West Michigan University Student Sued Over Facebook Fan Page
On Friday, April 30, 2010, Western Michigan University student, Justin Kurtz received court papers notifying him of a four-page lawsuit filed against him from T&J Towing for $750,000.
Kurtz created a Facebook fan page called “Kalamazoo Residents Against T&J Towing” about the Kalamazoo towing company. The towing company has received multiple complaints by the Better Business Bureau and Kurtz asked those who had filed compliants to share their thoughts and stories about the company.
“It’s not like I was making untrue claims or anything, it’s not like I had control over anything that everyone had posted the whole time. I told everyone to be professional, don’t post any threats. Just tell your story and that’s what pretty much everyone did,” said Kurtz.
The company is claiming a “loss of income” as a result of the alleged slander, defamation of character and libel.
Cooley Law professor, Curt Benson believes the case will be difficult for T&J’s lawyer to win, and that his lawsuit is probably more of a scare tactic.
“He’s got an awfully hard lawsuit to win here and frankly, I get the impression it’s more like him sending a message to the community, ‘don’t say anything negative against me because I’ll file a lawsuit against you’,” Benson added.
Reportedly, Kurtz has no intentions of paying the $750,000.
Via NBC