Internet Libel? Is disclaimer enough?

[SGF323]

My friends and I made up a character based on an old friend of ours, then made a webpage for this character. We did, however, use the same name as our old friend. We didn't say anything bad about this friend through our character, we merely expanded on things we used to tease him about... Things like having large hands (in our opinion), saying "Uhhhhh" a lot, liking to look at muscular people.

We also had a disclaimer on the front page of the site which read, "The characters and incidents portrayed and the names herin are ficticious and any similarity to the name or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintended. Geoff Stoque™ is an entirely fictional character, brought about by the minds of the genius writers of this site."

My question is, Can we get in trouble for this legally? Would his case hold water? Nothing we said was malicious, or could have hurt his character or his reputation.

If you would like more information you can visit the site at http://burn.at/jeffstock

Thanks for your help!

 

[ALawyer]

If the fictional character is readily identifiable, and you stated things that are defamatory, you could be sued. Even if he loses, it's expensive to defend.