[Chat] No good deed goes unpunished

JUDY BERLIN jdydee at verizon.net
Sun Jun 21 00:57:40 EDT 2009


i thought someone who was the victim of defamation had to have been so 
harmed that there is a neg impact on their life. I would tell the 
lawyer to stick it., he sounds confused.  he is trying to jerk you 
around.   I'd wait till his paperwork comes thru(If it does). He's 
trying to get you to settle out of court. some lawyers think people are 
stupid.  With your permission I'll call him. tell him  u  will counter 
sue.  you can tell i'm pissed.
judy


On Jun 19, 2009, at 15:23, Kevin Zeese wrote:

> Your suggestions are welcome on the situation below.
>  
> Last September we saw someone walk across the alley behind Calvert to 
> the St. Paul side and pour gasoline over the door of a garage.  We 
> could smell the gasoline from our house, about five doors down, and 
> then a person with us went up to it and confirmed that it was in fact 
> gasoline.
>
>
> We thought this was bizarre and did not know what to do.  We did not 
> know the persons intent but were concerned that if there was a fire it 
> could affect the whole block of row houses.  If a neighbor had seen 
> someone do this to our house or the house next door we'd want them to 
> call the police, so we did.
>  
> The police sent out the arson squad.  We never accused anyone of arson 
> but did report the pouring of gasoline.
>  
> Recently we found out that the individual was arrested and held over 
> in jail for three days, paying a $1,000 bond to get out.  The police 
> wanted to charge him with attempted arson but the prosecutors felt 
> they could not prove it.  The police/prosecutor never called us to 
> discuss whether there was anything more than gasoline being poured.  
>  
> We received a letter from a lawyer, Howard Schulman, threatening to 
> sue us for defamation because we accused his client of attempted 
> arson.  In the letter the lawyer acknowledged that his client did 
> indeed pour gasoline in the alley.  He claimed it was to kill rats.  
> Pouring gasoline and other chemicals in the ally is itself illegal.
>  
> We wrote back saying that the lawyer had the facts wrong and we did 
> not accuse anyone of attempted arson, merely that he poured gasoline 
> on a neighbors garage -- something the lawyer admitted.
>  
> The lawyer wrote back with a draft complaint continuing his threat to 
> sue and telling us to have our lawyer or insurance company call him.
>  
> We contacted our insurance company which initially said they would 
> cover this, but now say they do not.  They say they talked to the 
> lawyer and that he does intend to sue.  He suggests we get a lawyer.
>
>
> Of course, getting a lawyer would probably cost more than settling the 
> case but we do not want to settle a false claim or hire a lawyer.
>  
> We see this as a legal stick-up -- the type of thing that will 
> discourage others from calling the police when they see a crime.
>  
> Any suggestions?  Any lawyers or others with experience with this?
>  
> Thanks.
>  
> KZ_______________________________________________
> Chat mailing list
> Chat at charlesvillage.info
> http://charlesvillage.info/mailman/listinfo/chat_charlesvillage.info
> archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/chat@charlesvillage.info/
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 3344 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://charlesvillage.info/pipermail/chat_charlesvillage.info/attachments/20090621/95b17eb7/attachment.bin>


More information about the Chat mailing list