[Section 15] One of Crookes' lawsuits dismissed

Wayne Crookes' lawsuit against Yahoo has been dismissed. You may recall that I am a defendant in one of his cases.

Michael Geist covered it the other day, and now CBC has it up on their website.

I have the actual ruling.

Now, Crookes has many lawsuits out there, and this is just a section of one of them, albeit one of the more significant.

What the judge found, in granting a motion by Yahoo, was that there was no evidence that a third party in BC actually saw any of the material Crookes claims to be libelous. In making this positive ruling, the judge recognized that the Yahoo group in question (GPC-Members) was a closed, private group, the contents of which are not visible to non-members. As such, without evidence that a BC-based subscriber read the material, Crookes had no case to bring the suit in BC.

What else I found interesting was something else the judge had to say, in section 16. You'll need to read some sections beforehand to get the gist:

[12] On August 4, 2006, Mr. Crookes emailed Yahoo about three postings on the GPC-Members website that defamed him and demanded that Yahoo remove these postings. That same day, following an exchange of emails and Mr. Crookes providing Yahoo with the necessary, detailed information required by Yahoo to deal with Mr. Crookes' concerns, a copy of the full headers and the message, Yahoo removed the postings. Yahoo asked Mr. Crookes to notify it of any further questionable content he found in Yahoo! Groups. Mr. Crookes was satisfied with Yahoo's prompt response and thanked Yahoo for its assistance.

[13] The statement of claim alleges that later in August 2006 the impugned postings were reposted with other allegedly defamatory material. Instead of following his previously successful method of complaint by email, Mr. Crookes claims that on December 8, 2006, he had his lawyer send a "legal letter" by fax and courier addressed to "Sir/Madam" at Yahoo! Inc. Mr. Crookes' counsel complained that Mr. Crookes "has not received your ongoing diligence in making certain that this website does not either repost the libellous comments or post equally venomous remarks". Mr. Crookes' counsel requested Yahoo "shut down this site and in its place, post an apology for the libellous comments made about him, which the moderators have, to date either reposted, ignored, and sometimes even republished with commentary". The letter did not provide the information that Yahoo had previously told Mr. Crookes it needed in order to take steps to deal with questionable material; that is, a copy of the full headers and the impugned messages.

[14] A receipt of confirmation was requested in the letter. There was no receipt of confirmation. No effort was made by Mr. Crookes or his lawyer to ascertain if Yahoo received the letter.

[15] Yahoo claims it has been unable to locate this letter in its correspondence records. In addition, no effort was made to ascertain the appropriate individual, or even the appropriate department, who should receive such a letter. No effort was made to correspond with Yahoo by email, as Mr. Crookes had done, successfully, in the past. Instead of following up with Yahoo, Mr. Crookes commenced this action against Yahoo on March 2, 2007.

[16] Plaintiffs' counsel argues knowledge can be imputed to Yahoo based on counsel's letter which was faxed, and then couriered and signed for by "K. Kerins". However, the manner in which counsel contacted Yahoo, having regard to Mr. Crookes' prior email contact with Yahoo, which was successful in having the impugned postings removed efficiently, raises suspicions and concerns.

We'll see if he appeals. He has less than 30 days now to do so.

I'll save my further comments until after that deadline.

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Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 9/07/2007 10:45:00 PM