Man sues chatroom pals: I was humiliated beyond what 'no man could endure'

CourtTV ^ | 01/12/2006 | J.K. Dineen

[BJClinton]

Mike Marlowe fully admits that he sometimes gave George Gillespie a hard time in that AOL chatroom.

But never in his wildest imagination did he expect to be sued in court for what he characterized as "razzing."

"We gave him crap," said Marlowe, a 33-year-old welder in Fayette, Ala. "I'm not going to deny it. I teased him and he teased me back. He gave it back better than he ever got it."

A generation ago, such petty personal beefs might have been settled with fists outside the corner bar, but now it's the Internet age — and Ohio resident George Gillespie instead filed a $25,000 lawsuit against two erstwhile cyber chums he met in the sprawling 900-room, mostly anonymous society that makes up AOL's chat universe.

Gillespie, 53, claims that Marlowe and Bob Charpentier, a 52-year-old Oregon resident, insulted him and harassed him in the AOL chatroom called "Romance — Older Men" to the point where it inflicted "severe emotional distress and physical injury that is of a nature no reasonable man could be expected to endure it."

The complaint, expected in court on Jan. 31 for a pretrial conference, also names AOL as a defendant for allowing the alleged harassment to take place.

Gillespie alleges that the duo intruded into his "private affairs." The complaint states that Marlowe actually drove from Alabama to Ohio to photograph the plaintiff's home, which he then posted on the Web. He also allegedly went to the courthouse in Medina to dig up personal dirt on Gillespie, which he then also disseminated over the Internet.

The case is not simply "someone conversing in a chatroom" but also involves "harassing someone in Ohio," which gives Ohio courts jurisdiction, according to Gillespie's lawyers.

"Had the defendants stayed in the chatrooms, there would be no jurisdiction here, case closed" Gillespie's attorney Theodore Lesiak stated in the complaint. "Defendant did not."

But Marlowe said he works 60 hours a week at an autobody shop and laughed at the notion that he would drive from Alabama to Ohio to take pictures of Gillespie's house.

"I have never been to Ohio and I have absolutely no desire to go to Ohio," Marlowe said. "There is nothing there — the Cincinnati Bengals are there, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame maybe, and that's about it."

Even if Marlowe did take a trip to Ohio, posting a picture of someone's house on the Internet does not violate privacy laws, according to Chris Hoofnagle, attorney with the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"Those norms require the aggressor to engage in behavior that is highly offensive to a reasonable person," he said. "Taking a picture of somebody's house and putting it up on the Web is not that."

Hoofnagle said Gillespie's emotional distress claim will also be tough to prove.

"We live in a rough society, as compared to Europe, where offending someone or directly cursing or attacking their dignity can give you a cause of action," he said.

Power Struggle in 'Romance — Older Men'

Charpentier said he first encountered Gillespie more than five years ago and at first, the two chatters were friendly. But Charpentier says he quickly became disenchanted by what he saw as Gillespie's mean streak.

Things really turned ugly four years ago when Charpentier traveled to Kentucky to meet another chatroom regular, a woman who was also a friend of Gillespie's. The blind date did not go particularly well, and when Charpentier returned to he discovered that Gillespie had gone on the attack.

"He just came in slamming on me, saying all kinds of derogatory crap: that I was a fat, bald, broke old man who sits around in a rusted wheelchair," said Charpentier, who has a chronic back injury. "I don't even own a wheelchair."

Accused harasser Bob Charpentier

Charpentier, who has filed a response seeking to reserve the right to file a $125,000 countersuit against Gillespie, said Gillespie threatened to kill him and "made sick and disgusting remarks about the passing of my grandmother."

"He is an AOL computer thug, that is all he is," Charpentier said.

Marlowe characterized the dispute as a petty power struggle. He said Gillespie was the de facto leader of the "Romance — Older Men" chatroom, and didn't like it when he and Charpentier challenged his authority.

But Marlowe said he never took the chatroom antics personally — until he was served with a lawsuit.

"I don't know how four years of bantering back and forth led to this insane nonsense," he said. "It's just the Internet, for God's sake. It's nothing important."

Michael Gordon, an attorney for AOL, declined to comment, saying, "This is just the beginning stages of this thing."

Megan Gray, a Washington D.C.-based intellectual property attorney who specializes in cyber issues, called it "a loser of a case." She said the Communications Decency Act gives AOL immunity from chatroom misconduct.

"AOL cannot be held liable for the actions of people on the site," she said.

She also suggested the case against Marlowe and Charpentier was doomed.

"The Internet is such a vibrant, young medium, these types of cases are not taken seriously," she said.

[FearlessFreep]

I love a good flaming. Keeps me arse hairs under control.

[sully777]

"A lawsuit against the Parks and Recreation Department of the city of Riverside for putting a blue dye in their public pool that activated when one urinated in the pool. Steve was very embarrassed when he was caught urinating in the pool. As he left the pool after urinating, the blue evidence was everywhere. His whole family laughed at him.
That same pool is being sued by Bozell because they had dive sticks in the pool and he was doing cannon ball dives into the pool. He landed on a dive stick and it went into his ass. he stepped out of the pool to the laughter of all the people there as the dive stick flopped around in the crack of his ass... "

http://www.madison.com/images/articles/tct/2005/07/26/17582_thumb.jpg

"Ummm...okay...yeah, I'm gonna have to say that's gotta hurt"

[razorback-bert]

That post is written by something so confused, it doesn't know whether to scratch its watch or wind its a$$. Your post is an orgy of stultifying cacophonous verbal depravity; an exercise in literary impotence, and an offense to all of good taste and decency.

I notice that you never let an idea interrupt the flow of your posts. Wouldn't clues have more room to fit in your head if you got rid of some of the gobbledygook in there? Anyway, who was talking to you or even taking you under consideration? How true is Stanislaw J. Lec's famous remark: "Every now and then you meet someone whose ignorance is encyclopedic."

Most repair manuals are far more interesting than you, and far less turgid to read. I'd get more pleasure from running my nostrils down a cactus, than reading another contribution from you. Maybe you wouldn't read like such a pathetic loser if you weren't intellectually slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through a vat of chunky peanut butter; if your weren't so fat that when you run, you make the CD player skip at the radio station, or if you didn't have a face that is registered as a biological weapon. No, come to think of it, you would.

In closing, I suggest the next time that you feel an urge to embarrass yourself and bore others, that you summon all your might, and resist.

[Dashing Dasher]

Is that how you and your buddies got the pictures of my kitchen that you posted?

Sounds like cyber stalking to me.

[DannyTN]

The CREVO threads could keep the courts tied up for decades!!!

[sandbar]

Whiny Baby Alert!

[End Times Sentinel]

A 1.75'er of Vladimir.  I should thank you for having a soft enough cocoanut that the bottle didn't break, although in a truly ironic twist, later that night after finishing the bottle, I tripped over a fire hydrant and concussed myself.

Do you think I have a case against you?

Owl_Eagle

(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,

 it was probably sarcasm)

[Jersey Republican Biker Chick]

Hey Dasher, I see many suits of this nature coming and I see a lot being filed against a certain web site that I will not plug by mentioning its name!

[Skooz]

I'm still waiting for you to humiliate me beyond what 'no man could endure.'

I promise I won't sue.

[smith288]

"There is nothing there — the Cincinnati Bengals are there, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame maybe, and that's about it."

Yes! When you think Ohio, you think Bengals! wHoOt!

[Chode]

HA ha...

[BJClinton]

Your discussion of zotting distresses me. Consider yer butt sued.

[phantomworker]

Sounds like it~~

[BJClinton]

This could ruin the OFST.

[Gorzaloon]

It's all imaginary! Fake, not real.... It's the INTERNET!

Not even that, it's AOL, a "speedbump on the info superhighway", or the "Trailer Park on the Info Highway".

Just one little dark corner of the Internet.

[dsc]

Here's an old, old, oldie, slightly modified.

Dear:

[x] Clueless Newbie [x] Lamer [ ] AOLer
[ ] Me too er [x] Perver [ ] Geek
[x] Spammer [ ] Nerd [ ] Elvis
[ ] Fed [ ] Freak [ ] Scientologist


You Are Being Flamed Because:

[ ] You posted a "test" in a newsgroup other than alt.test
[ ] You posted warez in pieces LESS than 5000 lines
[x] You spammed an answer of a spam TO THE WRONG GROUPS
[ ] You quoted an ENTIRE post in your reply
[ ] You continued a long, stupid thread
[ ] You started an off-topic thread
[ ] You posted a "YOU ALL SUCK" message
[ ] You said "me too" to something
[x] You suck
[ ] You brag about things that never happened
[x] Your sig/alias/server sucks
[ ] You made up slang then used it in a message
[ ] You posted a phone-sex ad
[ ] I don't like your tone of voice
[ ] I think you might be a DUmmie


To Repent, You Must:

[ ] Be the PR guy for Canter & Siegel
[ ] Give up your AOL account
[x] Bust up your modem with a hammer and eat it
[x] Jump into a bathtub while holding your monitor
[ ] Actually post something relevant
[ ] Read the FAQ
[ ] Be Senator Frank's love slave
[ ] Be the guest of honor in alt.flame for a month
[ ] Post your tests to alt.test


In Closing, I'd Like to Say:

[ ] Blow me
[ ] Get a life
[x] Never post again
[ ] I pity your dog
[ ] Go to hell
[ ] Yer momma's so fat/stupid/ugly that etc...
[x] Take your sh*t somewhere else
[ ] Learn to post or f*ck off
[ ] All of the above

end flame

[BJClinton]

d3@r $ir,

+hi$ p0$+ i$ +0 iNPh0rM j00 +h@+ j00 h@v3 b33N $u3d. j00 \/\/0u1d d0 \/\/311 +0 pu+ y0ur h3@d b3+\/\/33N y0ur 13gz @Nd /<i$$ j00 @$$ g00dy3.

bjc1iN+0N

[sully777]

Here's a classic Rathergood.com ditty. It's dedicated to the man who sued his fellow "romancing older men" chat room partners.

http://www.rathergood.com/gaybar/

[BJClinton]

I know you are but what am I?

[Servant of the 9]

Is that how you and your buddies got the pictures of my kitchen that you posted?

I have no idea how they got that.
What MLS has are exteriors.
I would guess your developer has/had a website.

Sounds like cyber stalking to me.

Cyber stalking would have to involve following someone around the Internet and posting where they do.

Technically, your posting at CP would be cyber stalking, not the other way around.

I haven't posted anything about you or any other poster since the one transgression I apologised for.

So9