I guess his lawyers realize that going after the Yankees, ESPN and MLB might get more of a $$ settlement than going after someone’s unrelated sports blog, even though the complaint focuses on what was said by the sports blog.
Ah, America, Land of the Lawyer and Home of the Lawsuit.
Eh, I doubt the case will go anywhere. The lawyer he found to represent him seems to have a tenuous grasp of the English language, which I can’t imagine bodes well for the suits chances of success.
In order for this to be defamation, doesn’t he have to prove that the claim that he is unintelligent and stupid is false? In a court case that he is bringing against the wrong defendants?
Oh, how I’d love it if this backfired in that manner.
All his lawyer, language-challenged though he may be, has to do is set the settlement amount below the cost of litigation amount. Trolls use the legal system like this in a variety of ways. They don’t expect that their case will win, just that you’ll not want to fight it. Scummy, but perfectly legal, way to earn a living.
Except that ESPN has lawyers in their employ already who will fight this. They don’t want to set a precedent that they can be taken like this and likely won’t settle.
That’s how I see it. I’m not any kind of lawyer and we all know that a company will settle a nuisance lawsuit if it saves time and trouble. But I am also sure that there are some situations in which a company won’t settle that type of lawsuit because paying up would only invite more opportunistic lawsuits. This would appear to be one of those. The ESPN commentators made some jokes about this fan but they never called him fat or stupid. I don’t think Disney and ESPN will do anything to invite lawsuits from every fan who gets joked about on camera.
Exactly. It’s not like fans in the crowd at a sporting event being shown during a tv broadcast is some new fangled thing that the sleeping fat guy could never have anticipated. Blogs on the web mocking people whose pictures were taken in public are newer but not exactly cutting edge either. The best the guy can hope for is that his notoriety earns him a shot on The Biggest Loser.