Ebay wins again, dammit

[Archive]

Posted By: warshawlaw

The guy works for a publisher and is attuned to libel laws, so he availed himself of them. So what? Are you implying that a person who is defamed should not sue, or are you implying that lawyers are not entitled to sue the same as anyone else? Your position makes no sense. Suppose I posted feedback on ebay claiming that you stole a card from me; would you stand by idly and let it go? How would you feel if ebay agreed that the post was false and then refused to take it down? Pretty angry, right? Note that the case did NOT say that the plaintiff was not defamed--it said that ebay had a legislatively-created immunity against liability for publishing a defamatory comment by a poster. The person posting the comment may still be found to have defamed the guy and might still have to pay damages for it.

I am so tired of people popping off against lawyers--do you even realize where these anti-litigation ideas come from? Let me give you a hint: the insurance and manufacturing lobbies, who spend millions every election cycle trying to convince people that the right to sue someone for damages for injuring them is spurious, "dirty" or "bad" and should be curtailed. What else would you suggest, talk to a congressman? Better have a lot of money or a solid bloc of voters all over the country behind you? I forgot to bribe, er, contribute megabucks to his campaign, so I don't have access that would get anything done--unlike the lobbyists from the computer industry who paid their way through the door, created the exemption legislation ebay used and got the congress and president to accept it. The court is the last place the little guy can go to tell Ford not to crispy critter people to save $10 on vehicle construction, yet the "reformers" (insurance and mfg lobbyists) have brainwashed many people into believing that this is a bad thing. Being sued sucks--I have been sued so I know how it feels--but being unable to sue someone who hurt you is far worse. CA has a law limiting medical malpractice liability (passed by the efforts of the insurance lobby in 1978) so severely that my parents can't find anyone to take a case against a doctor who misprescribed a double dose of a dangerous narcotic to my sister and killed her in the process. Were it not for court cases, we'd still have segregated schools (Brown v. Board of Education), car design choices consciously made on the basis that it is cheaper to kill people than to fix defects (Ford Pinto case), schools with the right to bar students from school for political speech ("F___ the draft" T-shirt case), etc., etc., etc.

Sorry for the screed--back to cards.