A Dade County, Florida real estate developer in January 2008 filed a $25 million lawsuit against a real estate blogger alleging, among other charges, defamation of character based on the blogger's opinion published solely on his blog (MiamiCondoInvestments.com). Hollo v. Lechuga may serve as a landmark case in this relatively new debate over a blogger's legal liability for alleged personal injury arising from the contents of a blog.
Blogs contain a mixture of commentary, opinion, advertising, marketing, facts and sometimes even news. Creators and contributors become citizen "journalists," subject to the same legal liability and responsibility placed on publishers.
Blog Suits
Blog-related personal injury suits have produced judgments ranging between $7,500 and $11.3 million. The largest against a mother/blogger for defamatory statements ("crook," "com artist" and "fraud") blogged about a firm she hired to help remove her son from a boarding school in Costa Rica (Scheff v. Bock in Florida Circuit Court, September 19, 2006). But pronouncements of blogger guilt are rare.
As of July 1, 2008, thirty-nine (39) states have seen 149 personal injury lawsuits and 11 criminal suits filed against bloggers. Forty-two cases are still pending and 18 suits were resolved through pre-trial settlement. Only seven lawsuits have resulted in judgment against the defendant blogger. Nearly 77 percent of ALL civil cases were found in favor of the blogger or saw the charges dropped by the plaintiff. And 92 percent of blog-related suits making it to trial end in blogger triumph (additional information available at Media Law Resource Center). Odds at trial are overwhelmingly in the blogger's favor, but there is no guarantee that this propensity towards blogger victory will continue.
Why Bloggers Win
Blogger's higher-than-average winning percentages are due almost exclusively to First Amendment protection and/or state anti-"SLAPP" legislation. Freedom of speech and opinion are valued rights for journalists. But a blogger's status and protection as a "journalist" in the legal sense is not wholly settled. An April 2008 finding by a Maryland court declared that a blog publisher was not protected under that state's law shielding reporters from defamation lawsuits (Webster v. Albero).
Protecting Free Speech Rights Requires A Responsible Blogger
First Amendment protection requires, among other standards, bloggers, like journalists, to practice and prove due diligence in the gathering and reporting of "factual" information. Bloggers must also prove that no actual malice was intended by statements or information ultimately found to be incorrect or untrue. Opinions, stated as opinion and not fact, published by bloggers are also potentially immune from charges of libel under the First Amendment since there is no such thing as a false opinion.
"SLAPP'ed" Into Submission
"SLAPP" means strategic lawsuit against public participation. Winning is not necessarily the intent of the individual or entity filing the SLAPP; fear, defendant exhaustion and intimidation are the main goals.
"Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined," New York Supreme Court Judge J. Nicholas Colabella said of SLAPP suits. Even if the plaintiff loses, they win by scaring others away from the debate. And if the SLAPP perpetrator can stretch the case over a long enough period of time, the defendant, even if innocent or with a meritorious defense, may be financially forced to settle or concede the fight according to Colabella. A SLAPP is an assault using the legal system as the weapon of choice.
Individuals, corporations and governments file SLAPP suits packaged to look like civil suits alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, nuisance, malicious prosecution and other personal injury charges intended solely to embezzle the "offender's" time and finances by means of legal wrangling and continually mounting legal costs. Most individuals and small businesses do not have the time or the financial resources to invest in their defense choosing rather to end the publication or protest. Not only does this remove the primary thorn from the plaintiff's side, but this tactic produces sufficient fear to keep others from voicing their beliefs.
Anti-SLAPP statutes make such suits illegal. Twenty-seven states* currently have anti-"SLAPP" statutes on the books. Defendants in these states proving a SLAPP suit generally prevail in court, provided all other standards of journalistic responsibility have been satiated.
(*These states are: Ark., Calif., Colo., Del., Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Ind., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Minn., Mo., Neb., Nev., N.M., N.Y., Okla., Ore., Pa., R.I., Tenn., Utah, Wash., W. Va., and Wis.)
Employer Liability
Blogs can subject the blogger's employer to a civil suit and charges of personal injury. In Hollo v. Lechuga, Tibor Hollo, the developer/plaintiff, did not limit the lawsuit to the blogger; named also was Lechuga's employer, EMW Realtors.
EMW Realtors' liability for the alleged defamation is questionable at best, even from a vicarious viewpoint. The publication giving rise to the suit was made on Lechuga's personal blog not promoted or sanctioned by EMW, and the post was made PRIOR to Lechuga's employment with EMW.
No reasonable connection appears to exist between blog and the course and scope of Lechuga's employment by EMW. To further distance itself from the accusations and any appearance of ratification, EMW fired Lechuga immediately following its receipt and review of the suit documents.
Regardless of EMW's apparent lack of liability, time and financial resources must be expended to defend itself against the actions of an employee committed before he became an employee. It is worthy to note that EMW Realtors is owned by Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Group, so "deep pockets" may be a motivating factor in bringing EMW in as a defendant.
Following
Tips for manging a blog from an insurance and risk management perspective is the focus of the next part in this series.
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I hope more independent agents will use blogs on their Web sites and encourage clients and prospects to comment. What a great way for an agent to demonstrate his or her risk management expertise and share valuable insurance information with his community, just as the agent does every day when talking to clients.
Blogs are a great way to keep content fresh on a Web site and to increase your attractiveness to search engines.
I also believe agents should start to participate in other social media to build your friends and fans-- not to make sales pitches-- but to provide whatever community you are interacting with with sound insurance information. This will encourage your new "friends and fans" to seek you out to learn more about your business.
ACT feels so strongly about this that it has a work group dedicated to exploring how independent agencies can use social networking vehicles to broaden their public reach and to market more effectively to the millions of people using these sites. There's a great opportunity out there staring us in the face. Jeff Yates, ACT Executive Director