Lawyer is entitled to only $100 for ex-client's post on Ripoff Report, appeals court says
A lawyer who sued a former client for calling him an unethical bully on ripoffreport.com can collect damages of only $100, a New York appeals court has ruled.
The court reduced the original award of $125,000 to lawyer John Cahill in a brief decision that said the evidence doesn’t support anything more than a nominal amount. The New York Law Journal (sub. req.) covered the decision and included details of Cahill’s suit.
Cahill had added the defamation claim to a suit against the former client, Nadine Witkin, for failure to pay legal fees in an estate matter. Witkin’s anonymous post in February 2011 called Cahill a “confidence man,” “a bully,” “unethical,” “sleazy,” “dangerous,” “a rotten egg,” “irrational,” and a “greedy, crazed and irrational nutjob,” according to the New York Law Journal account.
The trial judge had entered a default judgment against Witkin on the defamation claim, ruling that her statements were libelous per se. The judge had also found Cahill was entitled to $69,000 in unpaid fees, which was upheld on appeal in 2012.
Witkin, a television producer for Fox News, was represented pro bono on appeal by Boies, Schiller & Flexner. “The ruling stands for the proposition that you can’t presume actual damages on a defamation claim, even when there is a finding of per se defamation, or a default by the defendant,” said Boies Schiller associate Karen Ann Chesley, in an interview with the New York Law Journal.
Cahill told the New York Law Journal it’s difficult to prove damages when a lawyer is wrongly criticized online. “We live in a world where attorneys and other professionals are subjected to lies about them, and it is very hard to prove money damages,” Cahill said.
“Can I prove that some prospective client read the post and decided not to hire me on the basis if it?” Cahill asked. “That’s a tough proof problem, but there should be some consequences.”
