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Libel suit?

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Dexdog02

Junior Member
Colorado
Colorado-
About 6 weeksrovide a ago we were going to hold an auction for a gentleman here in Denver to auction off some of his personal things. We were going to open a new auction house location, and had difficulty with the landlord because he did not provide all the things we needed fixed within the warehouse to hold an auction so we held off payment until it was done. The landlord never everything done that he said he was going to do. But, in the mean time we moved everything of the person belongings to the new warehouse, and scheduled a date for the auction we advertised, and even took it upon ourselves to actually put some of the larger things on ebay and help him sell those items. When the first auction date came we still did not have everything done in the warehouse, and the owner of the warehouse changed the locks on all the doors to force us to pay him before everything was done. I guess he figured since we had all of the auction stuff there he could force us to pay our deposit by holding the merchandise hostage for payment. We had to cancel the auction because we could not get into the premises and had to hire an attorney based on an illegal lockout of a landlord in demands of payment. The whole process took about a week to get the building unlocked, and we were able to return the merchandise back to the original customer that had hired us as an auctioneer. We had a contract with the customer to hold the auction with a $500 deposit and that was used for things like advertising, we hauled all the merchandise down to the warehouse, and we have about $1000 of fees from ebay in the selling of his stuff that he backed out of because the auction did not take place. We told him we could hold the auction some where else and he flat refused, In fact he called me everyday past the auction date at least 15 times a day and was leaving 3 minute messages on my phone call me a a low life motherf***** and my wife too! He was calling all times of the day and night, and I told him I would not take that anymore. Our contract stated we would refund the deposit only if the auction was not held due to no fault of our own which in this was not our fault and even offered to hold it somewhere else.

Ok since then he has posted probably a 100 messages on all kinds of different message boards including craigslist, words4free, classified, etc.
Stating my name and my wives name are are worthless scums, we cheat people, don't do business with our company and gives our phone numbers. Craiglist is the primary way we advertise our business not just the auction and has really hurt the business by posting this stuff. He is relentless and very rude in all of the messages.

I never even tried to recover the remaining $3800 because all he had been trough, but believe we have been fair to him and went out of our way to sell his stuff, but after him harrassing me all the time on the phone.. I really did not want to help him he was verbally abusive day and night for two weeks and who wants to help someone like that when you are trying to make things right for him to begin with.

Do I have a libel suit?
Should I file a restraining order?
Can I go after him for the remaining $3500
Or should I leave it all alone, but thats not right because he has killed our business by continually defaming us on the internet and our business has really suffered, and have lost at least $15,000 worth of business in the last 6 weeks.

Any suggestions
 


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Of the things the LL "said" he was going to do - did you have them in writing?
 

Sean.k.B

Junior Member
Of the things the LL "said" he was going to do - did you have them in writing?
I'm glad this website can serve to entertain your hunger to be an e-thug. I just ran a check on all your previous posts and NONE of them have any legal advice, but criticism to almost every person who starts a thread.
 

Antigone*

Senior Member
I'm glad this website can serve to entertain your hunger to be an e-thug. I just ran a check on all your previous posts and NONE of them have any legal advice, but criticism to almost every person who starts a thread.
Now Pastor Sean, your true colors are showing. Thug:confused::confused: you need to look in the mirror.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I'm glad this website can serve to entertain your hunger to be an e-thug. I just ran a check on all your previous posts and NONE of them have any legal advice, but criticism to almost every person who starts a thread.
ALL of them? Really? Why don't I believe that? :rolleyes:
 

quincy

Senior Member
Dexdog, you said you had plans to open a "new" auction house in the warehouse. When you first contracted with the gentleman from Denver to auction off his belongings, did you already have an auction house? Or did you contract with the gentleman from Denver without an auction location, anticipating the warehouse being ready in time for the advertised sale? If so, was the gentleman from Denver aware of this?

Of the things the landlord said he was going to do, did you have them all in writing (a pertinent question that Zigner first asked) and, if so, did the landlord indicate, in writing, how long it would take to get the warehouse prepared for your use?

Defamation is the publication of false statements of fact that cause reputational injury. To determine whether what has been published can be seen as defamatory, it is important to know what sort of contractual agreements you had with the landlord and also with the man whose items you planned to auction off.

It is also important to know exactly what was said by the Denver gentleman (every word of what he communicated, and how it was communicated, counts). It is important to know what facts may have been stated about his experience with your business that can be seen to support what he said.

Certainly negative reviews of a business can, and do, lead to reputational harm. Not all negative reviews that cause reputational harm, however, can lead to a successful defamation suit.

If your business has been damaged by what has been written about it, I suggest that you review all of the facts with an attorney in your area. A personal review is really necessary to get an accurate idea of what legal options (if any) may be available for you to pursue.
 

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