‘You’re Fired!’
courtesy of ‘bjornmeansbear’
Local blogger Meg of 2birds1blog was this morning dismissed from her workplace for her blog, in which she kept her identity somewhat concealed, and her employer’s identity a mystery. Worse than that, and the worst nightmare of pretty much every blogger is that they’re threatening her with a defamation lawsuit. What a buzzkill. Anyhow, Meg is one of our favorites around these parts and finding out she’s getting Dooced is pretty much unacceptable to us.
Meg’s likely to need a good lawyer in the coming months who’s willing to act on her behalf while these still-as-of-yet-unnamed employers decide to be foolish jerks and threaten her with defamation suits. If you know anyone who fits the bill, make yourself known in the comments and we’ll try to help you out. While we’re not lawyers here at We Love DC, and this next comment shouldn’t be construed as legal advice, posts like this one make me think she might have a good sexual harassment countersuit. Can you help?
While we’re on the subject, it’d be good for everyone both reading this blog, and especially so if they write one, to brush up on your rights at work. It’s not as clear a line as you’d think.
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
Silly employers. The bar for proving defamation is so high (for starters, you have to prove that what was said was NOT TRUE) that it’s easier to just not shove blackberry dick photos in your employees’ faces to begin with.
I’m a lawyer – not my field, but TRUTH is an absolute defense for defamation. It’s how Tucker Max won his lawsuit.
Tiffany, I completely agree with you. The problem here is not that the bar is set really really high – it’s that getting to the stage where you show that they haven’t met the standard is expensive, time consuming, and could easily bankrupt our now-unemployed friend.
I have lots of issues with our legal system for this reason: being right isn’t enough. You’ve also got to be wealthy.
@Brandon: That’s why we’re trying to find a pro-bono attorney for our now unemployed friend. Know anyone?
Long live 2Birds1Blog!
Try Walter Booth. He does a lot of court work.
LOVE 2birds1blog! A lawyer needs to get on that stat.
Might try Levine Sullivan (DC local firm specializing in media, publication, and defamation law). I know they do some pro bono work for people involved in defamation suits who can’t afford to retain counsel.
http://www.lskslaw.com
Judging from a few posts on her blog, she worked for a law firm. Of course they’d threaten a lawsuit – they’re being standard lawyer-douchey. As someone mentioned above, defamation cases are very hard to prove – hopefully she’ll get good representation if this turns out to be anything more than standard lawyerly bluster.
Actually, if you read her post she doesn’t even say that they threatened a lawsuit, she says, “I’m sure they’re still going to sue the pants off of me because this is America and that’s what we do.” Given the fact that she frequently posted extensive and intimate details about her “anonymous” co-workers, and the fact that she apparently often posted during work hours, it sounds like her employers were 100% within their rights to fire her.
The right to freedom of speech is the same thing as a right to freedom from consequences. Even Meg seems to acknowledge that this moment may have been inevitable given her growing profile. Unless and until the subjects of her blogging actually do sue her, y’all seem to be going a bit overboard here.
Nate, the initial tweets from Meg indicated that they were planning to sue her.