Members of an online message-board for aquarium fanciers compared notes on the rotten service they'd gotten from an online vendor, PetsWarehouse. PetsWarehouse responded by suing them for $15,000,000. This is KPMG-grade bullying, and someone needs to shine a light on it.
The long and short of it, folks, is that John and Mary Doe are YOU and ME! In my view, this is just a plain and simple threat from Novak: If you criticize PetSwarehouse, you may find yourself defending the lawsuit too. Never mind whether your statements are true, or whether you believe in your heart of hearts that PetSwarehouse delivered poor service to you and yours; make a "negative" or "derogatory" comment about PetSwarehouse, and you just might find yourself defending a lawsuit. That's the message I take away from reading Novak's complaint.
This type of threat and its affect on our free speech rights is exactly why several states, including California, have adopted what has become known as "Anti-SLAPP" legislation. SLAPP stands for "strategic litigation against public participation." In other words, states are saying that they don't want litigious individuals, such as Novak, chilling free speech simply by suing folks who participate in public forums such as ours. Folks shouldn't be able to quash free conversation by filing strategic lawsuits against individuals whose speech they do not like. That's the reason I suggested a boycott against PetSwarehouse, urged that we start a defense fund and suggested that we look at other actions we might take to remedy this situation. That's the reason I sat down with a television reporter for two hours and discussed the implications of the lawsuit.
(Thanks, Rich!)
