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School District Threatens Suit Over Parent's Blog
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Nov 07, 2007 05:06 AM
from the speech-in-a-deep-freeze dept.
from the speech-in-a-deep-freeze dept.
penguin_dance writes "A Texas School District is threatening to sue a parent over what it terms 'libelous material' or other 'legally offensive' postings on her web site and are demanding their removal. Web site owner Sandra Tetley says they're just opinions. The legal firm sending the demand cited 16 items, half posted by Tetley, the rest by anonymous commentators to her blog. The alleged libelous postings 'accuse Superintendent Lynne Cleveland, trustees and administrators of lying, manipulation, falsifying budget numbers, using their positions for "personal gain," violating the Open Meetings Act and spying on employees, among other things.' The problem for the district is that previous courts have ruled that governments can't sue for libel. So now, in a follow-up story, the lawyers say the firm 'would file a suit on behalf of administrators in their official capacities and individual board members. The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget.' So far, Tetley hasn't backed down, although she said she'll 'consult with her attorneys before deciding what, if anything, to delete.'"
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Easy (Score:2)
Re:Easy (Score:5, Interesting)
Sorry in advance that it's poorly written, my brains frazzled from studying and I don't have time to plan it properly.
About 6 weeks ago I was 'removed' from my school (in Victoria, Australia) for writing a blog. I'm eighteen, doing my VCE (Year 12) and two days after writing it my Mum was called and asked to bring me in (and asked to pull me out of work specifically for it.. she didn't, so they waited at the school until seven so that they could do it that night).
The blog in question was satirical, and made fun of numerous things about the school (spending so much on toilets when they're still so crap, our health teachers poor understanding of some contraception methods, the fact we put had 'annual festivities' to impress visitors from Japan, my new VET Multimedia teachers, a picture of a condom found on the floor in the Year 7-9 toilets (12 to 15)). I named some names (of the teachers, and one student who made a webpage which received an award despite coming straight out of 1995). I realise in retrospect I did a lot of things wrong, but hear me out.
I was told, in the 'meeting', that I was not to come back to school. Clear my locker out and leave. She (the principal) would 'speak to the region' and I'd probably get transferred. I had 4 weeks to go, then exams. Excluding holidays. In the first week, nothing was done, we waited to find out what was happening (heard very little). Then 2 weeks of holidays (which of course no-one works), then the next week we were told I'd be sitting my SACs at my house (with teacher supervision) and doing my exams at another school 30 km away. In the meeting, I'd offered EVERYTHING to keep myself there. I apologised, my Mum tried to get her to address the more pressing concerns in the blog (neither of my VET Multimedia teachers were qualified to teach the course), but she ignored this. I was told to take the blog down or they'd speak to their legal team (apparently some parts were defammatory).
In the end, I was able to contact my teachers - through her.. A very slow process. Now, it's exam time. I've done alright so far, but my ENTER score is seriously going to suffer from the fact I missed out on the most crucial part of the year. Does the school care? No. The Department of Education said that her actions were completely reasonable.. This is despite the fact she was also mentioned in said blog, as the handicap parking spot in the car park was removed and, ala, a spot for her showed up
So, this isn't the first case. Oh, and wish me luck with my exam tomorrow..
If you want to ask questions, just reply here and I'll answer them. Don't waste your time flaming me, I realise in retrospect to watch what you say online, but come on.. it was meant for a cheap laugh, and my serious attempts to address the issues were ignored. It was a creative outlet for me and it's seriously affected my future.. alas, I have no recourse it'd seem. Also, anyone who commented on the blog was banned from all Year 12 events - Muck up day, valedictory (graudation) dinner, etc.
Australia.. so much for a free country.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and one of the unqualified multimedia teachers ended up not being at school the next day - she (unsurprisingly) had a Professional Development day. Apparently they were completing their Multimedia certificate to be qualified to teach, but weren't legally allowed to yet.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Informative)
I don't know much about Australian law, but I suspect that if the local press is not somehow denied access to the site, merely threatening to sue them anyway even if you don't have a case will likely garner you enough press time to embarrass them a lot more than the website.
They may allow you back in or to retake the test in simple self defense. You will likely be seeing some hardball. The accusations on your site can be enough to keep an elected official out of office or get a superintendent fired. Again consult the lawyer first, but pointing out that it will get into the local news may cause a really amazing effect.
Also don't assume that t6hey are necessarily telling you the truth about what is defamatory and what is not. A lot of that stuff is opinion and not thier opinion to boot.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They're not letting me back in, school is already over. The exams are already in progress.. it all happened at the worst possible time. Also, there was libel in
Re:Easy (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Easy (Score:4, Funny)
If what you mentioned contained libel, then this probably won't work. But in my opinion, if it weren't for the libel, I would personally consider suing. All you need is to document the financial loss you incurred when they harassed you, assuming it is considered harassment, which I won't say whether or not they did.
Parent
Before we go off half cocked... (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, from just what's written in the summary, it's a pretty clear case of someone using their blog to accuse school officials of wrongdoing. It doesn't sound at all like "opinions". It sounds like accusations and innuendo. I'm not sure how responsible this person is for the comments, but the articles themselves are pretty libelous if untrue.
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The site in question... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Absolute defense. (Score:5, Insightful)
The suit, however, would be funded from the district's budget.'
Isn't truth an absolute defense to an accusation of libel ?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The law rarely deals in absolutes. The shotgun approach where you fire off dozens of accusations in the hope that at least some of them will stick suggests a malicious or reckless disregard for the truth.
Re:Absolute defense. (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, when someone sues just to shut you up/intimidate you, KNOWING they are going to lose if it goes to court. The school district using deep pockets to prevent her from publishing a blocg about a public entity (protected speach) basically would fall under this.
Many states now have anti-SLAPP laws - allows the person being sued to counter sue
Parent
Re:Absolute defense. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, on the jurisdictional issue, this site [cippic.ca] lists a few places where truth is not an absolute defence (including "some US states"). And you should note that if you publish something online, then since people can read it in jurisdictions where truth is not an absolute defence, you may be able to be sued in those jurisdictions, even if you and the person you're talking about have never been to that jurisdiction. And lastly, the burden of truth (not just belief in truth of the statements, but actual truth) is on the person making the statements.
Parent
Its not that hard a problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
If the accusations are true, than they will lose.
If they arent, they have every right to defend themselves against this libel.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I say: Kryten250 did, at some unspecified time and place, suck a donkey's balls.
You then sue me. That makes you the plaintiff. Can you prove that you didn't, ever, suck donkey balls?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In a libel action, the plaintiff must prove three elements of the tort of libel:
The statement has been made to a third party.
The statement referred to the plaintiff. (This does not mean that the statement has to refer expressly to the plaintiff. A statement can be actionable if it is reasonably capable of referring to the plaintiff).
The statement must be defamatory, which means that it must be a false statement to the
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You then sue me. That makes you the plaintiff. Can you prove that you didn't, ever, suck donkey balls?"
There's probably a name for this logical fallacy.
Men play hockey.
Socrates never played hockey.
Therefore Socrates is not a man.
That the Plaintiff doesn't have to prove that there is no possible way the statement is true doesn't mean the plaintiff doesn't have the burden of proof.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
But it's still factually wrong, because it's based on a false premise. Socrates did play hockey.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If the accusations are true, than they will lose.
If they arent, they have every right to defend themselves against this libel.
That's not entirely true. There's a defence to libel called "honest opinion", which basically means that the statements made are clearly intended to be interpreted as opinion rather than absolute statements of fact. This does, in fact, mean that blogs (a medium that is commonly used for di
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To make your analogy accurate, you would have to include the fact that people came along afterwards and wrote additional things on the leaflets she put on lampposts, and they are suing her for those statements as well.
Generate your own bad publicity (Score:5, Insightful)
but it stops future bad publicity (Score:4)
Parent
Elected Officials (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Elected Officials (Score:5, Insightful)
In most places, these people have more power than the rest of local government combined. They usually control over two-thirds of the town/city budget, they have the power to make the life of anyone with children a living hell, and they usually have so little oversight as to make them nearly bulletproof in a scandal.
Even if you don't have kids, you damned well better have an interest in what goes on with your local school board (unless you don't care how rapidly your excise and property taxes go up).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Their "official capacities" are being members of the government. So what good is the precedent if it only protects you from suit for libeling the government, if they can just sue on be
Actual content of dispute? (Score:2, Interesting)
The blog (Score:2, Redundant)
why she posted (Score:5, Funny)
She'd better be able to back up those accusations (Score:5, Insightful)
These are all very serious accusations of criminal behaviour from members of the school board. Unless Tetley has any proof of these accusations I can see why they could be considered libelous.
Whether or not it is good publicity to sue is another matter.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing is, unless these administrators are angels (and they're probably human, not angel), the
Re:She'd better be able to back up those accusatio (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
"Personal Gain" indeed.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Legal prestidigitation (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, you can get away with breaking the spirit of the law on a technicality. Sometimes. But when you can, it is because in our system, the entity whose illegal actions are the highest priority to restrain is presumptively the government. It is better for a citizen to get off on a technicality than for the government to claim an iota more power over his life than it is strictly allowed to. But this doesn't go the other way. The government can't use a technicality to claim more power of the citizens' lives than it actually has.
This is why "running government like a business" doesn't work. The government has duties that a business does not, and things that individuals can sometimes get away with the government can't, or at least shouldn't. One of the duties the government has is to respect the right of individuals to criticize it.
Even individuals aren't allowed to evade their legal duties by legal fictions. You have a legal duty to pay taxes. You can shelter income by taking advantage of quirks in the tax code, but you cannot shelter it by creating ficticious transaction that create the appearance of losses. That's fraud.
What the school committee is doing here is fraud. It is managing this lawsuit and even paying for it, under the fraudulent pretenses that it is not a government action. It makes accusation of fraud against the officials involved all the more credible. It would be one thing (still dubious) if they took legal action as individuals; perhaps it would be simply misguided. But they're playing a shell game here, using their official powers but hiding them under an unconvincing cloak.
Sounds familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
The local media picked up very little of the story, so I called the town out on its actions on my blog. It got quite a bit of attention from the locals.
The town officials didn't dare come after me, but one of the local business leaders (and a friend of the council and mayor) did. He showed up on my doorstep, came inside my home, and raised his voice in front of my toddler daughter and paid no attention to the fact that he was scaring the crap out of her. While I used no names or businesses or people, and there was more that one person who could have fit the description, the business owner told me that he had the right to sue me. I spoke with no less than four lawyers who told me that he was delusional. The owner's rationale was this: If I wrote a convincing blog that affected the outcome of a local election, the town would be absorbed into another town that has building codes and zoning laws, and he'd have to spend money to get his buildings up to code. So he would sue me for the money he "lost". During the meeting, he fiddled with his pocket and asked me questions like, "What was your intent in publishing this?" Yes, I was being recorded, and I suspect he was fishing for something because someone told him he had nothing.
Nevertheless, he said that I'd incorrectly stated someone else's opinion. (This person was also never named.) While I'd talked to the person previously and published their correct opinion, that opinion changed when I spoke to them afterward-- leading me to believe that he'd had a similar visit. I had no way to back up my claims, so I went ahead and corrected the statement with an editor's note. I was also told that I'd incorrectly identified the mayor as being the owner of a particular business, but there were no defaming statements made, so it was no big deal. I've since been told that the mayor IS the owner, so I just took the sentence out altogether to avoid confusion. They even tried to say that I'd misquoted the mayor, but the quote I'd published was a quote from the local newspaper and was noted as such. Not to mention, the reporter had a taped recording of what the mayor said, regardless as to what he meant to say.
My little meeting actually DID change the way I wrote, and it made me an even bigger thorn in their side. Since they were going to play hardball, I started collecting paperwork to back up every single thing I wrote, and they could no longer tell people I was lying. I even published pictures of the "park" they claimed to have on their publicity website and turned some heads, and they had to change the wording to say that they were going to have a park in the future. (I got a couple of phone calls from state legislators about that one.) When they passed a city ordinance to discourage a peaceful demonstration at a town event, I published the ordinance and pointed out in the wording that they could still prot
Orthomom blog (Score:3, Informative)
This is what annoys me the most. (Score:4, Insightful)
Frankly, posting anything about government officials, other than death threats or personal information, should not be discouraged. If the public cannot voice their disagreements with local officials then we are no longer free. The fact is, the public officials don't have to like what is posted about them, thats their choice. It is not their choice to silence people who post such.
while that sites forum is a pain to read it does appear that most of the people complaining are doing so with good maturity. The problem for the district is that people are connecting the dots, adding up the numbers, and then questioning it.
That the district would use a back door method to skirt a previous court ruling about suing only lends more credit to those posting on the blog.
Whats next? Suing people who start recall drives? Perhaps the members of the blog should try that next.
Parent
Their filing suit will prove it true. (Score:3, Insightful)
Shame on everyone else here. You all forgot the part about CDA immunity.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So you had no problem with GW Bush spreading rumors of John McCain's illegitimate black child?
What about that Swift Boat Vet
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
# Hey Shell, you know it's kinda funny,
Texas always seemed so big
But you know you're in the largest state in the union,
When you're anchored down in Anchrage