Forum owner being sued.

This is interesting.

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The operator of the Australian discussion forum ZGeek has been named as a defendant in a defamation suit for material posted by ZGeek users to a thread about a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Another forum is apparently also named as a defendant in the claim.
The plaintiffs are apparently seeking $42 Million in consequential damages, claiming that they lost a film deal as a result of criticism of the conspiracy theory in the discussion fora.
What makes this claim stranger is that the owner of the site states that he complied with earlier takedown notices sent by the plaintiffs’ lawyers about the alleged defamatory material.
These types of claims are very worrying for the high levels of uncertainty that they impose on forum operators. In the US, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act essentially immunises forum operators from defamation claims like this one, but no such strong protection exists in Australia. This lack of certainty effectively provides an incentive for those who feel aggrieved by posts on a public forum to seek damages against the operators of the forum, even where the operators have complied by removing the allegedly defamatory material.
The website operator may well have a defence under Australian law, but there is still significant uncertainty as to what is required of a forum moderator in Australia. We lack solid immunities and appropriate notice & takedown procedures, which means that operators of public fora can never be certain as to their potential liability – something that significantly harms freedom of expression in Australia.
We have not yet seen the text of the complaint. It appears that the ZGeek community has rallied behind its (non-profit) administrator, and have collectively raised enough money to respond to the allegations. We will be following this case very closely in the future.

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http://www.efa.org.au/2009/07/08/ano...orum-comments/

I've considered suing DD in the past. But really, who wants to be paid damages in stale beef sangers!? :(

a bit related, some teen girl on Facebook was ranting about her boss, but she forgot he was part of her circle, hilarious

OwNED !!!

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OMG I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervvy wanker always making me do shit stuff just to piss me off!! WANKER!!

Reply:

Hi______i guess you forgot about adding me on here

Firstly, don’t flatter yourself. Secondly, you’ve worked here 5 months and didn’t work out that i’m gay? I know i don’t prance around the office like a queen, but it’s not exactly a secret. Thirdly, that ‘shit stuff’ is called your ‘job’, you know, what i pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to ale to fuck-up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it. And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. I’ll pop your P45 in the post, and you can come in whenever you like to pick up the stuff you’ve left here. And yes, i’m serious.

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Facebook Fail!!! « RWD

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Originally Posted by Butterfly

Thirdly, that ‘shit stuff’ is called your ‘job’, you know, what i pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to ale to fuck-up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it.

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I love this line.:)

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Originally Posted by Dug

http://www.efa.org.au/2009/07/08/ano...orum-comments/

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apparently the story is one of the members, posing as some hot shot movie producer, started to show off by opening a thread about his upcoming big production script for a 911 type movie. Of course, like any good forum, members started to take the piss and made fun of him and completely discredited his work. That's when the suing came in. It turns out the guy is a total loser (duh!!!), was looking to employ "free workers" by giving them all kind of false promises and profit sharing plans.

an alleged big shot member looking for other partners to fund his big project ? humm, that sounds vaguely familiar :)

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Originally Posted by The Fresh Prince

I love this line

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awesome, isn't it ? click the link, you can see the screen capture, the girl is kind of cute, typical brain dead teenage girl :rofl:

Note to self: Don’t ‘friend’ your boss on FB and then bitch about your job.

^^ Sounds like DF and Scampy have teamed up.

^ DF actually, but thinking of it now, maybe Scampy ? :p

actually Scampy doesn't seek help for funding, except when it's for free beers and food, and he has his own private equity fund so he is pretty rich, can even buy rounds when he is invited at some big gathering venue

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was looking to employ "free workers"

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May I remind you of the 'white woman wanted' thread? :)

oops !!! :p

:rofl:

Nothing would surprise me these days, Australia is out of control with litigation. I remember hearing about a case there where some criminal breaking into a house, slipped and fell from the roof of the house and broke his back, then naturally he sued the home owner and was awarded some rediculous payout.

Another guy on the gold coast had a rendered brick wall at the rear of his property which faced the river. He had a problem with teenagers climbing onto the wall and jumping into the river. He knew this was dangerous, so he put a sign on the wall warning people not to do it. Then some time later, despite the sign a teenager jumped from the wall and landed face first on a rock in the river and broke his neck, he also successfully sued the owner of the property.

Its a sad joke of a system.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Butterfly

a bit related, some teen girl on Facebook was ranting about her boss, but she forgot he was part of her circle, hilarious

OwNED !!!

Quote:

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OMG I HATE MY JOB!! My boss is a total pervvy wanker always making me do shit stuff just to piss me off!! WANKER!!

Reply:

Hi______i guess you forgot about adding me on here

Firstly, don’t flatter yourself. Secondly, you’ve worked here 5 months and didn’t work out that i’m gay? I know i don’t prance around the office like a queen, but it’s not exactly a secret. Thirdly, that ‘shit stuff’ is called your ‘job’, you know, what i pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to ale to fuck-up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it. And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have 2 weeks left on your 6 month trial period. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. I’ll pop your P45 in the post, and you can come in whenever you like to pick up the stuff you’ve left here. And yes, i’m serious.

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Facebook Fail!!! « RWD

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Fuck thats funny :smileylaughing:

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Originally Posted by neverdie

Nothing would surprise me these days, Australia is out of control with litigation. I remember hearing about a case there where some criminal breaking into a house, slipped and fell from the roof of the house and broke his back, then naturally he sued the home owner and was awarded some rediculous payout.

Another guy on the gold coast had a rendered brick wall at the rear of his property which faced the river. He had a problem with teenagers climbing onto the wall and jumping into the river. He knew this was dangerous, so he put a sign on the wall warning people not to do it. Then some time later, despite the sign a teenager jumped from the wall and landed face first on a rock in the river and broke his neck, he also successfully sued the owner of the property.

Its a sad joke of a system.

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If you have links, I'll like to read about this.

^ helge, bare with me kind sir, im in transit between countries & i will search some links for you asap. I recall on of the cases being last year, i will get back to you because I have no life. ;-)

Theres heaps of them, this ones similar but is not the one I was talking about, but you can see the stupidity in this too: I will keep searching for the other ones.

Ziggy Zapata - Responsibility
COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS COURT DECISION IS

A recent case in Australia was that of a man on Queensland's Gold Coast who became intoxicated at a barbecue in a neighbour's backyard. He climbed onto the back fence in an attempt to walk along its length, but fell into the canal on the other side, injuring himself severely. He sued his neighbour on the ludicrous basis that he was tempted to balance on the fence because it had a flat top and therefore was conducive to being walked on. He claimed that if the fence had a regular pointed top, he would not have attempted his misguided feat. Harder to fathom was the fact that this idiot actually won the case and was awarded a large sum of money.
Incredibly, many people have managed to win lawsuits on the most preposterous grounds and one of the more spectacular examples was that of the prisoner in New Zealand who tried to escape from custody by scaling the very high prison wall. He slipped and fell heavily on the other side, breaking his leg. He was promptly arrested, but then proceeded to sue the New Zealand Prisons Department, claiming that they had a duty of care to inform him that climbing the wall was dangerous and that he could injure himself. One would imagine that such a case would stand no chance whatsoever of success, but obviously taking its cue from some of the stupid decisions made in USA and Australian courts, a New Zealand court awarded this criminal nearly $20,000 compensation.
There have been many incidents where good Samaritans have stopped to render assistance to accident victims and then have been sued for their "interference" amid claims of causing some injury to the victims, thus also becoming victims in the process. In this climate of spiralling litigation, it is therefore not surprising that nowadays most people ignore accident or mugging victims, lest they find themselves being defendants in massive lawsuits.

Still havent found the ones im talking about, they are endless in the list, have a look at this link, there are some funny cases about halfway thru the list.
http://archive.sclqld.org.au/judgepu...ssociation.pdf

This could be one of your examples:

Some hopeless cases even succeed at first instance. A good example is

Borland v Makauskas

[2000] qca 521. That was the notorious case of the horribly
intoxicated young man who became tetraplegic as a result of diving off a back yard
pool fence into the gold coast canal when the tide was out. One complaint made was
that the owners of the property who were away and not even aware that the plaintiff
was at the property failed to put up a sign warning people of the danger of diving head
first from a great height onto a sandy beach. The jury found for the plaintiff and held
him liable only to the extent of 25%. Not surprisingly, the Court of Appeal reversed

the outcome and gave judgement against him.

To be honest, I thought it to be Urban Myth or American.

Ended well though

This could be another: From your link

The resistance to further attempts to push the boundaries of what conduct amounts to
a compensable wrongdoing can be seen as far back as

Romeo v Conservation
Commission of the Northern Territory [1998] HCA 5; 192 CLR 431 where, perhaps
surprisingly in view of the then recent decision in Nagle v Rottnest Island Authority

(1993) 177 CLR 423 the High Court refused to hold the defendant liable for the injury
to an intoxicated woman who climbed a low log fence 3m from a cliff at night,
stumbled through an unfenced break in the vegetation and fell over the edge.
Sometimes people have to accept responsibility for their own stupidity.


The cost of unmeritorious lawsuits is astonishing. One report in the United States
concluded that “lawsuit abuse” had cost business and consumers as much as $152

billion( businesses) ? in 1994.