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Thursday, May 31, 2007
Courts - Litigants blogging
On May 21st, Diana L. Skaggs of the Kentucky Divorce Law blog had an entry titled "Litigant Blogs Facts Of Case." You can read her entry, and my response, citing some ILB entries, here.
Today the Boston Globe has a story by Jonathan Saltzman headed "Blogger unmasked, court case upended." Some quotes:
It was a Perry Mason moment updated for the Internet age.[More] I see the WSJ Blog also has an entry on this Globe story. Access it here.As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.
Was Lindeman Flea?
Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.
In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.
With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.
The next morning, on May 15, he agreed to pay what members of Boston's tight-knit legal community describe as a substantial settlement -- case closed.
The case is a startling illustration of how blogging, already implicated in destroying friendships and ruining job prospects, could interfere in other important arenas. Lawyers in Massachusetts and elsewhere, some of whom downloaded Flea's observations and posted them on their websites, said the case has also prompted them to warn clients that blogs can come back to haunt them.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 31, 2007 12:18 PM
Posted to Courts in general