My question involves defamation in the state of: Illinois
Hello Everyone. I feel almost silly to be seeking legal opinions on this matter, in fact my wife and I have been laughing about it the last 2 days. However, we have been informed that a lawsuit is being filed so we have to "protect ourselves" and need any advice/opinions. This will end up being an International case but I am curious about opinions as if it pertained to the US.
I also apologize for the novel I have written as my first post. However, you should read it because it is quite amusing.
Cliff notes: Father-in-law (german resident) is filing a libel case in Germany against my wife and I over facebook comments (I am a US citizen, my wife is a German citizen living in the US with me). He then proceeded to steal passwords from my wife's grandmother in order to gain access to private messages that he is building a portion of his case on. He also made verbal and written threats against us.
First, I need to clarify again, this will be an International case which will make it much more complicated, but I am seeking opinions/advice as if this were happening in the US. I recently was medically retired from the Army. I spent the last 5 years stationed in Germany, which is where I met my wife. We are now residing in the United States (IL to be exact). This is going to be a long explanation so forgive me.....
My father-in-law (a German resident) is suing my wife and I for Libel. All of this stems from a few facebook comments that were made. Summarized history...... my wife was given to an orphanage at the age of 4 by her father. She was in and out of foster homes and a children's home until the age of 14. Her mother took her out of the children's home at 14 (which would be another entire book about how horrible life was with her mother). Most people know how bad the life of a foster child can be, and my wife experienced the worst of it. Her father never made any attempt to raise her and only saw her maybe once a year for a few hours. At 5 years old she severly fractured her skull and was in the hospital for 5 weeks, he only came once for 20 minutes to see her (get the picture?) This is not speculation, we have tangible evidence to prove all of the above. You may wonder why I am giving this information but it is a key point in all of this.
Several days ago, my wife's step-mom posted a photo to facebook that said something along the lines of "You know you had a good childhood if you experienced.....blah blah". My wife commented on this and said something to the effect of 'not everyone gets the privilege of a good childhood and has to make the best out of a crappy situation'. Her father took this as a direct attack on him (it may have been passive-agressive but was not a direct insult to him at all). He responded with "and your childhood has made you self-centered and you don't care about anyone but yourself". My wife then said this had nothing to do with him and he must feel guilty if he reacts this way. His next response involved saying that she is now in her 30's and her life amounts to nothing, she has never accomplished anything and is basically a waste of a human life. Her response got rather personal and told him he was not a good father because he never raised her, he always complains that his business is never making any money so how can he be the judge of who is a success in life blah blah blah........ The communication ended there, the comments were removed, and everyone blocked each other. Family dispute ending in hurt feelings.
We thought this was the end of it. However, he proceeded to start looking up my family members on facebook ( US residents, whom he has never met or even spoken to) and telling them how horrible my wife is and she is disrespectful. That she is just like her mother and will ruin everyone's life in the end. He also began calling my wife's grandmother (German resident, I must also add that this is my wife's maternal grandmother. My wife's mother is deceased, her father has remarried) and telling her that this was defamation of character. That he is a member of their local city council and those comments have damaged his reputation. He also said that he knows people in power (claims to have connections with the CIA) and will make sure my wife loses her immigrant visa resulting in deportation from the US and that all of my veteran's benefits will be stripped away (I must add that this is all verbal but her grandmother has agreed to testify if need be). They continued to call my wife's grandmother all day on Sunday, 16 March 2015, and making these threats. Her grandmother is 81 years old and in poor health, she spent the whole day crying because she was worried that he was going to ruin our lives. He also accused me of "hacking" into his email in order to obtain "important documents" that he had in his inbox. I could not care less about what documents are in his email and I have no idea how to "hack".
Now, this is where it starts getting REALLY wild.... The job I held in the Army required me to have a secret security clearance. I participated in a lot of missions that were of utmost security concerns so our facebook pages were watched religiously by our supervisors. We had strict guidlines on how our security settings were to be configured so that nobody could see anything without being on our "friends list". I have only been out of the military for 2 months so everything is still set up this way. Yet again, you are probably thinking too much information but this is a key point.
I made a post on facebook warning my family members that if my father-in-law contacts them to screen shot his message and send it to me for evidence. That he has been exhibiting traits of a deranged narcissist and this is not to be taken lightly. The only person I have ever had on my facebook that even knows my wife's father is her Grandma..... A few hours later we received an email from her father stating that he was contacted by a random woman in Germany that had seen my post about him being a narcissist and that he would now also be filing a libel suit against me. We were very confused because there was no way anyone could have seen this without being on my friends list, especially not a random German woman that doesn't even know me. He also addressed things my wife had said to her grandmother on skype and in emails. Once again, we could not figure out how he knew all of this because my wife's grandmother absolutely despises him and would not be passing along information. Her grandmother allowed us to login to her facebook and I checked to see what IP numbers had accessed her facebook page. Voila! someone had accessed her facebook account from her father's city (he lives 4 hours away from the grandmother). I then pulled his IP from the email he had sent and it was an exact match to the one on facebook! I dug deeper and found that he and his wife have been remotely accessing the grandmother's computer using a program called TeamViewer and stole all of her passwords. They were accessing her facebook, skype, and email accounts so they were seeing everything that my wife had discussed with her grandmother. Some of which he has stated will be used in his libel case(acting as if he found this stuff out through a 3rd party). So, what he is basing his libel suit against me was obtained by him logging into the grandmother's facebook account with a stolen password. I must also add that her father is very sue happy and has filed lawsuits at least 6 times (this is only what we could find in public records). This tells me that he must have a lawyer on retainer and it will be very easy for him to get this case started....
My wife sent him an email and called him out for stealing her grandmother's passwords. He denied getting on the grandmother's facebook despite the tangible evidence of his IP address logging into her account. He admitted accessing her skype but that he had explicit verbal permission by the grandmother to access her skype (which is a 100% lie and the grandmother is willing to testify). He also made a few more written threats and said "You think that because you are in the US and I am in Germany that I cannot get to you. Your actions have consequences and you will pay". He claims that he has now contacted his lawyer and started drawing up the libel suit against us (processed through the German courts). However, the "evidence" he is using against us are screen shots of ONLY what my wife and I have said on facebook. They cropped out the comments that he made to my wife (which were more damaging than what she said) so it looks like we were making these statements for no reason.
I would venture to say that any court will laugh if he presents this, but I have seen stranger things. However, let's say they do accept this and rule in his favor that he has a case of libel on his hands. How would we go about fighting a case like this? I am interested in your comments, opinions, and advice (even if it is just cursing me for writing such a long first post :D )
Hello Everyone. I feel almost silly to be seeking legal opinions on this matter, in fact my wife and I have been laughing about it the last 2 days. However, we have been informed that a lawsuit is being filed so we have to "protect ourselves" and need any advice/opinions. This will end up being an International case but I am curious about opinions as if it pertained to the US.
I also apologize for the novel I have written as my first post. However, you should read it because it is quite amusing.
Cliff notes: Father-in-law (german resident) is filing a libel case in Germany against my wife and I over facebook comments (I am a US citizen, my wife is a German citizen living in the US with me). He then proceeded to steal passwords from my wife's grandmother in order to gain access to private messages that he is building a portion of his case on. He also made verbal and written threats against us.
First, I need to clarify again, this will be an International case which will make it much more complicated, but I am seeking opinions/advice as if this were happening in the US. I recently was medically retired from the Army. I spent the last 5 years stationed in Germany, which is where I met my wife. We are now residing in the United States (IL to be exact). This is going to be a long explanation so forgive me.....
My father-in-law (a German resident) is suing my wife and I for Libel. All of this stems from a few facebook comments that were made. Summarized history...... my wife was given to an orphanage at the age of 4 by her father. She was in and out of foster homes and a children's home until the age of 14. Her mother took her out of the children's home at 14 (which would be another entire book about how horrible life was with her mother). Most people know how bad the life of a foster child can be, and my wife experienced the worst of it. Her father never made any attempt to raise her and only saw her maybe once a year for a few hours. At 5 years old she severly fractured her skull and was in the hospital for 5 weeks, he only came once for 20 minutes to see her (get the picture?) This is not speculation, we have tangible evidence to prove all of the above. You may wonder why I am giving this information but it is a key point in all of this.
Several days ago, my wife's step-mom posted a photo to facebook that said something along the lines of "You know you had a good childhood if you experienced.....blah blah". My wife commented on this and said something to the effect of 'not everyone gets the privilege of a good childhood and has to make the best out of a crappy situation'. Her father took this as a direct attack on him (it may have been passive-agressive but was not a direct insult to him at all). He responded with "and your childhood has made you self-centered and you don't care about anyone but yourself". My wife then said this had nothing to do with him and he must feel guilty if he reacts this way. His next response involved saying that she is now in her 30's and her life amounts to nothing, she has never accomplished anything and is basically a waste of a human life. Her response got rather personal and told him he was not a good father because he never raised her, he always complains that his business is never making any money so how can he be the judge of who is a success in life blah blah blah........ The communication ended there, the comments were removed, and everyone blocked each other. Family dispute ending in hurt feelings.
We thought this was the end of it. However, he proceeded to start looking up my family members on facebook ( US residents, whom he has never met or even spoken to) and telling them how horrible my wife is and she is disrespectful. That she is just like her mother and will ruin everyone's life in the end. He also began calling my wife's grandmother (German resident, I must also add that this is my wife's maternal grandmother. My wife's mother is deceased, her father has remarried) and telling her that this was defamation of character. That he is a member of their local city council and those comments have damaged his reputation. He also said that he knows people in power (claims to have connections with the CIA) and will make sure my wife loses her immigrant visa resulting in deportation from the US and that all of my veteran's benefits will be stripped away (I must add that this is all verbal but her grandmother has agreed to testify if need be). They continued to call my wife's grandmother all day on Sunday, 16 March 2015, and making these threats. Her grandmother is 81 years old and in poor health, she spent the whole day crying because she was worried that he was going to ruin our lives. He also accused me of "hacking" into his email in order to obtain "important documents" that he had in his inbox. I could not care less about what documents are in his email and I have no idea how to "hack".
Now, this is where it starts getting REALLY wild.... The job I held in the Army required me to have a secret security clearance. I participated in a lot of missions that were of utmost security concerns so our facebook pages were watched religiously by our supervisors. We had strict guidlines on how our security settings were to be configured so that nobody could see anything without being on our "friends list". I have only been out of the military for 2 months so everything is still set up this way. Yet again, you are probably thinking too much information but this is a key point.
I made a post on facebook warning my family members that if my father-in-law contacts them to screen shot his message and send it to me for evidence. That he has been exhibiting traits of a deranged narcissist and this is not to be taken lightly. The only person I have ever had on my facebook that even knows my wife's father is her Grandma..... A few hours later we received an email from her father stating that he was contacted by a random woman in Germany that had seen my post about him being a narcissist and that he would now also be filing a libel suit against me. We were very confused because there was no way anyone could have seen this without being on my friends list, especially not a random German woman that doesn't even know me. He also addressed things my wife had said to her grandmother on skype and in emails. Once again, we could not figure out how he knew all of this because my wife's grandmother absolutely despises him and would not be passing along information. Her grandmother allowed us to login to her facebook and I checked to see what IP numbers had accessed her facebook page. Voila! someone had accessed her facebook account from her father's city (he lives 4 hours away from the grandmother). I then pulled his IP from the email he had sent and it was an exact match to the one on facebook! I dug deeper and found that he and his wife have been remotely accessing the grandmother's computer using a program called TeamViewer and stole all of her passwords. They were accessing her facebook, skype, and email accounts so they were seeing everything that my wife had discussed with her grandmother. Some of which he has stated will be used in his libel case(acting as if he found this stuff out through a 3rd party). So, what he is basing his libel suit against me was obtained by him logging into the grandmother's facebook account with a stolen password. I must also add that her father is very sue happy and has filed lawsuits at least 6 times (this is only what we could find in public records). This tells me that he must have a lawyer on retainer and it will be very easy for him to get this case started....
My wife sent him an email and called him out for stealing her grandmother's passwords. He denied getting on the grandmother's facebook despite the tangible evidence of his IP address logging into her account. He admitted accessing her skype but that he had explicit verbal permission by the grandmother to access her skype (which is a 100% lie and the grandmother is willing to testify). He also made a few more written threats and said "You think that because you are in the US and I am in Germany that I cannot get to you. Your actions have consequences and you will pay". He claims that he has now contacted his lawyer and started drawing up the libel suit against us (processed through the German courts). However, the "evidence" he is using against us are screen shots of ONLY what my wife and I have said on facebook. They cropped out the comments that he made to my wife (which were more damaging than what she said) so it looks like we were making these statements for no reason.
I would venture to say that any court will laugh if he presents this, but I have seen stranger things. However, let's say they do accept this and rule in his favor that he has a case of libel on his hands. How would we go about fighting a case like this? I am interested in your comments, opinions, and advice (even if it is just cursing me for writing such a long first post :D )
Libel: Father-In-Law Filing a Libel Suit
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