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Florida Blogger Faces Defamation Lawsuit

A blogger in Florida who allegedly has called a religious publisher "a very corrupt man" and "a lying, thieving con artist" is now the subject of a defamation lawsuit, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

In addition to seeking monetary damages, the Ligonier Ministries publishing firm asked a judge to stop Frank Vance of Contending for the Truth from posting any more slurs about company president Timothy Dick.

The newspaper noted that some judges have approved such requests, but First Amendment lawyers questioned those rulings. "I think a lot of judges don't know what a blog is," one lawyer told the Sentinel.

Vance responded to the lawsuit at his blog by making a new accusation -- that Dick had not notified him of the lawsuit, perhaps in an attempt to win the case by default. "It's highly unethical but who ever said that Tim Dick has any ethics?" Vance wrote.

He added that the lawsuit is part of a pattern. "Tim Dick has successfully silenced whistleblowers and anyone else who'd hold him accountable by issuing threats of litigation," Vance said. "All it seems to take to silence disgruntled employees, former employees, and other whistleblowers is a threatening letter from Ligonier's attorneys. This is the Tim Dick way. Evade accountability, and if anyone presses a matter too hard then just sue them."

Vance vowed to keep his blog online and fight Dick unless a court forces him to remove it.

Posted by Danny | 12:39 PM

Comments

The guy called Tim Dick certain things. Now, he's going to get a chance to back up these things in a court of law.

If you want to accuse someone of being a thief, you better be ready to back it up in court.

Otherwise, it would be better to recognize that bloggers are not above the rest of us, and have to obey the law... at all times, and not just when it's convenient.

paul a'barge | 09.06.06 08:49 PM

Calling someone names is not defamation, but rather merely proof of the name caller's ill-breeding. The vast majority of negative statements in blogs about others amount to name calling.

On the other hand, calling someone names and stating, implying or asserting that you have facts to back it up ... that MIGHT be defamatory, if it turns out you can't back up what you say. Very few blogs are of this nature. "Joe is a liar." is not a statement of fact, but an ad hominen. "Joe lied about having a B.S. in Quantum Mechanics on his employment application." is a statement of fact, which if true discredits Joe, and if false, may be defamatory --- if it hurts his reputation in the community.

And, so, many, possibly defamatory statements on blogs, are not actionable (won't support a law suit) because, even if they are false, they don't actually cause any harm, either because no damages can be proven, or because the defamed person already enjoys a bad reputation, in this case, for veracity. In other words, if, upon hearing the falsehood that Joe lied on his job application, most of his acquaintances reply with "Well, of course he did.", Joe isn't likely to win a defamation suit.

And, so we come to the principal reason blogs don't generate much in the way of defamation suits ... the aggrieved party has to find a bunch of people who will say that his (or her) reputation has suffered because of the defamation. And, who wants to put THIS kind of evidence in the public record? And, for that matter, who would be willing to testify that they lacked sufficient intellectual and personal integrity to rely upon what they read in an unsubstantiated rant (read "blog") to alter their personal conviction about the character of someone whom they did not have the decency to allow to, at the very least, defend themselves against the defamatory statements?

The fundamental character of a blog is that of an opinion, an editorial if you will. That is why people rarely (and perhaps should never) claim that they have been defamed by what a blogger has said about them. And, the attempt to convert blogs into possible sources of defamation, is an attempt to squelch the free and open exchange of opinions and points of view (neither of which are, or are rationally thought to be, expressions of hard facts). And, THAT is an assault on the internet at its core, for the fundamental goal and purpose of the internet is exactly to foster, encourage and facilitate the broadest and freest possible exchange of ideas, opinions, points of view and communications amongst all the peoples of this planet.

Scott Weible | 09.07.06 11:24 AM

Scott,

I would take mild issue with your talk of the fundamental character of "a blog," particularly that of it being the expression of “opinion.” As Reynolds, law professor at University of Tennessee, noted in his essay on precisely this matter (see link at www.poohsthink.com), blogs are flexible forms of communication; what the prototypical blog is seems to be in flux, and has changed its shape from the early days. Blogs are progressively becoming more journalistic, mimicking big media. And Judges are going to have to understand this in deciding on a case like this one. Those three phrases from Vance we see often in the media are not characteristic of what he is doing; they are rhetorical icing on the fact driven, argumentative, journalistic endeavor. Blogs like this are being taken very seriously as a journalistic source by many, which has implications in both directions it seems to me. But I've written more about this on my own site.

Michael Metzler
www.poohsthink.com

Michael Metzler | 09.09.06 01:54 PM

The Ligonier ministry is headed by a Presbyterian theologian named Robert "R.C." Sproul, who has written scores of books on topics relating to Christian life and doctrine. Sproul is a major name in his denomination (the Presbyterian Church in America), and is considered a leading American evangelical in the realm of Calvinist theology. So any charges of felony made against his employee (Tim Dick, who operates as Ligonier's corporate president) reflect in an ugly way on Sproul. Not only will they impact Ligonier's ability to "do business" (even as a non-profit religious organization), it would bring Sproul's professional credentials under review and possible revocation, given the PCA's internal ethics standards for its ministers.

But within the narrow perameters of American Reformed Christianity, there appear to be some Sproul-haters (almost all due to bizarre ideological conflicts internal to conservative Presbyterianism, that would make sense only to Presbyterian insiders) who ardently want this blogger's charges to be believed, because it would do so much damage to Sproul.

As you say, there's a big legal difference between calling somebody a juvenile name like "nincompoop", as Vance does to Timothy Dick, and telling the world that Timothy Dick on behalf of Ligonier committed an actual crime. I don't think bloggers should be allowed to do such a thing. As much as I despised Bill Clinton's administration, I considered all that sort of thing done against him by various bug-eyed, ultra-right-wing Clinton-haters as utterly trashy and low. The same standard should apply to all. What is shameful is how hypocritical it is for certain people who call themselves "conservative Christians" to now justify Frank Vance's smearing, only because it's being done to someone they hate. If it was being done to them, they would all scream like stuck pigs.

Jack Brooks | 09.11.06 12:51 PM

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