I relogged into an account I haven't been on in years just to post this. Although I'm not going to divulge any personal details, suffice it to say that I know how to read a Statements of Claim. So I thought people might be interested in my thoughts on this.
Paragraph 4: the Communications and Decency Act is what gives websites the safe harbor status that allows Web 2.0 audience participation without creating a liability quagmire for website operators. In this particular claim the plaintiff acknowledges that this law exists, but thinks the court should ignore it because they believe it to be "outdated". It is unlikely that this argument will be a successful one.
Paragraph 6: You can always tell a frivolous crazy-person lawsuit by the absurd level of damages they claim.
Paragraph 11: Here is where the plaintiff has to justify suing in Utah. He fails to do so. The Plaintiff appears to be operating under the assumption that because *he* is based on Utah, and the things he's suing about affect him, that's enough to give the court jurisdiction over the Defendant in this matter.
Paragraph 12 and 13: I just want to point out that editorial commentary is not usually included in the list of parties.
Paragraph 15: "nothing to do with the land of the Kiwis" was my first laugh out loud line.
Paragraph 21: "When in fact the plaintiff has a full head of hair. EXHIBIT C." That. Is. Hysterical. For those who didn't parse that: he included an exhibit to prove he has hair.
Paragraph 22: Now they acknowledge how irrelevant that part is. It's like you can see the idiot watching the lawyer type over his shoulders, making him add stuff, and then the lawyer has to justify it.
Paragraph 23 is just funny. Also, like most of the complaints, he doesn't make any attempt to logically connect it to the Kiwi Farms. It's the legal equivalent of whining.
Paragraph 29: this isn't the first time, but I love that they use the word "doxx" without defining it.
Paragraph 36 acknowledges the Kiwi Farms disavowal of harrassing people off-site. If I was writing the Defence for this it would include a lot of "The Defendant agrees with the Plaintiff that..."
Paragraph 38: Finally he's including some exhibits for something besides not being bald.
Paragraph 45: I guess the Salt Lake City Internet Police Task Force is underfunded.
Paragraph 65: I'd be very interested to read this DMCA claim.
Paragraph 71: HE TOLD ME TO SUE HIM IT'S NOT FRIVOLOUS!
Paragraph 74: "It is very scary and annoying". Also if not for this site he'd be a musical superstar by now. Also use of "trolls" without definition.
Paragraph 76: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Paragraph 91+: Here is a lengthy attempt to argue the courts should read down the law to not apply to the Kiwi Farms, mostly because he thinks the disclaimers about contacting people are lies and that the intent of the legislation was never to protect people who aren't nice.
Paragraph 106 is a doozy. Here he argues that Null should be held accountable for the actions of third parties, and the reasoning for this is it would be too hard for the Plaintiff to track these people down. This is a novel legal theory and could save the courts a lot of time. Someone commits a tort against you but you can't track them down? Just sue whoever.
Paragraph 107: He argues that Null is being smug about being protected by the law. I guess he thinks the court will be incensed and want to wipe that smile off his face.
Paragraph 114: I would love love love to see the calculations he used to arrive at that. More pressingly for him, however, is the court will also want this information.
Paragraph 130: I love the "weaponized articles" line. Also "It was very bizarre because Greer never listed the singer's real name, which proves they did something illegal to find it" I don't know what they did, but it must have been illegal!
Paragraph 131: "Rachel asked the singer what she thought of Greer and said the singer could hide his identity, implying he could say something nasty about Greer". Watch out for pronouns! This kind of jumping to conclusions is all over the claim. He attempts to back up very little of what he says.
Also he contacts the singers and she says she has first amendment rights to say what she thinks of him. He disagrees. It is as unclear why he included this as it is why he included most of what's written.
Paragraph 133: He admits to saying the things that are attributed to him but he has excuses. I guess that makes reporting his words defamation.
Paragraph 134 is a thing of beauty. I want to read the Defence for this; whoever writes it will have a ball.
Paragraph 139: I love that he realleges everything every time he introduces a new section. FYI those giant bolded titles are just for readability and aren't considered part of the claim. So he's doing that for no reason, or, more accurately, because he saw it written in some other claim.
Also here's where he makes an argument for False Light. He's not going to be a happy camper if that ends up being argued in court.
Paragraphs 143-154: The story about how the Plaintiff harrassed some girl, was going to plead out, but had the deal withdrawn and replace with a less lenient one. OBVIOUSLY this is because Null pulled strings at the prosecutors office.
Also re: 151: Exhibit Z? What? Did I miss some exhibits?
Paragraph 158: HOLY SHIT! I forgot the point of that whole nonsense story was that he was being put in a false light, somehow, by the Kiwi Farms. Reading this claim is like watching someone go insane in real time.
Paragraph 159: Here he argues that being mistaken based on incomplete information is holding someone in a false light.
Paragraph 165: I only have one victim! Therefore your use of the plural "victims" is holding me in a false light.
Paragraph 167: Chris-Chan.
Paragraph 168: In order to argue that he is not a stalker he puts forth a definition of stalking that would exclude the people he's accusing of stalking him from being stalkers.
Paragraph 168: The Plaintiff asserts that there are other men who are more crude and boorish than him, and nobody is calling them stalkers, therefore false light. I hate whoever taught him that term.
I realize that I listed Paragraph 168 twice. There are, in fact, two Paragraph 168s.
Paragraph 169: "I can't find it, but it's there somewhere!" also he calls Null "Null".
Paragraph 190: He wants $5 million for "reputational and emotional damages".
Paragraph 194: He wants attorney's fees. Although there are situations where a self-represented client can recover some money for the time they spend working on their case I think it's more likely he forgot to delete that from whatever he copy/pasted this from.
Paragraph 195: He's specifically asking the court to set a major precedent by ruling that the DMCA doesn't apply to the Kiwi Farms.
According to the claim this is being filed Pro Se, which means he's self-represented. At first my theory was that he had gone to a lawyer and the lawyer wasn't willing to put his name on anything, but wrote the claim for a flat fee so that the Plaintiff could file it himself. That's not too uncommon with crazy people like this. However, while it starts very well written from a legal standpoint (if abysmally argued) it eventually devolves into irrelevant gibberish. So my new theory is that it is a Frankenstein made up of various Statements of Claim that the Plaintiff found on the internet.
It's still possible he spoke with a legal professional. The document is actually really weird; it's full of nonsense but it seems to be vaguely aware of this and attempts to justify itself a lot. What might have happened is he paid someone to write it and then edited the 5 page Plaintiff's Claim into this. Obviously there's no way to know for sure but it's fascinating.
To say that it is full of editorializing is the understatement of the year. There are numbered paragraphs that contain no legal arguments whatsoever, *just editorializing*.
He also repeats himself a LOT. Like goddamn.