I am reserving commentary since I haven’t had a chance to look at the pleadings in depth. The answer to most of your questions is “I don’t know.” Are they suing the blogs? Commenters? I dunno.
So, without further ado, here are the pleadings. To use a lawyer phrase, they speak for themselves:
Paul Duffy v. Godfread, at. al.
Prenda Law v. Godfread, at. al.
Dockets are found here:
Prenda and Paul Duffy filed in Illinois. Steele filed in Florida. Again, I don’t know why.Β Procedurally, these appear to be state court actions that were removed into federal court.
The named defendants in Illinois are represented by Erin Russell and Jason Sweet. It looks like Paul Duffy is representing himself and Prenda is represented by counsel. (I can’t make out the name in the pleading).Β In the Florida action, Brad Patrick is representing the named defendants, and John Steele is representing himself.
Get your popcorn, because this is going to get interesting…
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Not exactly notice pleading, one fact per paragraph. Maybe some kind of self therapy? Why are these Complaints filed as exhibits? Jordan, we’re depending on you to stay on top of this for us all.
The lawsuits were originally filed in a state court, which may be fact pleading. That is what we have here in Pennsylvania.
Godfread’s attorney removed it into federal court. The Complaints are Exhibit “A” to a notice of removal, which removes it from state court into federal court.
Is there a way to tell what 10 Does he is going after? It looks like Steele included dozens and dozens of quotes in his exhibits. I assume he is not going after all of them (maybe not yet I guess). Where in the exhibits does it list the IPs of the Does he’s trying to obtain the identities of?
Not at this point. They wouldn’t have the IP addresses of the Does at this juncture.
It’s impossible to tell who the Does are right now.
I can easily guess 3 of them maybe 4…
Do you think they will get discovery of blogger names and addresses?
So John Steele et al is suing the internet for saying mean things about them. Best of luck with that! I’m honored to see some of my words in these suits.
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Notice pleading is the rule in Illinois, and the first complaint looks fairly standard. Cook Co. law division, so this case might go on for like 3-4 years.
Cripes, that should say “fact” pleading is the rule. The detail in the first is likely necessary to sustain a 2-615 motion.
We have fact pleading here in Pennsylvania, too. That type of detail is advisable here.
I’m not sure what the basis is to remove this into federal court is, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the case.
And just to keep the news spread around, Steele has dropped the FL case without prejudice. I’m guessing he might be otherwise occupied currently.
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