Team Kimberlin was determined to file those defamation LOLsuits. I tried to warn ’em of the consequences with posts like #BillSchmalfeldt and Libel Pe Se which ran ten year as today.
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Cabin Boy Bill keeps looping on the subject of libel per se. I’m tempted to respond, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
IANAL, but several of my lawyer friends tell me that in Maryland libel per se is a common law tort. It is the broadcast or written publication of a false statement about another which accuses him of a crime, immoral acts, inability to perform his profession, having a loathsome disease (like syphilis), or dishonesty in business.
Stalking is a crime in Maryland. I have met Tetyana Kimberlin exactly one point zero times. That meeting took place in Montgomery County, Maryland. I was sitting in a restaurant waiting to meet someone else when she approached me. That certainly does not constitute my stalking anyone, so the tweet above is a published false statement accusing me of a crime. (BTW, the time stamps on the tweets in this post are in GMT. That’s the clock the logging computer uses.)
@aaronworthing is Aaron Walker’s Twitter handle. Aaron Walker is a member of the bar in Virginia and the District of Columbia. Saying that a lawyer is ignorant of the law is clearly a statement of the lawyer’s inability to perform his profession. Mr. Walker is, in fact, a competent attorney engaged in the practice of law, so that tweet is a publication of a false statement of his inability to perform his profession.
Those are just two example of Bill Schmalfeldt’s libelous rantings. The Gentle Reader would not have to look very hard to find an example of the Cabin Boy falsely accusing someone of engaging in immoral acts. I would not be surprised to find that he’s managed to tick every possible box on the per se standard.
So let the Cabin Boy huff and puff. If he’s sufficiently dumb enough to file a libel suit, he may find that the counterclaims will result in his own words blowing his own house down.
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They really should have found a better source of advice than Acme Legal.