Joseph Rakofsky sued some 74 people, who had the temerity to criticize him on the internet and other places. I previously wrote about his lawsuit against everybody here. He filed suit in the state of New York against everyone from the Washington Post to the ABA Bar Journal to J-Dog84@yahoo.com. He sued a few dozen bloggers. As the court noted, bloggers or those who commented on the blogs had insufficient contact with the state of New York to support a lawsuit. New York cannot have jurisdiction over persons who have not actually conducted any business in the state. That is the rule in most, perhaps all states.
Most of the online criticism, said the court, was pure opinion generally by lawyers discussing Mr. Rakofsky’s legal skills. As opinion and public debate, these comments do not rise to the level of defamation.
Many of the defendants asked for sanctions against Mr. Rakofsky saying he filed a frivolous lawsuit. If ever there was a frivolous lawsuit, surely this would be it. But, the state district court found that some facts were included in the legal opinions voiced about Mr. Rakofsky. See The New York Superior court order here. So, in the end, it was much ado about nothing. Mr. Rakofsky invested a small fortune in filing fees and service expense in serving papers on defendants across the country. The plaintiff gets nothing and the defendants get nothing.
And, I still do not know if Mr. Rakofsky ever effected service on J-Dog84@yahoo.com…..