Mazeppa
2/21/2015, 10:16 PM
Think twice before you post.
Posted by Joe Lucia on Feb 7, 2015 09:00
Bonnie Zeigler, the wife Western Michigan booster Aaron Ziegler, is suing three men for $25,000 each over claims that they ruined her reputation. What makes this suit so noteworthy*is that the three men are being sued (Bruce Bendix, Dan Burgardt, Randolph Foster) because of “false and defamatory” comments that they posted on CSNbbs.com.
That’s right – the wife of a booster is suing message board trolls.
The comments that caused Zeigler to sue took place in a thread dedicated to firing WMU coach P.J. Fleck, who is 9-16 in two years at the school. The trio of commenters apparently made claims about Zeigler sleeping with Fleck, which they eventually retracted.
All three of the men*have some history with Western Michigan. Bendix played football at the school in the 1970s before moving on to coaching, eventually getting elected to the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame. Burgardt used to write for Rivals, covering Western Michigan football. Foster is an alumnus of the school, and called the posts, “message board nonsense”. Burgardt had a similar response.
“From my perspective, you had 11 people who were initially on that complaint and they basically had heard a rumor which apparently had been talked about in the community and they were talking about whether they believed it or not,” Burgardt said. “Some of them believed it, some of them didn’t. My position on it is I didn’t believe it and I gave some snarky examples of why I believed it wasn’t true.”
What a bizarre, interesting situation. The three man were identified and later sued after their addresses, email addresses, and IP addresses were eventually acquired from the website. If the suit actually ends up heading to court rather than being settled outside of court, I’m very curious as to what will end up happening. If the suit ends up being successful, this could end up opening the floodgates for future lawsuits spurred by online comments.
Posted by Joe Lucia on Feb 7, 2015 09:00
Bonnie Zeigler, the wife Western Michigan booster Aaron Ziegler, is suing three men for $25,000 each over claims that they ruined her reputation. What makes this suit so noteworthy*is that the three men are being sued (Bruce Bendix, Dan Burgardt, Randolph Foster) because of “false and defamatory” comments that they posted on CSNbbs.com.
That’s right – the wife of a booster is suing message board trolls.
The comments that caused Zeigler to sue took place in a thread dedicated to firing WMU coach P.J. Fleck, who is 9-16 in two years at the school. The trio of commenters apparently made claims about Zeigler sleeping with Fleck, which they eventually retracted.
All three of the men*have some history with Western Michigan. Bendix played football at the school in the 1970s before moving on to coaching, eventually getting elected to the Michigan High School Coaches Hall of Fame. Burgardt used to write for Rivals, covering Western Michigan football. Foster is an alumnus of the school, and called the posts, “message board nonsense”. Burgardt had a similar response.
“From my perspective, you had 11 people who were initially on that complaint and they basically had heard a rumor which apparently had been talked about in the community and they were talking about whether they believed it or not,” Burgardt said. “Some of them believed it, some of them didn’t. My position on it is I didn’t believe it and I gave some snarky examples of why I believed it wasn’t true.”
What a bizarre, interesting situation. The three man were identified and later sued after their addresses, email addresses, and IP addresses were eventually acquired from the website. If the suit actually ends up heading to court rather than being settled outside of court, I’m very curious as to what will end up happening. If the suit ends up being successful, this could end up opening the floodgates for future lawsuits spurred by online comments.