Page last updated 01/16/05

Well it appears that the threat Andy Brunner made to take me to court for libeling him has come to pass.  I have to hand it to him for actually following through with his threat.  Here's a scan of the court notice that I received in the mail dated 7/27/2000.

Here's a quick rundown of the relevant information:

6/16/2000 to approx. 6/24/2000 : A thread titled "Brunner + RBL" is started on NANAE and receives a great deal of attention.  By the end there are over 330 posts to this thread.  Here is a link to the entire thread. (message ID: <20000616222808.05858.00000491@ng-ck1.aol.com> is the first message Google currently has cached)

6/21/2000 : I post a followup comment to this thread.  (message ID: <nD445.57326$Ft1.3223091@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>) The thread already contains statements from a few people claiming that Andys "Cybercreek Avalanche" software is "illegal spamware".  Notice that I indicate that I am stating my own personal opinion, and it should be obvious to just about anybody that it was a tongue-in-cheek response. "200% illegal spamware", "file two lawsuites", etc.

6/22/2000 : I get a message on my answering machine from Andy claiming "you made it on the list".  Here's a wav file of the message.  No response to my opinion posted on NANAE was ever made.

6/23/2000 : I post a message back on NANAE (message ID: <1NK45.1153$Zr5.159286@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>) telling Andy that I would gladly retract my statements if he agrees to an independent review of his software. 

Later the same day Andy replies (message ID: <8j04li$8rf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>) to my offer claiming it sounds fair and he'll definitely take me up on it.  After that response I never heard from him.  I wonder what the judge will think about this when I present it at the trial?

7/30/2000 (approx): I receive the court notice mentioned above in the mail.  A few days later I received a second copy via certified mail.

8/23/2000 : I filed a motion to dismiss based on the grounds that Massachusetts state law specifically excludes libel and slander cases in small claims court.

12/4/2000: The night before the case is to be heard Andy posts a message (message ID: <90hk5v$3vf$1@nnrp1.deja.com>) to  NANAE stating that he's in Mass. and has spent the day at a law library preparing for the case.  He says a few bizarre things that have come to be typical of his behavior.  He refers to this as a "criminal libel" case, admits that he knows the court probably won't hear this case (so he knows he's probably wasting their time), and threatens to file against me in superior court for a jury trial if he doesn't win here.  He also says that none of this would have happened if I had posted a public retraction.  Seems to me like he completely forgot about the above post on 6/23/2000.  (What's even stranger, see below, is that Andy actually included my 6/23/2000 offer to retract my statement in his complaint against me! *BOGGLE*)

12/5/2000: The big day arrives.  See my post on NANAE (message ID: <vebX5.36375$M51.12949984@typhoon.ne.mediaone.net>) for all the details.  (Google's new beta site has trouble with this URL so it's currently using the older Google groups interface at www.google.co.uk) In a nutshell, by the end of our hearing no evidence by either of us has been presented.  The judge has taken my motion to dismiss under advisement.  (This means she's tentatively accepting it but wants to verify that the law I quoted hasn't been overturned by any other case law).

Here is a copy of the complaint Andy gave me as a PDF file (approx. 5.7 MB) and scanned in as html, links to Google, and a few jpegs.  A few interesting points about his complaint:

• He does include my tongue-in-cheek post as his primary claim of libel against me.
• He includes an affidavit from a CyberCreek customer that only states he's a customer.  It does nothing to prove or disprove any libel, if the software violates any state laws, or anything else of any use to his case.
• It contains letters from 2 ISP's indicating that his site is to be terminated.  The UUNet letter doesn't go into any detail but the GlobalCrossing one specifically states his site violates their AUP.  Something Andy didn't bother to notice is that the UUNet letter was dated one day after my original post.  I think Andy would have had a tough time convincing a judge that UUNet terminated his site solely because of my post and within 24 hours of my making that post.
• He uses a few posts and e-mails by other people in his complaint against me.  There is no proof whatsoever that ANY of these messages have any bearing whatsoever on the comments I made.   It's as if he's trying to blame me for all the negative posts made by everybody else in NANAE.  He obviously knows nothing about proving claims.
• He includes my post from 6/23/2000 offering to retract my statement, something that couldn't possibly help his case but would definitely help mine.
• I discovered that Andy slightly altered at least one of my NANAE posts in his complaint.  See the comment in the html documentation for details.

12/8/2000: I receive notice from the court that my motion to dismiss was accepted, so Andy's lost this round.  The notice is just a copy of my motion with a stamp & signature on it.  Here it is in pdf & jpeg format.

1/15/2005: It's been over four years and Andy still hasn't refiled in superior court despite his threats to do so...

If you want to contact me for any reason I can be reached at bruce@pennypacker.org.