[dillerX]

Found this interesting considering how we rip on others here.

From Minneapolis Star Tribune

Accuser hit with $3 million verdict in Web case
Robert Franklin
Star Tribune

Published Sep 30, 2002

Here's another reason to watch what you post on the Internet. Or -- in a court case about sex, money and a Web site -- 3 million reasons.

Glenda Miskin of Crookston, Minn., was a student at the University of North Dakota when she was accused of stalking and harassing her physics professor. She was suspended from school and kicked out of student housing, then took her case to the Internet.
John Wagner was awarded a $3 million verdict.

On a Web site, she accused John Wagner, an associate professor of physics, of telling her that he had a sexual interest in children and of seeking them out through his church. Wagner sued and, after a trial in which Miskin acted as her own attorney, a jury awarded him $3 million for libel, slander and intentional interference with a business relationship.

That's $800,000 more than Wagner's attorney requested.

Now Miskin, who said she is living on disability payments and has no appreciable assets, is appealing to the North Dakota Supreme Court. Once again, she is acting as her own attorney.

"Some people think of the Internet as the equivalent of [having a conversation over] the back fence," said John Borger, a First Amendment attorney in Minneapolis who has handled Internet litigation. "But that's not the case."

Federal law protects Web site operators who merely allow others to post their thoughts, Borger said, and "there are some wrinkles [that] involve where you can sue and how you know somebody's actually the author."

But even though Internet discussions tend to be more freewheeling, he said, Web postings -- and e-mails -- pose the same risks as communicating by newspaper, television or photocopier for material that is false and damaging.

Miskin, described by a friend as an eccentric and passionate champion of the underdog, said she is too poor to hire a lawyer and simply will declare bankruptcy if she loses her appeal.

What the case really means, she said, is that, when confronted with matters of public concern, "you're not safe making reports in North Dakota," or being a whistleblower.

Wagner, who spent thousands of dollars to pursue the suit, said: "I have $3 million worth of integrity restored. Ultimately, that is what I wanted from this lawsuit."

David Thompson, a Grand Forks lawyer and former journalist who considers himself a social acquaintance of Wagner, said that becoming the object of an Internet posting "could happen to anybody. . . . It's a frightening prospect. It makes you almost want to think of disappearing if you're confronted with something like that."

The amount of the verdict was extraordinary, but "you have to go through an excruciatingly painful and expensive process to use the courts," said Thompson, who called Wagner "a mainstream, legitimate professor of physics [with] nothing aberrant or unusual about him in terms of his personal or professional life, as far as I'm aware."

No love lost

There's no love lost between the litigants, both in their 40s and who each claimed to have rejected advances by the other.

Wagner's attorney, William McKechnie of Grand Forks, said it was the most difficult case he'd had in more than 20 years of practice. "I didn't have a lawyer on the other side," McKechnie said. "I had a crazy person."

"Crazy like a fox," Miskin responded, accusing McKechnie of "taking advantage of a nut."

The Web site is a mix of truth and parody, Miskin said. For instance, she said it was a joke to link a posting about Wagner to the North Dakota Attorney General's list of sex offenders, on which Wagner's name does not appear.

She also has posted a raft of complaints about McKechnie and about the university.

"There's a lot of oppression in this area" and her "recreation" is fighting it, Miskin said. She said she's fought for American Indians; sexual-abuse victims and older students at the University of North Dakota; black students at the University of Minnesota, Crookston; decent seating for large people, humane treatment of impounded animals and knowledgeable hair-cutting for ethnic minorities.

Would 'fix the world'

Miskin is an eccentric, a thinker, a strategist who "believes that she can fix the world -- and that doesn't always happen," said Cheryl Saunders, a former neighbor who is director of the university's Learning Center.

Miskin said she had a clothing store in San Francisco and moved to Grand Forks because she thought it would be safer for her two biracial children. Instead, she said, problems just are not reported.

In fall 1998, she was a student in a natural-science class taught by Wagner, whom his lawyer called "a well-respected professor who teaches real high-end physics and nuts-and-bolts physics classes."

Wagner claimed Miskin sent him more than 70 e-mails, phoned him, expressed love for him and made "patently inappropriate" remarks.

Miskin said that "he came on to me," initiating calls and phone sex.

Wagner complained to university officials, and after Miskin requested a public hearing she was suspended as a student a few credits shy of graduation, barred from taking any more courses on campus, and lost student aid and housing.

Jon Lindgren, a retired economics professor, former Fargo mayor and North Dakota's chapter president of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at the time, acted as an advisor for Miskin. Lindgren said the proceeding was "not a hearing, it was a lynching."

He said Miskin used poor judgment in her later Internet postings but, at the time of the university hearing, he objected that no one was allowed to state her case for her or cross-examine witnesses.

"Students speak for themselves," university counsel Julie Evans responded. "This is not a court of law and there is no representation other than to allow the student to have a fair hearing. That's the process."

After the Web site postings, Wagner sued.

Miskin defended the material, saying it was true, had been made a matter of public record at the open university hearing and was material of public concern.

Grand Forks County Judge Bruce Bohlman threw out some of her defenses and, McKechnie said, "the jury didn't like her. They didn't believe her."

Saunders said she wondered if the verdict would have been the same if Miskin had the same academic credentials as Wagner.

Miskin can be vindictive, and some people have said they fear her, Saunders said, but "I don't see her as a person who would harm somebody. She was the one who was always looking out for other people's children when we lived in student housing together."

Miskin, who now is running for mayor of Crookston, said she's learned a lot by preparing legal papers for her case, and "I'm a paralegal now, at least. I've got a profession out of it."

For Wagner, the case doesn't necessarily carry a lesson about Internet postings. "The sad thing," he said, "is if you have no assets, you can act with seeming impunity because there is no consequence."

[scaught]

i dont think i even HAVE 3 million worth of integrity to restore. hmm. now who can i sue...

[macvillage.net]

If she gave those statements to the police, it would be a different story.

But it was the internet.


That's rediculus.

[KeyLimePi]

Who was it that said 'anyone who represents himself in court has a fool for a client?'