Will this hold up?

[Precious Roy]

A minor basketball league is suing a message board and a single anonymous poster for postings on a message board after some very shady behavior by playoff referees.
My question is if anyone thinks this will stand up in court.

http://www.wlsam.com/Article.asp?id=2195667&spid=

Chicago-based professional basketball league filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against the operator of a minor league sports website and the anonymous poster who accused the league of fixing games.
Premier Basketball League Inc. claims a person calling themselves “Buffal00 Sports Fan” posted false statements on OurSportsCentral.com, a minor league sports website run by Paul Reeths of Wisconsin, according to a suit filed in U.S. District Court.
The Premier Basketball League, headquartered at 4958 W. Irving Park Rd., claims to be the “first exclusive basketball league designed for the ultimate fan experience."
The suit claims Buffal00 Sports Fan posted at least eight messages on the website accusing the Premier League of fixing games. Many of the posts were about officiating in the championship game, won by the Rochester Razorsharks, a team owned by Severko Hrywnak, Premier League board chairman.
The league claims it was “placed in a false light before the public” and directly damaged by the posts.
Reeths said he has not yet seen the lawsuit, and has not received any court requests for information about specific posters or comments. Reeths said the league’s legal team contacted him last month, but never provided specific information about the comments or posters.

 

[Stitch]

What are the damages even if it's libel? Another point is context. Would a reasonable person think the claims are true?

 

[YGBFKM]

I do not think this league will stand up much longer.

 

[Precious Roy]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

 

[sgreenwell]

What are the damages even if it's libel? Another point is context. Would a reasonable person think the claims are true?

I agree to both. Libel is incredibly hard to prove in court, especially when it comes to the damages portion. At best, the league would probably just win a token judgment, since I doubt they'd be able to prove that the messages had any effect on their business. The whole process would also take years.

 

[Precious Roy]

What are the damages even if it's libel? Another point is context. Would a reasonable person think the claims are true?

I agree to both. Libel is incredibly hard to prove in court, especially when it comes to the damages portion. At best, the league would probably just win a token judgment, since I doubt they'd be able to prove that the messages had any effect on their business. The whole process would also take years.

I get the feeling the years part is what they want, as years would eat money from the site owner and eventually shut it down

 

[Bob Cook]

Christ, David Stern could sue this board 100 times over.

 

[MonsterLobster]

I hope the league wins so that whenever I get start getting the annual calls from SEC football fans demanding I write about how the refs threw the game for this team or that, I can just say, "No way, man, I'm not getting sued for that."

 

[outofplace]

Christ, David Stern could sue this board 100 times over.

The NFL, too. I hope LJB has a good lawyer. :)

 

[cjericho]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

you watch these games? i'm guessing only for work. the clowns who run the league are insane, unless they just want some ink and are going to drop the suit. do bookies in chicago take action on this ****? i have some degenerate gambler friends but i don't know any that ever had action on a CBA game or any other garage league.

 

[DanOregon]

This sounds like the set-up of a Law and Order episode, with said blogger and/or website operator as the victim.

 

[Precious Roy]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

you watch these games? i'm guessing only for work. the clowns who run the league are insane, unless they just want some ink and are going to drop the suit. do bookies in chicago take action on this ****? i have some degenerate gambler friends but i don't know any that ever had action on a CBA game or any other garage league.

Covered the games. In the finals series, the last game the Rochester team (owned by the league owner) had a 43-14 free-throw attempt advantage. The home team shot just one free throw in the second half and just two in the second half in the game before. It was pretty obvious something wasn't right. The team that was the home team had decided they weren't going to be operating next year after winning three straight minor league basketball titles. There was no betting action, and no money was really on the line. That's why this is so weird. The only reason to fix it would be to have a returning champion to the league, and you can't expect that to be the reason to make things so shady.

 

[cjericho]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

you watch these games? i'm guessing only for work. the clowns who run the league are insane, unless they just want some ink and are going to drop the suit. do bookies in chicago take action on this ****? i have some degenerate gambler friends but i don't know any that ever had action on a CBA game or any other garage league.

Covered the games. In the finals series, the last game the Rochester team (owned by the league owner) had a 43-14 free-throw attempt advantage. The home team shot just one free throw in the second half and just two in the second half in the game before. It was pretty obvious something wasn't right. The team that was the home team had decided they weren't going to be operating next year after winning three straight minor league basketball titles. There was no betting action, and no money was really on the line. That's why this is so weird. The only reason to fix it would be to have a returning champion to the league, and you can't expect that to be the reason to make things so shady.

wow. did the home team coach not care since they were disbanding or did he say something about the calls. that's quite a disparity.

 

[Precious Roy]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

you watch these games? i'm guessing only for work. the clowns who run the league are insane, unless they just want some ink and are going to drop the suit. do bookies in chicago take action on this ****? i have some degenerate gambler friends but i don't know any that ever had action on a CBA game or any other garage league.

Covered the games. In the finals series, the last game the Rochester team (owned by the league owner) had a 43-14 free-throw attempt advantage. The home team shot just one free throw in the second half and just two in the second half in the game before. It was pretty obvious something wasn't right. The team that was the home team had decided they weren't going to be operating next year after winning three straight minor league basketball titles. There was no betting action, and no money was really on the line. That's why this is so weird. The only reason to fix it would be to have a returning champion to the league, and you can't expect that to be the reason to make things so shady.

wow. did the home team coach not care since they were disbanding or did he say something about the calls. that's quite a disparity.

The head coach was Micheal Ray Richardson, he had some choice words.
Here's video of him chasing the refs off the court and the melee that ensued after game 3. He spent the rest of the night chasing the owner of the Rochester team, the refs, the players, the coaches and everyone not related to his own team trying to fight because he felt like everything was stolen from him.

http://ow.ly/55dGK

 

[User 4332]

So the lawsuit should fall apart pretty quickly.

It's unclear to me from reading the linked story whether OurSportsCentral.com, or its owner, was actually sued. If they were, they have immunity from these kinds of claims under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It looks to me like they probably were since the league is seeking to have the posts removed.

The claim against the individual poster could move forward, but would be hard to prove and if he wanted to fight it he could drag the whole thing out for a tremendously long time (perhaps longer than the league will be around).

But I cruised over to the message board just to get a look at it out of curiosity and the poster who is being sued has an "Official apology to the pbl" thread up where he says he went back and edited all of his own posts about the league and he wants the lawsuit dropped. If that's the only remedy the league was seeking, then it has happened and doesn't make sense to go forward.

 

[Precious Roy]

So the lawsuit should fall apart pretty quickly.

It's unclear to me from reading the linked story whether OurSportsCentral.com, or its owner, was actually sued. If they were, they have immunity from these kinds of claims under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. It looks to me like they probably were since the league is seeking to have the posts removed.

The claim against the individual poster could move forward, but would be hard to prove and if he wanted to fight it he could drag the whole thing out for a tremendously long time (perhaps longer than the league will be around).

But I cruised over to the message board just to get a look at it out of curiosity and the poster who is being sued has an "Official apology to the pbl" thread up where he says he went back and edited all of his own posts about the league and he wants the lawsuit dropped. If that's the only remedy the league was seeking, then it has happened and doesn't make sense to go forward.

I was thinking the same thing. I think the league just wanted to flex some muscle and it scared the poster enough to pull comments, which was exactly what they wanted.

 

[cjericho]

If you watched the games, you would think the allegations are pretty true.
The league is saying the damages are that by rolling them through the mud on an obscure message board by one poster (though it was echoed by many others there too) that the league won't be able to get expansion teams for their league that now has just one team in it after a mass exodus of the other teams.

you watch these games? i'm guessing only for work. the clowns who run the league are insane, unless they just want some ink and are going to drop the suit. do bookies in chicago take action on this ****? i have some degenerate gambler friends but i don't know any that ever had action on a CBA game or any other garage league.

Covered the games. In the finals series, the last game the Rochester team (owned by the league owner) had a 43-14 free-throw attempt advantage. The home team shot just one free throw in the second half and just two in the second half in the game before. It was pretty obvious something wasn't right. The team that was the home team had decided they weren't going to be operating next year after winning three straight minor league basketball titles. There was no betting action, and no money was really on the line. That's why this is so weird. The only reason to fix it would be to have a returning champion to the league, and you can't expect that to be the reason to make things so shady.

wow. did the home team coach not care since they were disbanding or did he say something about the calls. that's quite a disparity.

The head coach was Micheal Ray Richardson, he had some choice words.
Here's video of him chasing the refs off the court and the melee that ensued after game 3. He spent the rest of the night chasing the owner of the Rochester team, the refs, the players, the coaches and everyone not related to his own team trying to fight because he felt like everything was stolen from him.

http://ow.ly/55dGK

wow. Michael Ray was pissed, but what was with that ref. he just walks off the court when it looked like the other ref was hearing most of it from Richardson.

 

[dixiehack]

The league be sinkin'.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

The league be sinkin'.

How low can it sink?