Jack Thompson Sues Florida Bar 71
Gamasutra reports that Jack Thompson has sued the Florida Bar Association, for "hector[ing] plaintiff Thompson for 19 months with SLAPP Bar complaints filed by opposing counsel (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participants). Continually, during that time, Thompson and his counsel in these Bar matters have repeatedly asked The Florida Bar to sit down with him and his counsel to try to resolve, once and for all, this dispute, which goes back more than 18 years when other baseless SLAPP Bar complaints were filed, resulting in the payment of money damages to plaintiff Thompson."
I personally know someone (Score:5, Interesting)
Go figure. Someone breaks the ethics rules of the Florida Bar. A number of people nationwide respond by filing complaints with the Florida Bar noting these breaches of ethics rules. And the guy's response? Is to sue the Florida Bar for allowing people to file these complaints in the first place.
Jack Thompson's suit is the exact sort of thing the term "SLAPP" was designed to describe in the first place. It's disgusting he is able to get away with things like this. And the worst part? In the end, he probably won't have any consequences. He'll get the publicity he craves from this spat with the Bar, but what with the pressure he's applying by gaming the system, the Bar will probably back off on actually doing anything about his ethics violations.
dumb or smart? (Score:3, Interesting)
Then again, SCO shows us how what appears to be stupid on the surface can really be an extremely smart exploitation of the legal system for personal gains.
So, let's follow the money - what's Jack's potential profit here? More publicity?
"I've got a First Amendment right to annoy people" (Score:4, Interesting)
Explains why he keeps evading bans on Gamepolitics, and spewing his usual retarded drivel there. For someone who is "wining", he sure spends a lot of time posting and obsessing over GamePolitics. But what else can you say about someone who, among various absurd things, feels blogs are for losers(but not LiveJournal accounts to post PR pieces, trash talk, etc), whines when someone calls/mails him, and has non-existent/default "no page here yet" web sites? Guess the place holder is better then his text only Florida Bar attack site(which is now "no page here" humm....).
You know, a bunch of people have been wondering if Jack suffers from some sort of mental disability/defect. Given how he acts like some Usenet kooks I "know"(taking things to real life, being very hypocritical in their actions, claming credit for the work of others, claiming any darned thing is a victory for them, making absurd claims, etc), I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case. HELL, this makes a lot of sense, his last issue with the Florida bar in the 90s was over their forcing him to undergo psychiatric testing!
While he did pass and was awarded a $20,000 settlement, I have to wonder with all the advances in psychology and diagnosis of mental disabilities, if they will find something this time. And that is what I think is a good reason for his current mental breakdown, with the constant losing streak, inappropriate behavior, legal antics, and now the Florida bar, things are not looking too good for Jack despite his poker face & "I am going to win" attitude. He faces to lose a lot of creditablity, his profession, and greatly damages his "muder-sim p0rn0 games made them kill, they should be banned" cause.
He is at the end of his wits, grasping at straws, running out of time and deep down realizes that he not going to get anywhere in terms of what he wants. Thus like kooks he takes the safe route of all talk, little to no real action.
Re:Who? (Score:3, Interesting)
In this case, it will most likely signal the official end of his lawyer career. He's already lost credability with NIMF, and in other places. Going after the bar will make him lose credibility, period.
While a similar lawsuit succeeded in the past, it was settled out of court since the bar wanted to protect the people making the complaints. However, I doubt there's going to be any form of settlement this time around - previously, it was settled to protect the complaintants, but this time, they have a much stronger case because of his press releases.
I asked on GamePolitics - the people feeding the troll say that they have to reply to correct his inaccurracies. "If we don't reply, he'll just claim that he's right because there are no replies".
This is ignoring the fact I also suggested to leave the messages for the admins. They generally have the best replies and follow up with a ban - they have one of many reasons to do and can use any one at their leisure.