That's actually something I'm curious about. Is civil conspiracy a separate cause of action, or is it a modifier. In other words, would it be Rial Sabatage sued for defamation and civil conspiracy, or is it defamation made worse/modified with civil conspiracy?
It's not a cause of action in and of itself in all states, but a legal theory when people collude to commit some other illegal act, and its legal import is that anyone who is involved in the theory ends up on the hook for everything every other conspirator did.
Or wait.
Actually, it is a cause of action on its own in Texas. Why do these fucking idiots almost miraculously pick the worst possible thing to do in Texas and then do it in Texas?
Grabbed from
a possibly out of date site:
The elements of civil conspiracy are (1) a combination of two or more persons; (2) the objective to be
accomplished is an unlawful purpose or a lawful purpose by unlawful means; (3) a meeting of minds on
the object or course of action; (4) one or more unlawful, overt acts; and (5) damages as the proximate
result.
Ins. Co. of N. Am. v. Morris, 981 S.W.2d 667, 675 (Tex. 199
.
It still isn't a "stand alone" claim, because it is derivative of some other unlawful act and the collusion to commit it.
It's fairly common to throw around this theory in business lawsuits because if you can get joint and several liability against everyone for everything, it means you can just go collect against the deepest pockets.
The only issue with conspiracy here that I see is that some people, like Sabat for instance, if acting as a vice principal, would effectively be acting as the corporation in question, and therefore if you also named the corporation as a conspirator, you generally can't conspire with yourself. That kind of thing can whittle down the list of potential conspirators or whether you can proceed on that theory at all.
So can someone explain what the thing about putting pleadings online making them not privledged Ty was talking about?
You can't be sued for defamation for factual claims in legal pleadings you file.
If you repeat the same claims outside of court, though, even by posting the pleadings, you aren't protected by that immunity if you're the person who filed them.
However, if you're a third party and you do post the pleadings, and don't represent them as anything other than pleadings without opining as to their factual nature, you're probably protected.
It can just be unwise, if you're making questionable factual claims, to publicize your own pleadings.
