From Law Offices of Mark B. Plummer, PC. v. Nabili, decided yesterday by the California Court of Appeal (Justice Thomas Goethals, joined by Justices William Bedsworth & Maurice Sanchez):
After a lawyer and two former clients had a dispute concerning the nonpayment of attorney fees, the clients allegedly created a website that included disparaging statements about the lawyer. The lawyer and his law firm sued both clients for defamation, interference with prospective business advantage, false personation, and declaratory relief.
The court allowed part of the defamation and declaratory relief claims to go forward, but not the interference claim (which I won't discuss here further) or the false personation claim:
Plaintiffs' third cause of action is for false personation in violation of Penal Code section 528.5. That provision authorizes a civil action against "any person who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening, or defrauding another person …." It adds that "an impersonation is credible if another person would reasonably believe, or did reasonably believe, that the defendant was or is the person who was impersonated." Thus, to prevail on their third cause of action, Plaintiffs had to make...
Kolkata: Kolkata Police has been grappling with a fresh challenge since the past week — controlling fake news. While it initially started with fake circulars, beginning with "restrictions" on cert...