of money. Do not apologise under any circumstances as that would be an admission that you are somewhat implicated. Do not even address the point about "doing it again" - that's just bull. It's a trap - do they think you're stupid? Damages? They have to provide cast iron proof that they have been financially damaged. This is almost impossible to do in cases of defamation, and they would have to prove it to the judge. The judge will likely award zero damages, so do not address this point. In the UK you are only obliged to pay another person's legal fees if the judge orders it (meaning it has to go to court first which it won't) and the basis on which this order is made is if the other side can prove that you have acted unreasonably (a very very difficult thing to do in law, because it relies on legal precident of which there are very few examples). You will pretty much have quashed that (being unreasonable) argument if you just remove the comment. They could never claim that you had acted unreasonably, and even if they did try to claim, it would be very very very unlikely to succeed. Judges rarely award costs especially for something like this where the letter seems to be a kind of extortion. But... even if a claim for costs did succeed it still doesn't mean you have to pay. Here's the crazy bit.... The costs award is open to negotiation, and further still if you refuse to pay the costs (which you are perfectly entitled to do even if you've been ordered to pay costs) the other party then has to take you to court again (it's called the high court for costs) That's more money for them to spend and they can't get "costs for recovering costs" hahahahhaha Even then they have to win at costs court, and you can force them to lose with a series of offers which will result in them having to pick up all their own costs anyway. Costs judges are very strict on what is allowable and it's always in your favour to have them look at costs because they throw out a whole load of stuff that can't be claimed - much to the annoyance of the people hoping to get their costs paid for! So put yourself in their shoes - it's going to cost a whole heap of dough just to prove that you somehow influenced the writer, then a whole heap of dough to try to prove that you've been unreasonable in dealing with it. So what are the odds of their success? Revert for fun. One last bonus for you. Lawyers are generally fair players - meaning that they won't act whilst the other side is in the process of replying, it's only fair. So if you send a reply, simply "ackowledge receipt of the letter and will revert in due course". That's real fun because their lawyer will say to them that they can't do anything until you've replied, which could be .... NEVER .... This all sounds like games, but it's not personal, just business, and this is the of stuff you can legimately do to get these sort of shisters off your back. And it costs nothing except a small bit of time.