(Life in the 21st Century is turning into an Onion spoof.)

Now I want a doughtnut. Can I sue PZ Myers for that?

2) Lots of fools do.

This is an example of the ABM (Author's Big Mistake) writ large.

If he is a successsful businessman (wealthy) and angry, he will merely spend enough money to ruin PZ Myers' life.

To fight this as a non-dirty suit would be at least $50k. If it is a spite-suit, there will be endless depositions and requests for "continuances" which will take away from Myers productive time for- possibly- years and every dime Myers has ever earned.

I wish that there was a fair way to defend against a wealthy person with a belly full of vitriol and a team of lawyers... but other than offering to settle and go bankrupt that way, I doubt there is.

With liberty, and justice for....

Myers' best hope is that a reasonable judge will dismiss the case with prejudice.

The situation reminds me of this bit from Monty Python:

Interviewer: Why didn't you call the police?

Vercotti: Well I had noticed that the lad with the thermo-nuclear device was the Chief Constable for the area. Anyway a week later they came back, said that the cheque had bounced and that I had to see Doug.

Interviewer: Doug?

Vercotti: Doug (takes a drink) I was terrified of him. Everyone was terrified of Doug. I've seen grown men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug. Even Dinsdale was frightened of Doug.

Interviewer What did he do?

Vercotti: He used sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor, bathos, puns, parody, litotes and satire.

Cut to map.

Presenter: (voice over) By a combination of violence and sarcasm, the Piranha brothers by February 1966 controlled London and the South East. In February, though, Dinsdale made a big mistake.

Thanks to you, I am able to find the strength to forgive PZ Myers (and Teresa) for making me want a doughnut!

But when I tried to get mine to cover me, they refused -- even though I had specifically asked them about libel coverage at the time I bought my policy. Fortunately, I was never actually sued -- I guess the bad guy's lawyers realized that he couldn't win in New York.

But if I am sued and am denied coverage, I could win big.

If that happens, then I agree that Pivar isn't interested in "winning" the case, only in destroying Myers' life by ruining him financially.

Isn't this similar, in fact, to that spate of lawsuits filed pre-emptively by corporations to stop lawsuits from being filed against them by (smaller, less financially able) private citizens? I apologize for not remembering more of the particulars, but I recall people saying it was a dirty trick, since the corporations had unlimited funds and could just keep filing and filing until the opposition just gave up or went broke.

Now they just start the rumor that you're about to put any real estate you own on the market, and your time is eaten up by getting rid of the circuling land vultures.

(Bitter? Me, bitter?)

The elements of libel are that the defendant publish (blog review, check) an assertion of fact ("balloon animals," check) which damages the plaintiff (loss of sales/reputation, check) and which is false (oops).

An assault claim is laughable on the face of it.

The pity is that Mr. Myers will have to spend the money to defend against this, and it won't stop Mr. Pivar from doing it again, and again.

I've heard about this happening with regards to a certain Saudi prince, who keeps filing libel suits in the UK to keep publishers from printing books linking him to international terrorism. It's not that he wins the cases, but they can't keep defending them, so they stop publishing.

It is totally a misuse of the legal system, and yeah, bears a lot of similarity to that jackass ALJ in DC who has appealed his dismissal of the dry-cleaning suit. Argh.

Maybe Mr Myers should ask Ian Hislop (editor of Private Eye, an organ sued by both gents on numerous occasions) for advice. In the meantime, is there a defence fund?

Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hoch in the small town of Slatinské Doly, Carpathian Ruthenia, the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia (now part of Slatina-Doly (in Russian Solotvino [Солотвино]) Ukraine, into a poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary to which it had belonged for a thousand years.

If you don't believe this, I suggest that you look into the E360 vs. Spamhaus case in Illinois - Spamhaus (one of the major antispam organizations, based in the UK) had a multi-million dollar default judgement issued against them, largely written by the plaintiff, a major US spammer. That was after they did file thorough briefs arguing against the suit on grounds of failure to show jurisdiction and failure to show damages. Fortunately they had some valid points of law to argue on the appeal, and were allowed to appeal.

Yes, I'm greatly simplifying that case, but my point remains: It is usually disastrous to fail to respond fully and thoroughly to a nuisance lawsuit - and that is an expensive proposition for anyone of ordinary income.

Not that this is any less of an outrageous annoyance, of course. But I'm betting PZ won't have to get his checkbook out for a bit.

When you are sued, you have already lost. It's likely to cost you $5,000 to make the lawsuit go away - if you are very lucky. If you are unlucky it could cost you tens of thousands of dollars to defend even a dumb lawsuit.

Actually, we have barratry laws in the US -- it just depends on what state you are in. In California barratry is a crime. According to the California Penal Code:

158. Common barratry is the practice of exciting groundless judicial proceedings, and is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months and by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000). 159. No person can be convicted of common barratry except upon proof that he has excited suits or proceedings at law in at least three instances, and with a corrupt or malicious intent to vex and annoy.

(Help! I'm being assaulted by rogue pixels!)

(Also, did I put the right number of commas in that?)

Fragano 29: Wait a minute, those two short lines don't...oh right, of course they do. Duhh.

I predict this never gets to trial. (In the UK, at least, PZ could expect to be awarded costs as well.)

(of course IANAL, but my cousin is; maybe there's some genetic element ;} )

If Pivar isn't pro se, I foresee Rule 11 sanctions against his attorney.

Whether or not he is, the term "vexatious litigant" seems likely to be in his future.

The crackpot lost, of course, and the decision was upheld in a (very entertaining) appeals court decision by Richard Posner. (Dilworth v. Dudley, 1996. Worth a read.

http://www.law.emory.edu/7circuit/jan96/95-2282.html

Oh, a competent attorney can probably get the case thrown out for a couple of hundred dollars. But many attorneys are not competent, and picking one of them would be a costly error.

TNH (#36): ... and of course the reality is the bigger fuss she makes, the more people link to the original list, and the higher its Google rank becomes.

* Battery, not to be confused with barratry, could be committed with a book review, but probably not as part of one.

Well, here too, but imminent fear. Having someone a continent away say nasty things about you does not justify a claim of assault. And there's nothing quoted in this post that would justify putting poor Mr. Pivar in imminent fear of an offensive touching. (Yes, that's the common-law standard: an offensive touching is battery, and it can be as simple as a tap on the shoulder, if the toucher reasonably knew the touchee would find it offensive.)

(Now I'm having flashbacks to Torts class...)

She thinks that if she creates enough fuss and fluster on the internet, the high Google ranking of the Twenty Worst Agents List will somehow go away.

The Twenty Worst Agents List? Why would she think that the high Google ranking of the Twenty Worst Agents List would decrease rather than increase? It seems more likely to me that as time goes on, as Mitch Wagner suggests, people will only create more links to the Twenty Worst Agents List.

1. There is no claim for assault. The NY court system seems to lump together various forms of personal injury tort claims together in case listings.
Pivar is suing for "Tortious interference with Business relations" [sic on the capitalization] asking "at least $5 million" and "Libel per se" for "at least $10 million."
Pivar also demands that "Defendants Myers and SMG [Seed Media Group] . . . immediately remove such statements from all web-sites [sic] under their control; and Defendants be enjoined from continuing to issue libelous and defamatory statements about the Plaintiff."

2. Pivar is not acting pro se. He has an attorney, who is apparently also a notary public. According to the NY State attorney directory, Pivar's lawyer went to law school in the UK (although he is obviously licensed in NY).

3. The copyediting is unusually bad, even for a court document. The complaint refers to a book called How the leopard changed it's spots and the possessive of Myers is Myers' throughout (well, except when it's Myer's). There is no mention of any Myers other than PZ, or of any Myer at all.

4. The suit does not refer to PZM's review of the original edition of Lifecode, only to his comments on the updated edition.

5. Pivar's overall theory is that "the foreword, review and endorsements confirmed Lifecode as a serious scientific addition to the theoretical enquiry and important debate between the leading Darwinist and neo-Darwinist polemicists." By overturning this previously "confirmed" understanding, PZM supposedly damaged Pivar's reputation and business to the tune of "at least" $15 million.

6. Quote presented without comment:

"Myer's [sic] defamatory remarks were made with actual malice; Myers called Plaintiff 'a classic crackpot' fully knowing that statement to be false as a statement of fact and in reckless disregard of the truth about Plaintiff because Myer's [sic] knew full well, [at] the time of publishing his defamatory statement that no scientist holding the international reputation of any of [Robert] Hazen, [Dimitar] Sasselov, [Brian] Goodwin or [Neil de Grasse] Tyson would endorse or review the work of a crackpot." [These men wrote the "foreword, review and endorsements" of the updated edition]

Pivar is asking for injunctive relief (a court order that those nasty statements be removed) and money damages ($15 mil) and a Federal court has jurisdiction because Pivar is a citizen of New York and PZM is a citizen of Minnesota (diversity of citizenship).

There are steps that can be taken. In terms of dealing with the lawsuit itself, one can file a motion to dismiss. If the law is on one's side, then costs and attorneys fees can be obtained upon victory either at verdict or when a motion for summary judgment is granted. If the case is in federal court, then making a low-ball Rule 68 offer of judgment is a good strategy. That way if you lose and the verdict comes in at or below what you offered in settlement, the other side has to pay you your trial costs. [It is really fun and satisfying when this happens. I defended a case where the jury only awarded $1 in damages against one of 2 defendants. Because I had made a rule 68 offer of judgment, plaintiff wound up owing for the cost of 6 deposition transcripts, the trial transcripts, the witness subpoena fees, witness transportation costs, etc. She wound up owing us $15K]

If the case is frivolous, then the lawyer may have violated the rules of professional ethics by proceeding with the case. File a complaint with the bar disciplinary committee.

If this guy has filed enough cases that have been dismissed with prejudice, one can attempt to have the court issue an order barring him from bringing a lawsuit without the court's permission, although that's generally a more common occurance with obviously crazy pro se litigants.

Ask and ye shall receive (bravely modelled by my cat Nikita)
Importnt cat is Importnt

http://www.discord.org/%7Elippard/pivar-v-seed.pdf

Unicorn Museum

And maybe post pdfs of them on torrents.

Also, it's probably convenient for testimony by Neil de Grasse Tyson.

Jack Idema sued Columbia Journalism review and Columbia Univeristy and a cast of thousands in connection with a CJR article about him. Not only did Idema lose, but the judge told Idema to pay Columbia's substantial court costs. The reason for his loss had to do with the anti-SLAPP laws, as I recall.

(Idema threatened to sue me as part of a claimed very elaborate conspiracy against him. Though I did get a weird but menacing letter demanding unfettered access to my email account, ostensibly from his attorney but probably written by him, nothing ever came of it.)

"Your honor, the jury finds that the review was way nicer than this book deserves."

This reminds me a great deal of Kirk Cameron's banana proof for the existence of a personal God.

I'm not sure that video is something Church -- er, I mean, Kirk -- wants people seeing. It looks to me like proof we descended from, well, monkeys.

I guess I took my interpretation from a results-based standpoint - the "evolution" of the fetus is a pretty graphic indication that we have relatives elsewhere in the food chain, so if he could discount that...

Assault, libel and slander? How the hell can a written document do all three?

Write the review on a singing greeting card that you've programmed to sing the bad review at your victim.

Then, poke him in the eye with the card.

Best comment on that YouTube video:
kimosabelarry (14 hours ago)
I just ate a banana that was curved AWAY from my face.....?...why me, God? Why me?

That line took me a good minute, too.

All of this puts me in a position if I'm ever asked about my thoughts on tort reform, particularly in light of the earlier discussion here.
"Yes, I believe in reforming torts for fun and profit, but not in Tort Reform."

I'd guess the database pixies are on strike; I get this error message when I hit the link you provided:

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers error '80040e14'

Serves 'em right for using Borg Tools for the Enterprise.

although that's generally a more common occurance with obviously crazy pro se litigants.

This pot is obviously more than just crazed; he's thoroughly cracked.

What, is god a slapstick vaudevillian?

Do you really need more evidence than this?

1) What was Goldenballs, and why do the few books about Private Eye that end up in the USA mention it without explaining what in blazes it was?

2) I know that as part of the legal deal with her husband Private Eye agreed never to mention Tina Brown again. Since I'm not that thrilled with her skills as an editor (and killing Eustace Tilly? Yeah, sure...), were they going after her for something she'd edited, or written, or what?

It reminds me of the audio slapstick evinced by the Australian Lyre Bird video. Halfway through, one becomes convinced one is actually watching a Monty Python skit. This is usually somewhere between the car alarm bit and the chainsaw bit.

Three of those people aren't biologists, and therefore clearly have less credibility than Myers in this field.

The other currently teaches at an institute described by Wikipedia as "an international centre offering transformative learning for sustainable living, and runs holistic education courses," and apparently "has advocated a unification of science and the humanities." Not saying he's a crank, as I've never read any of his work so can't be entirely sure, but those look like signs of one to me.

Three of those people aren't biologists, and therefore clearly have less credibility than Myers in this field.

The other currently teaches at an institute described by Wikipedia as "an international centre offering transformative learning for sustainable living, and runs holistic education courses," and apparently "has advocated a unification of science and the humanities." Not saying he's a crank, as I've never read any of his work so can't be entirely sure, but those look like signs of one to me.

That is a male bird of paradise in full sexual display. It's postings like that which have given Making Light it's X rating, keeping child-like Wikiadmins from entering.

This behavior is one God's favorite bits of slapstick. She's done it over and over, mostly in Phylum Vertabrata, but to a lesser extent in Arthropoda ("Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it"). To my eyes, this is one of the silliest versions. And yet, try as I might to restrain myself from anthropomorphism*, I can't shake the feeling that the bird is just terribly pleased with himself.

* If there were a postmodern homosexual African-American dance troupe which refused to do routines involving motions other than human, e.g., animal movements, would they be called the Anthro Afro Pomo Homos?

Jules @ # 75, yeah, I recognized Tyson as an astronomer. And as for "I discussed my ideas with Gould"--Stephen Jay Gould discussed creationism with a lot of people; that didn't make him a creationist.

It's much harder in the US to reclaim legal fees in a frivilous lawsuit than it is in the UK, but it is far from impossible.

As a side note, my LOLcat in #12 is now my most viewed image in Flickr...Fluorosphere, thou art mighty!

junk science (24)
delusional (19)
garbage (16)
crank (13)
fiction (11)
crap (9)
crazy (7)
insane (5)
non-science (4)
litigious (3)

Pivar's attorney: The link doesn't show who his attorney is. He may be in pro per (filing his own self, not with a lawyer), like the $54 million pants judge. Yes, lawyers are bound by ethical and professional obligations not to assist in lawsuits they know are frivolous, and yes, there are penalties if they do.

Injunctive relief: That means you want the court to order somebody to do or not do a thing. Again not having seen the complaint, I'd guess he wants PZ to pull the review or apologize or something.

$15 million dollars: I understand that it used to be the case that civil filings in New York had to contain something called an "ad damnum", meaning a plaintiff would have to put a ceiling on the amount of damages sought so as to put the defendant on notice. Obviously you want to pick a high number. I had thought that NY abolished this requirement, but perhaps Mr. Pizer doesn't know that. Or he really thinks he is owed $15 million.

SLAPP: Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Some states have specific anti-SLAPP laws intended to prevent those with deep pockets from using lawsuits to silence critics.

To fight this as a non-dirty suit would be at least $50k: Where did you get this number?

Unfortunately, considering how long the lawsuit went on about the man who lost his pants at a dry cleaners' store, it is not all that difficult to find a judge willing to hear a frivolous case: Please don't believe everything the US Chamber of Commerce and its puppets tell you, as you seem to have confused the court system with the slushpile. Judges aren't allowed to simply decide which cases they think are dumb, without regard to procedure or law, and throw them out summarily. (The saga of Mayo ex rel Satan and His Staff is a result of a judge who did just that.) In the "pants lawsuit", the case dragged on exactly until it could get in front of a judge and the court was able to rule on the merits of the lawsuit, at which point it was thrown out. The case "dragged on" because the cleaners, understandably, tried to reason with Pearson.

Bruce (79), if they had a lot of attitude about it, they'd be the Anthro Afro Pomo Homo Mofos.

If it's the former, then it could well be expensive for Myers (or Seed Media) - the expectation of damages/fees from Pivar doesn't necessarily mean that Myers has the money on hand to pay the lawyer till the suit is settled in his favor. Assuming that it is. Or I could be wholly mistaken about how this works, since I have (luckily) never needed the services of a lawyer.

Perhaps Pivar prefers to think of himself as a modern crackpot?

And an idiot.

And a jerk.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/08/21/pz-being-sued-by-crackpot

Some of the comments though will give you the cramps or the giggles.

Also, here is a pic of him and Warhol.

This is more than making a living, or refusing to: It is the love call of currency at its most fetishistic. Steve Rubell famously showered Andy Warhol with buckets of bills at Andy's birthday bash. No artist was more the victim, and yet exploiter, of money lust than Warhol, wandering the souks of Soho with Stuart Pivar buying up everything in sight then dumping the unopened packages in his closets at night, full of unsatisfied shame. The pull of mammon was murderous even on someone so intelligent. For money is a form of behavior, abstract, hidden and irrational.

(Yes, I'm a lawyer; but no, this isn't legal advice to anyone, just a comment in the course of a discussion on a topic of public interest.)

Only if you were a very rich defendant. Even if you get 100% of your costs back, you're paying up front.

TNH, do you have a link to the PDF of the complaint?

Michael Weholt posted this link earlier in the thread, and it works for me: http://www.discord.org/%7Elippard/pivar-v-seed.pdf

I've passed the compliments on :) Nikita is my only cat but I'm a hobby photographer and I've taken several thousand photos of her already (yeah I know...) she's even been famous on the internets

Charlie Stross: You make me glad that our local billionaires are relatively benign: the Gates family has been doing "good works" in the local community since before Bill was born (which is why the Gates Foundation didn't surprise me), and outside of forcing a stadium down our throats and buying a yacht so large he bought a private submarine to go with it Paul Allen's activities (museums, saving the Cinerama and restoring it to full-Cinerama projection capability) have been pretty low-key as well. (My complaints have to do with whoever handles the Cinerama for the two weeks a year that Paul Allen has the option to use it. I've been trying to help a guy that's shooting NEW Cinerama/Kinopanorama films and restoring old ones to get hold of somebody at Vulcan that can schedule them, but there seems to be a strong current of "not invented here" to fight.)

Of course New York residents have Donald Trump, who appears to be auditioning for a position with ZOWIE after being rejected by KAOS...

junk science (40)
delusional (29)
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crap (15)
fiction (15)
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stuart pivar (2)
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bryan talbot (1)
clown (1)
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graphic novel (1)
junk science crackpot crank garbage ball... (1)
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lawsuit (1)
weak (1)
wtf (1)

Yes, but do you live in Lower Hoboken? (A pomo homo Lo-Ho...)

Since my husband and I are both bi and own a condo in Boulder, Colorado, we may, in fact, be pomo BoCo so-so homo homeowners. (Please do not add a "bobo" to that litany. We would not approve. We may be tempted by ThinkGeek from time to time--who isn't? Look! Sonic screwdrivers and USB turntables!--but "bobo"? Nono.)

Jen Roth: Perhaps Pivar prefers to think of himself as a modern crackpot?

Kathryn Cramer: To make all this weirder, it appears that Stuart Pivar is an art collector, friend of Andy Warhol, and a founder of the New York Academy of Art.

Oh, now, that is too much. He really is a pomo crack-po SoHo mofo.

Does this train wreck have a caboose?

It would be nice to think that federal judges are more carefully vetted, but the Shrub administration has been doing its damnedest to make sure that isn't true.

"Why!" he said. "I believe my Balloon will just go into that Pot!"

"Oh, no, Eeyore," said Pooh. "Balloons are much too big to go into Pots. What you do with a balloon is, you hold the balloon "

"Not mine," said Eeyore proudly. "Look, Piglet!" And as Piglet looked sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up with his teeth, and placed it carefully in the pot; picked it out and put it on the ground; and then picked it up again and put it carefully back.

"So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!"

"So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!"

"Doesn't it?" said Eeyore. "It goes in and out like anything."

"And," said Eeyore, "this supports my wonderful theory about Embryonic Morphogenesis. First we have something going in and out. Then we have an Elastic Spherical Surface within a Spherical Surface of less Elasticity. Finally, we have a Balloon! This proves Everything!"

"I'm very glad," said Pooh happily, "that I thought of giving you a Useful Pot to put things in."

"I'm very glad," said Piglet happily, "that thought of giving you something to put in a Useful Pot."

But Eeyore wasn't listening. He was taking the balloon out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be....

Astounding bird, really (coughs in an embarrassed manner, looks around).

Having just gotten three bad reviews this summer for a play I wrote, including a scorching one from the Village Voice, I'm astonished at the juvenile mentality that would make one think one is entitled not to get them. Grow the f--- up, already, Pivar. Sympathies to P.Z.

Jesus Christ, Greg, I just checked your webpage. You are in the Playwrights Workshop at Iowa?? I graduated from there! I've got the scorched-earth reviews to prove it! Not to mention DNA remnants still haunting apartments on Lynn and Johnson Streets, no doubt. Of course, I was there years ago. Which isn't to say I don't still have corn tassles waiting in the wings, stage-right. Do they still make you write for Midnight Madness, or have the mercifully done away with that? Lemme know if you need a place to stay if you ever visit NYC. We can compare bad notices as we wander the East Village wondering where the hell all the real art went.

("Get it! Get it, Nikita! Get that featherstick! You got to get it! Rawr!")

Lovely to see you here!

So I'm a pomo Hobo (Lo-Ho) faux-dodo homo homeowner.

He does indeed have a lawyer. One who needs to proofread his pleadings better, by the way.

I'm surprised most of the commenters here seem to think this is going to be expensive for the defendant. The penalties for bringing a frivolous lawsuit means the plaintiff, Pivar, is going to end up paying the D's costs and attorney fees. If I were the defendant I'd find the highest priced attorney available to defend me, to run up Pivar's costs as much as possible.

MarkG, that assertion simply does not stand up to reality. It's like saying, "If you're not guilty, you have nothing to fear from being arrested!" or "He must know what he's doing - he's President of the United States!" It's how things are supposed to work, but all-to-often don't in the real world.

(signed) PoMo SanDiego Hetero Bobo Homowner

That means that Pivar's complaint fails to allege the relevant jurisdictional facts as to Seed Media. He alleges only the state in which it was organized and its primary place of business, which would do for a corporation; but not the domiciles or even the identities of the owners.

Based on Seed Media's website it would appear that the founder and chairman of Seed Media lives in New York. Assuming that he still owns a share of the company (which seems like a reasonable assumption), then Seed Media would count as a New York citizen and complete diversity would indeed be absent (as well as improperly alleged).

I believe the correct name for that field of research is Moronic Embryogenesis.

(This is reminding me of the time when I was twelve and my older brother and I made ourselves sick laughing with caveman jokes: what do you call their teeth? australopithecuspids; what do they eat for dessert? australopithecustard; what do they spit in? An australopithecuspidor...)

Of course, one of our hosts, Patrick, is an old Iowa City boy. We all find each other, eventually. Mysteriously. The Call of the Mild-mannered, I guess. Except very few of the people I know from Iowa are genuinely mild-mannered. It is a guise we cultivate to lure outsiders out onto the prairie, after which they are never heard from again.

Pivar is known to have collected in this area.

We must not look at prairie men
Nor read what they compose.
Who knows upon what keys they typed
Their mild mannered prose?

I have learned a lot more about Pivar, including his alleged “friendship” with Steve Gould (who was my close friend from our college days in the 1950s until he died in 2002), but I won’t post it here.

Strongly suggests that there's more to the story than Pivar claims.

He also, after talking to Pivar's lawyer, says:

Pivar’s lawyer himself has little (no pun intended) hope the case will survive a motion to dismiss

and suggests that PZ's quite likely to be able to get an award of his attorney's fees.

In addition, it's pretty clear that his experience is in state court rather than federal; aside from not pleading the LLC citizenship properly (which will sink the case in federal court), he included a verification, which is generally not required under federal procedure but is under state procedure.

The judge assigned to the case, Shira Scheindlin, is no GOP hack. Moreover, she writes very thorough opinions, so it will be interesting to see what she writes if she doesn't throw it out for lack of diversity.

It's poor drafting, but what he's saying is that he's seeking injunctive relief and money damages for defamation and libel per se (which is libel that is so bad, like saying someone has a loathsome disease, that you don't even have to prove damages to win; damage to your reputation is presumed), and that the basis for bringing the case in federal court is diversity of citizenship of the parties. Not just any case can be brought before a federal court; it needs to either deal with a federal question (i.e., it's based on federal statutory or constitutional law), or it's a suit between citizens of different states, the theory being that a state court would favor its own citizen. Plus, the claim is for more than $75K. Diversity only works if each plaintiff is diverse from each defendant -- so, because it's likely that one of the owners of Seed Media is a citizen of New York, and the plaintiff is a citizen of New York, there's no diversity. If he were suing PZ only, there'd be diversity.

But it's almost impossible, barring a great celebrity on the part of the dead person, to get such a case past the point of pleadings.

As someone has, no doubt, already pointed out, the "diversity of citizenship" is a way to make a federal case out of it. Could have been done with the monetary claim (more than 75,000 dollars, if I recall my torts class correctly; yes, I took paralegal courses for fun), but the diversity claim makes it a slam dunk, and keeps it from ending up in a court the plaintiff might not like as well (say New York, which has ruled other such cases to be SLAPP, and awarded costs to the defendant. Pivar's lawyer would most assuredly want to avoid that sort of thing being possible.

I am more amused at the libel per se claim. It's possible (though really hard to imagine) that a per quod claim could be made. But per se is such that no need to show actual damage is required. The libel is so offensive that it's mere existence does harm (like alleging a phsysician knows himself to be an asymptomatic carrier of a something like Typhoid).

Since Pivar doesn't have an extant reputation; which would be so affected by a review of these books, in the field, I can't see a per se claim.

Per quod would still be hard, it would require the comments to have some relevance to things which still affect the reputation of Pivar, and (unless he's some sort of recognized scholar in a field which requires original research, I don't see it).

The other way that might happen would be to imply that, somehow, in the writing of these works, he compromised some, integral aspect of his public persona.

If he were, e.g., a dietetically observant Jew, saying he had been a judge in a barbeue competition, without saying he limited himself to beef/chicken, and then listing the winners of the pilled pork category could be seen as libel per quod.

I don't see how he can win, in either case, and mostly this is going to be an expensive hassle for PZ Meyers.

So that makes me an ovo-lacto pomo faux-dodo gogo homo Hobo homeowner.

I also play African drums, and have learned some of Babatunde Olatunji's drum language, but not very well.

Ovo-lacto pomo faux-dodo so-so Gun-go-do gogo homo Hobo homeowner.

My famous Black Hole Brownies are intensely chocolate (ask someone who was at the party at our Host's house where there was a theremin), because of my very enthusiastic use of a particular ingredient.

Ovo-lacto pomo faux-dodo cocoa so-so Gun-go-do gogo homo Hobo homeowner.

I am small in stature, and given to base puns.

Ovo-lacto pomo faux-dodo cocoa so-so Gun-go-do gogo low low homo Hobo homeowner.

The application of having a cute butt, being a singer of hackneyed rounds, and sometimes behaving as if I have approximately 20% of my actual intellect I leave as exercises for the reader. I could go on, but that would be a nono.

See #44.

Also, can you sneak 'bonobo' into that list?

... gogo low low homo Hobo Hebrew homeowner.

Maybe you could convert?

Oh, woe. Fo sho.

Zo.

I once read a murder mystery* in which the key to the whole plot is the moment when the detective finds a pool of sticky semiliquid in the bathroom of a brand-new house, and thus figures out that the victim was making kosher beer just before his death.

It was a new-loo Hebrew-brew goo clue.

*V'z ylvat. V znqr gur jubyr guvat hc.

1. See "hackneyed rounds."
2. See "not very well."
3. See (admittedly obscure) "reasoning [at] 20% [of my] intellect."

And then I cackle with glee.

Ouch.

Most of Pivar's cases seem to have been pro se - not sure why he suddenly decided to get a lawyer.

CHip 147: I do! And I also like Rameau and Couperin, so now I have ovo-lacto pomo faux-dodo fais do-do Rococo cocoa so-so Gun-go-do gogo low low homo Hobo homeowner mojo.*

If you pronounce this it sounds like you're speaking a creole (npi) of Swahili and Japanese. (Too bad I'm not also a Creole, huh?)

*Thanks also to Electric Landlady.

(In the interview packet that goes along with 69 Love Songs he talks about repetitive sounds like this, and says that he wishes Desmond Tutu were a Zulu. It's why he writes lyrics like "Reno Dakota/I'm no Nino Rota.")

it freaks out biologists into cognitive dyfunction.

The review of PZ Myers may be also seen today. Please note that he not an embryologist.

The complaint claims that Myers’ remarks led to Neil de Grasse [sic] Tyson withdrawing a review of the book

So comment 125 is to your address too, then.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/08/the_inevitable_has_occurred.php

Turns out PZ had serious big guns working pro bono for him, which he absolutely deserved.

Also, there's a cameo by an erstwhile fluorospherian in the comments, in case you were wondering what he was up to. (And no, he hasn't changed a bit.)