Facing a lawsuit

[Pam]

We (my husband and I) received several threatening letters from a friend's attorney, threatening a lawsuit for defamation of character over a picture that was placed on a PRIVATE, password access only webpage, of her. The picture is altered and intended only as a joke, and considering our 20+years of being very good friends with this person, the picture was never intended as something malicious. The picture was never presented as a real picture. Also, our friends character is questionable as well, she has been very promiscuious and the silly picture is of a mild subject, compared to the things she has done in our presence. The only people that had access to the picture were also close friends of both of us, and also know the "character" of this friend. We have been fully compliant with the lawyers requests to this point, but now we received a letter stating that our friend has no hesitancy is filing a lawsuit which in the lawyer's words "something that he is sure we would not want that kind of publicity" and therefore has offered us a full release for the payment of $5000 and 50 hours community service. To me, this sort of sounds like blackmail! Is this an ethical way of settling this on his part? Can he make such offers when there isn't even a lawsuit filed? We also are very certain that this lawyer is a friend and doing some of this as a favor. What do you advise us to do?

 

[lawrat]

I am a law school graduate currently awaiting Bar results. What I offer is mere information, not to be construed as forming an attorney-client relationship.

Sounds like weird stuff going on. It does not matter whether or not it is a password only site. Defamation is a false statement intended to lessen the reputation of the defamed and (known false by the defamer) published (made known) to a third party and that third party knows it is that person who is the defamed. Here, you made a written(picture) defamation or libel. If it is something she took offense to and even if you only intended it as a joke (perhaps a mitigating factor for you) her rep might have been lessened (especially if it is about her promiscuity). Which means two things for you:

1. Don't ever make someone the butt of your jokes, because guess what, if that person is smart enough, they can and WILL sue.

2. Community service really has nothing to do with this....this is a civil matter. Try talking to your friend, or better yet, go seek a consultation with an attorney who knows about this type of personal injury.

3. Oh yeah, and think about reporting that sorry excuse for an attorney to the state bar (threats are against the code of professional responsibility).

Hope this helps.