As you may recall, Richard Carrier is suing Freethoughtblogs, the Orbit, Skepticon, and a woman who objected to his behavior. We got an update from our lawyer over the weekend.
First, we got the schedule of court deadlines, and my heart skipped a few beats. We’ve got stuff scheduled for December and May of next year, and resolution of one point may not happen until August. Of next year. Yeesh. This stuff takes forever. The good news is that most of that time is spent waiting for a judge to make decisions on various concerns we’ve raised, and we’re not going to be shoveling money non-stop into a lawyer’s maw. But there will be some continuing expenses.
Another bit of amusing news is that Carrier’s lawyer discussed settling the case (I will emphasize, this was his lawyer and not Carrier himself) and tentatively suggested some possible terms: that we cover Carrier’s legal expenses so far, estimated at about $50K (heh, no way, we’re not going to fund his future SLAPP suits) and — hang onto your hats, gang, this was unbelievable — that we hand over contact information and communications from all individuals who’d ever said a bad thing about Richard Carrier.
My takeaway from this is that he’s finding us a tougher nut to crack then expected, so he’d like to find some softer targets to pick off. So it’s going to drag on a long time, but I’m heartened by the news that his lawyer is concerned. Ours is pretty damned confident.
It goes without saying that we’re not going to concede any money to him without a hard fight, and there’s no way we’re going to expose anyone else to his predatory behavior. Rather, we’re going to fight harder, and the long drawn out process is an opportunity to bleed him more. His reputation is going to be in tatters if he continues his misguided SLAPP suit.
We will still have legal expenses coming up. Help us out by donating, if you can! You can also help out Skepticon with a tax-deductible donation, although that doesn’t benefit the rest of us.
PZ:
:Blinks:
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahahahahahahahahahaha. Hee. Hahahahahahaha. :thud:
Ok, I’ll play “I am a Poopyhead”: Mr Richard Carrier, former FtB blogger, is a lying shitebag without morals or intellect. And just to be clear —
</NO-snark>This strikes me as the sort of sensible and completely benign thing one does to undermine accusations of predatory behaviour.
I’m curious as to how the lawyer defines “bad.” I know we could send him a list of 10,000 names/addresses/emails etc. and he would just go fishing for the ones he wants, but assuming you’re describing the proposed settlement accurately it just strikes me as a senseless request.
Back in the days of Internet Infidels (IIDB), there were a fair amount of people who said “bad things” about Carrier. That list could get to an absurd length.
I do not interpret the lawyer’s proposal the same way at all. This was the client.
(1) The lawyer would know that he can get all of that information in discovery if he defeats the motion to dismiss. Yes, the discovery process will be that intrusive. Sadly, the alternative of fully protecting this stuff is worse — for example, absent a wide-ranging discovery process that reached into “private” material, the notorious Ford Pinto memo never would have come to light.
(2) This is the mythical “the least you should accept” meme among media clients (and their insurers) that no lawyer who practices in the area — on any side* — would ever believe constitutes an acceptable settlement for anyone. It’s intended to prevent settlement, but to fulfill the lawyer’s ethical responsibility of at least engaging in settlement discussions. It’s also unethical, but far be it for the Bar to accept that and actually enforce its own rules. That said, sane lawyers don’t instigate such discussions — they just pass on the client’s demands/responses, as the rules obligate.
(3) My gut instinct is that the timing on this offer is tied to a mandatory settlement conference called for in the scheduling order.
* Yes, that has included me.
contact information and communications from all individuals who’d ever said a bad thing about Richard Carrier
My contact info is all on my personal website, and fuck Richard Carrier, what a hypocrite; may his peaches freeze from too much SLAPping them.
A: His suit has merit
B: His lawyer is worried
P(A) = 0.01
P(B) = 0.99
P(B|A) = 0.01
P(A|B) = P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B)
Sucks to be him
One other thing: we, the defendants, have been granted the right of discovery by the judge. Apparently that’s kind of unusual, but I’m not a lawyer, so what do I know.
Yes, there was also talk of a conference. Another catch there: he’s suing six people scattered all over the country. If he wants to drill into us, he’s going to have to book a bunch of flights and flit about to come to us. I’m wondering if he’s regretting going after us all at once rather than one by one.
First, thank you all from your friends at Skepticon (November 10-12 in beautiful Springfield, MO! /ad).
PZ’s link goes to a page that only has the Skepticon Legal Fundraiser, where you generous people can take advantage of our tax-deductible status (check with a reputable tax person). We welcome your donations, and will need them to cover the expected jurisdiction discovery($$) and deposition($$$$) expenses over the next few months.
There is a downside to donating to our fund, though. As a 501(c)(3) we are not allowed to use any of that money to cover anybody’s portion of the legal expenses but our own (SK+Lauren). The other defendants, including FtB and PZ have their own fundraiser at: https://www.gofundme.com/defense-vs-carrier-slapp
OK, WOW. “all individuals who ever said a bad thing about Richard Carrier”??! Christ of the Andes. And here I thought Richard Carrier was supposed to be all smart and educated and stuff.
Sending a donation today.
I’ll add an additional link.
I’m involved with assessing customer comments. It’s an interesting data analysis problem with two basic approaches: have eye balls look at each comment or use Natural Language Processing (NLP). Neither would be particularly effective at distinguishing satirical or ironic comments that otherwise appear positive from those that are genuinely positive. Given the frequency of snide comments in a blog, the chances of missing a significant number of “bad” things said about someone or something is probably quite high.
So, I think this is a brilliant approach for Mr. Carrier’s lawyer to proceed with the case and achieve maximum profit from it.
You’re welcome to share any of my information you like with that megalomanic crackpot.
Oh, and Richard, have you attempted a Bayesian solution of your likelihood of winning this lawsuit?
@aaronbaker, #13: Made me LOL… thanks…
aaronbaker @13: Bill Buckner did the calculation in #7.
I’m getting search hits on my stats page for amy frank-skiba lawsuit. Someone’s looking.
“we cover Carrier’s legal expenses so far, estimated at about $50K … and — that we hand over contact information and communications from all individuals who’d ever said a bad thing about Richard Carrier.”
Haha, the lawyer wants to get paid. But he can’t say that nakedly because he’s supposed to be acting on behalf of his client, not himself. So he adds a little freebie demand that could be considered of benefit to his client.
Were I on the other side of this, I know what I’d be doing.
Settle. If this is the same lawsuit going back a year or more it will come down to skill of the attorney. Probabilities are not good for trial work especially jury trials. Unfortunately, if it is a jury trial then it is less to do with the evidence and more with theatrics. In fact, it really isn’t all about evidence or attorney skill but simply the voir dire. We actually spend more time with the venire then we do with the actual case details. I think it may not be hard to show damages and if the defendants can not substantiate their claims then it could go downhill fast. However, it shouldn’t be hard to show moral ineptitude on his part but that doesn’t necessarily validate the specific allegations, but surely the instances of his sexual misconduct has documentation and corroborating witnesses. Good luck Ftb because any revenue needs to be going to the Ftb servers, the site can’t get any slower.
Wait for discovery and get a good negotiating attorney and open up settlement talks. You may be able to coax his ego and get something without giving a lot of money or at least “call out” the complaint and demand to his attorney once you know the cards they are holding.
ctech:
FTB migrated to a shiny new server not long ago, and everything has been working great for me, and I have exceptionally lousy ‘net access. The problem may not lie with us.
@18 ctech
We (mostly PZ) is paying for legal advice, you know.
If Richard Carrier doesn’t want people to say bad things about him, like he’s a complete and total prick of the highest order, then he has the ability to help make that happen – by not acting like a complete and total prick of the highest order.
Being sued is so much fun! I AM HAVING FUN.
Also, I wanted to note that the Skepticon legal fund helps both me personally AND Skepticon — so saying it doesn’t benefit the rest of us isn’t necessarily true.
Also also, when are we making ‘being sued together’ friendship bracelets?!
#22: I am uncomfortable with that level of intimacy! There are very few people on the planet about whom I can say “we were defendants together”, not even my wife qualifies.
I’m shipping “<3 co-defendant <3" bracelets out posthaste.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Richard use his blog to ask for a date once? I recall it as being a bit skeevy at the time. Apologia if I’m wrong.
@#18, ctech:
For some reason I can’t put my finger on, when I read your comment I thought you were Carrier, or maybe his lawyer. Can’t imagine why.
I’ve said a huge amount of bad things about Richard Carrier. That should have been enough.
I’ll say some more bad things just to be sure.
He’s an idiot.
That’s going to have to do it. I’m not going to waste time on a malevolent but insignificant jerk.
OK, Richard Carrier. Sue Me!!!!
File it in Federal court because I don’t live in Ohio.
I do live in an anti-SLAPP suit state though. Loser pays the lawyer and court costs. Make sure you have enough money for my lawyers!!!
This tells me that his attorney is not as experienced as he’d like people to think. And I seem to recall that you lot did have a competent one.
Since legal strictures around privacy tend to be rather harsher in Europe than in America, what they are demanding might in fact be criminal in several European countries. Might, mind you, I’m not pretending to be any sort of authority on any or all laws in Europe (I leave that to USAians who can’t figure out what national borders are for).
And, to forestall anyone trying to be clever about this, agreeing to an illegal user agreement doesn’t compel you to the illegal part, though it usually compels the criminal party.
What a pigeon.
I haven’t said anything bad about Richard.
Till now.
His lawsiut is frivolous and targets people who were merely following due process. If that wasn’t bad enough his ambit noted above is morally bankrupt and goes to show that he is a thoughtless fool. I once considered doing his philosophy courses but now he has demonstrated an incompetence in tbat subject area i will not.
Oh. And im in Australia. Our privacy laws are reasonably tough.
ctech
echoing The Vicar #26
Who are you, really?
I’m relativey new here so I missed all of this when it first hit, but the way this man Richard is acting is about as useful to the world as slug slime. Nasty slimy stuff that’s a b^gger to get off you.
Yes he did, but so what? As poopyhead at the time pointed out, “that whole damn post is about getting consent and setting personal boundaries and making crystal clear what he desires, and acknowledging the other participant’s autonomy.” (The link to teh eejit’s post in the excerpted poopyhead post is no longer functional, but an admittedly very quick skim of the many comments finds no serious disagreement with the above-quoted synopsis.)
That particular post of Dr Carrier — and the replies to / about it — do not, to the best of my recollection and current knowledge, have anything at to do with the lawsuit. He’s suing because he doesn’t like being called a “complete and total prick of the highest order” (to steal Zmidponk@21’s description), but seems too clewless to take the hint and stop being a complete and total prick of the highest order.
Is it to late to get on that list of people who said Richard Carrier is an ass hole?
I’m surprised at the level of detail you’re sharing here publicly, PZ. I wonder if you run posts like this past your lawyer before posting.
This is the kind of thing most lawyers would be hesitant to say out loud: “Rather, we’re going to fight harder, and the long drawn out process is an opportunity to bleed him more.”
@chigau : Most political tests put me in the moderate range. I am not Carrier. In fact, at first glance I thought PZs post was about the air conditioner manufacturer and Trump. All I was saying is to get discovery and settle because if it goes to jury trial it really matters less about the merits of your case. The only thing that matters is the voir dire.
My thoughts were, Carrier, being that he was involved and I assume profiting from a community that ostracized him then it is not going to be difficult for him to show damages. I think if you slander someone but do not affect their profitability then they have a harder time showing damages and there is probably plenty of precedent for these filings so the multiple angles probably give Carrier and his lawyers the advantage to find rulings or case law on the matter. I am not sure how Carrier makes his living but if his income and ability to make income has been reduced by the allegations then that is the point. However, defense wise I would layout his avenues of revenue, his current income status (show the man is doing alright), and any possible “loss” from the community and how his future prospects are “really” hampered by that “loss”. I also said that it probably isn’t hard to prove a pattern of moral ineptitude from Carrier which could help. That would be the value of the case. It is all very complex but while the plaintiff attorney is working for free, the defense attorney is billing so you find a settlement as fast you can and cut your losses.
Run for the hills ,the doc is after your money .
I reiterate: the network is already getting professional legal advice.
Shiv
Don’t spoil their fun.
I’m waiting on InternetShrinks to diagnose his mental illness.
Just donated $10 ,for one awful moment i though i had typed in an extra 0 ,i had to go back and check .
I came out in a cold sweat.
“Slander” requires that a statement not be true you stupid bastard.
@33 Thought it was him. I have to disagree though. There’s a time and a place for that sort of stuff, and free thought blogs aren’t it. I feel it’s a boundary crossing, this isn’t the place to ask for dates. There are a million dating apps, and websites out there he could have used. He chose to use this one.
I feel it would be similar to PZ selling vitamin supplements here. Not illegal or immoral per se, but it would feel like he would be exploiting his position here for personal gain. Which I feel goes against the entire ethos of free thought blogs.
…how would you know that…
It would be very odd for the plaintiff attorney to not be working on contingency. So, I am going with the odds and betting
that the attorney is working for free.